Rise and Fall

A Lot to Take In

Chapter 3: A Lot to Take In

Her memory was pretty hazy. Hypothermia kicked in and with it, came confusion. She remembered that Scottish accent introducing itself to her as Shellington and telling her he would help her. She remembered grabbing hold of his hand and thinking it was abnormally hairy. She remembered bright lights in her face; three more sets of eyes; and being carried, taken away from the island. She remembered hearing things too: a siren, voices, but they sounded distant and unclear, like she was hearing them from underwater.

She knew she passed out.

Smell was the first sense to come back to her. She smelt like salt, smoke, body odour and, well, toilet (unable to get up for a few days, she’d had no choice but to just go right where she was). What a strong, but unpleasant combination! No wonder it woke her up! Wherever she was smelt clean, though. Sterile, even.

But wait! She could hear things too.

“Avast! I think she’s waking up, matey!”

Who was that? She didn’t recognise that voice. Was it one of the people who had just saved her? She had no idea.

She stirred and opened her eyes slowly, as if they weighed a ton. Her head was spinning and the clean, bright room irritated her delicate senses.

She figured that she must have been in a hospital room. That made sense.

Although, what didn’t make sense was who was in the room. The girl expected to find a doctor, Shellington, maybe one of her other rescuers and even possibly a couple of her relatives, who would have been contacted and would have come to see her in a hurry.

Instead, peering at her were a penguin, a brown furry animal she couldn’t identify, a cat and-

“POLAR BEAR!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” She tried to back away, only to discover that her leg was in a cast and kept elevated. She couldn’t go anywhere. She was stuck.

“Whoa!” the polar bear exclaimed in surprise.

“Get away from me!” the child yelled. “GET AWAY!” Her heart was like a jackhammer and all she could think was, This polar bear’s going to rip my face off!

“Don’t be afraid-” the polar bear began.

However, the girl wouldn’t listen. She just kept screaming and thrashing.

“Oh, no! She’s going to hurt herself!” the penguin exclaimed worriedly, the girl only vaguely aware of it. He rummaged through the medical supplies.

“The poor thing’s scared to death”, the brown furry animal noted sympathetically.

The human girl didn’t hear him. If she had, maybe that familiar voice would have calmed her down a little. Meanwhile, the cat grabbed hold of her arms and tried to pin them back.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” she shrieked, fighting to break free. “LET ME GO!”

She kicked with one good leg and knocked into a nearby table. Several pieces of medical equipment crashed to the floor. Not that she even noticed. She just snatched up whatever she could get her hands on and started throwing things.

(Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. She knew it wouldn’t do any damage to a great big polar bear like that, but she was panicking. She couldn’t think straight.)

Just then, the door opened.

“Help! HELP!” she hollered, thinking that maybe a human had finally come to her aid.