Reset-Act 3

Act 3

Chapter 12

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Oooooh."

"It looks like our patient is finally regaining consciousness."

Where am I?

"Heart rate is stable Dr. Koscielny."

Doctor? Am I in a hospital? What's happening?

Shraddha Sarkar slowly pried open her eyelids as she began to wake up, her mind still dazed and in a blur. One bat of the lashes. Then another. And another. Her body felt limp and numb, as if it was made of string cheese rather than flesh and bone, while her lips were cracked and dry. A few more seconds passed before Shraddha's vision finally cleared up enough for her to see what was going on for herself. It was certainly a rude awakening.

Egg-white walls with blue trims, a sterile room, the sound of machines whizzing and whirring. There was no doubt she was in a hospital now. Rubbing the cotton sheets she was lying on, she looked to her left and saw a tall, youthful-looking man by her side, decked out in blue scrubs and following the lines on an EKG screen intently in his chair. She then peered over to her right and saw an elderly, short woman, also seated, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a flawlessly clean coat. She must be the doctor Shraddha thought to herself.

"There she is," Dr. Koscielny cooed, her voice tinged with a subtle French accent. "How are you feeling?"

Still feeling drowsy and a little bit grumpy, Shraddha tore into her caretaker and said, "What do you think? I feel like shit."

Unfazed by her patient's snarky remarks, Dr. Koscielny replied, "That's completely understandable, you have been through a lot these past few hours. Piolo, any complications with the patient's leg?"

"Nothing to report thankfully," Piolo responded, revealing his square face and pencil-thin mustache to Shraddha for the first time.

"My leg? What's wrong with my leg?" Shraddha panicked, trying to wriggle her feet around in desperation.

"Relax, relax," the doctor said. "You suffered some second-degree burns on right leg after the accident. A couple of cracked ribs too. But we were able give you treatment in time, so I'm happy to say you'll be able to walk just fine."

"The accident," Shraddha whispered, recalling the reason why she was in the hospital in the first place. The flames, the bodies, Waleed's apparent death and miraculous resurrection. It was all coming back to her now.

"The accident," she repeated, loud enough for Dr. Koscielny and Piolo to hear this time. "Tell me, what happened to the other passengers? Are they safe too?"

Dr. Koscielny's facial expression soured immediately as soon as she said that, as if she'd been hoping she wouldn't have to address this topic so soon. Now backed to a wall, she gave her nurse a quick glance before the latter replied, "I'm sorry Shraddha Sarkar, I'm afraid you were one of the lucky ones. Out of all 201 passengers, only you and one other person survived. Everyone else has been accounted for as dead, except for one passenger whose body remains unfound."

"Oh, I see," Shraddha said. "Everyone else is dead. Everyone else is..is..."

Despite her best efforts Shradda was unable to complete her sentence, her eyes choking up with tears at the thought of all the people who'd died all around her in that field. Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. And yet her she was, still breathing. A completely unexceptional girl, who had only escaped death because someone had happened to be around to save her. Rather than feeling grateful, she somehow felt guilty, as if someone else should've been shielded by Waleed. Someone more famous, or more wealthy, or more beloved.