Cascade

2 - Evacuation

2 - Evacuation

She was floating. She wasn’t quite drifting, but she had no weight. It was like being suspended in a pool, but she could breathe. Weightless, lightly strapped, a twinge of nausea. She was in orbit.

Everything smelt burnt.

“I need three cc’s of Diluadid. Prep Oxycodone lined dressings and get me a new pair of gloves.” Came a voice.

Claire heard the muffled words make their way into her mind. She was lying down, vaguely aware of being wet. She could still feel a residual heat that flowed across her whole body. After a short prick in the arm, everything fell under a haze. Her senses fought to stay sharp as she awoke, but the drugs in her system worked to suppress them from pain. Her vision blurred and focused several times before settling to a mild daze. She felt like she had just gone ten rounds with a steam roller. Bleary and semi-delirious, she closed her eyes to still the feeling of nausea, and focused instead on what she heard. It was a cacophony of chaos.

Everything overlapped on itself in a wave of jumbled sound, and it was several moments before Claire was able to identify much of anything. There was a whole chorus of crying. Young ones, babies, mothers, elderly, all joined their sobs together like a rolling sea. Voices merged with one another in a buzz of unintelligible rabble, and underlying it all was the constant, vibrating hum.

“But I have no where left to go!” A woman yelled.

“Neither does anyone else ma’am. We are not a five star resort, we are a shipping craft. Technically our capacity is 43 people. When you cram a ship with more than 12 times its limit, you can’t expect everyone to have their own room. I’m doing what I can, but you are going to have to find what space there is. I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know where it is?” Came another voice.

“I don’t know, sir. I can’t keep track of every piece of cargo that every refugee brings onboard. We took on as many as we could, and we launched as fast as possible. It couldn’t have left, obviously. We will probably be able to locate it when we disembark.” Came the reply.

“That’s unacceptable!” The man cried.

“I don’t care if you accept it or not, sir. That’s the way it is. Now please step out of line.”

“Cara!” Rose another call. “Cara! Cara!” They continued. Claire couldn’t tell, but it seemed like several more names shot to the surface amidst the noise. Claire felt cold strips of dampened cloth wrapped around her limbs. She slowly opened her eyes again. The cabin was fairly dark, but a bright flare of light jabbed in her eyes. She tried to raise her arms to her face, but her limbs were still strapped.

Claire swallowed. Her whole mouth was stuck together, and though she tried to speak, little came out.

“Sorry about the light.” The man before her said. “I needed to check for concussion and responses. I gotta admit, I didn’t think you would come around this quickly, especially with the painkiller’s we’ve already pumped into your system. Can you tell me how you feel?” He asked as he undid the straps around her limbs.

Air escaped her lungs, but she could still make no sound. Her throat felt like sandpaper. The man before her fiddled with a strap on the pack along his side and pulled out a water pouch. He extended the straw and placed it in Claire’s mouth.

She gulped the water so quickly, it made sputter and cough.

“Easy.” The man said. He pulled the water away and gently pressed her back into her alcove. Her convulsions had caused her to drift into the rest of the cabin.