A New Beginning

Chapter 26: Awake

Chapter 26: Awake

The world is quiet here. Everything is warm, everything is still.

Emma rolls over and her eyes open. She is greeted by the warm sunlight in an open window. She embraces the feeling and sighs contently. Is she dead? Is this heaven? It certainly feels like it.

"She's awake! By god she's awake!" someone hollers, practically giving Emma a heart attack.

Emma sits up in a shock and lets her eyes adjust to her surroundings. The room is pale and white. She's laying in a strange bed, dressed in a white gown. She turns her head and her arm explodes in pain. She gasps as everything comes back to her in a rush of memories. She looks down to see her sore arm is in a sling and her other arm injected with an IV tube. Her body appears thinner and slightly shaky, as if unstable and wobbly. How long has she been asleep?

A doctor comes in.

"Goodness, you are awake," he says. "I thought the nurse was making things up."

"Y-Yes, I am, but where am I?" Emma asks.

"New York City General Hospital."

"New York City?!" Emma gasps.

"Yes, you were one of the survivors of the Titanic disaster."

"How? Where?"

"The Carpathia brought all the survivors to New York..."

"Survivors, Where's Peter and Sybil?"

"Who?" the doctor says in confusion.

"My husband and little sister, they were survivors! Are they here too?"

"I'm afraid I don't know who they are. Can you settle down please, I must check to make sure you are not injured anywhere else."

The doctor begins to check Emma over. Emma sits anxiously, trying to process everything going on around her.

"You are one lucky girl," the doctor says as he rotates her head to check for any head or spinal injuries. "The doctor on the ship said you were not likely to survive, but you did."

"What do you mean?"

"You were allegedly bleeding and hardly conscious when you were brought aboard the ship. You were suffering from hypothermia and significant blood loss. The doctor on the ship could not do anything to remove the bullet, but you were still breathing, so they wrapped the wound up and kept you hydrated and warm until the ship pulled into port. They then handed you over to me. I finally got a good look at you. The bullet wound you received was lodged in your shoulder, preventing any further bleeding and the cold froze your dress to it, creating a sort of clot to protect it."

"Is it still there?" Emma asks, looking at her arm in the sling.

"No, my surgeons were able to remove it and we've been treating it to prevent any infection. I also say you were lucky because the bullet missed any of your major veins and arteries, it did, however, sever a nerve in your arm."

Emma gasps, showing the doctor her worried face.

"It is still usable; it is just some of the feelings will be gone in your arm. We're hoping the nerve will heal a little bit. That is why you are in a sling, giving your shoulder a chance to heal properly"

The doctor takes off her sling and pulls her gown down slightly, so she can see the scar. There is stitching where the surgeons made the incision remove the bullet and the rest is wrapped in gauze. The wound seems to be healing well, too well for just coming off the ship.