The Island (18+)

Chapter Nine - Cortland | Stethoscope

Chapter Nine : Stethoscope

Amara's breathing became steadier as the moments passed by. I could feel my eyelids gain weight and the events of the day were finally catching up to me.

My fingers remained around her wrist, in an effort to monitor her heart rate. She had lost way too much blood and would be in and out of sleep for the next couple of days, possibly even weeks. Her leg wasn't fractured. Surprising from the amount of wood that had supposedly fell down onto her, but I assumed she might have moved out of the way just in time, but not quite timely enough.

My case and hers was laying on the ground across from us in the infirmary, but I didn't have the energy to sort through my belongings. I had opened it to reach inside for two shirts, one for me and one that I pulled down over Amara's dust-cloaked and blood-soaked clothes. It acted like a small baggy dress but I knew that the Island would soon become colder.

The fire that they made outside was slowly seeping heat through the wood of the cabin. In my head, all of us would only last a few weeks here. If hunger and starvation didn't get to us first, there are plenty other ways we could crack under the pressure of survival. Today was a win, none of us were hungry from having been too exhausted and after Amara's accident, nothing else life-threatening happened. I didn't even know how I helped this girl in front of me. Genetic short-leash goals, my ass.

I knew Amara from around campus. Although, from the way she looked at me stepping off the boat, she had never seen my face before. I had seen her a handful of times in the coffee shop besides the medical science library. So I was mostly puzzled when she came out and introduced herself alongside an English major. Maybe she walked halfway across campus for the marvelous coffee. But fuck. If I thought she was stunning from behind a glass window, it was nothing compared to her being mere inches away from me.

The wind blew in from the cracks in the barred holes around the sides of the cabin. Amara's hair tousled and splayed around her cheek. It hadn't been too cold that night. "God's Little mercies," my mother would say. I can almost hear Piper's voice responding with, "well, tell him if he can't make them bigger, he can keep em'."

I reached down and pushed her hair away from her cheek, letting my fingers trail her along her cheekbone. I swallowed down and moved my fingers up to the edge of the cut on her head. It was bandaged but aa little blood seeped through the cloth. Her skin was so soft, way too soft. I was always told that I needed to have steady hands if I wanted to be a surgeon, it was never a problem until now. Until I lightly moved the pads of my fingers along Amara's face and focused on her breaths.

Her eyes fluttered and I inhaled sharply. I reached for the bowl of fresh water that Harvey brought down. When he gave it to me, I could have collapsed on his arms from the relief of having a source of fresh drinking water inland. The body can go three to four days without hydrating. If we didn't have water, we'd have to wait for it to rain and learn how to make a filtration system, but a fresh stream was truly a big mercy. Even Piper wouldn't argue about that.

I saw her eyelids waver before her pupils focused on the roof above us. I had another leaf-bowl next to the one with water in case she felt nauseous.

"The sky fell," she whispered.

I mean...

"Hey, Amara," I murmured down to her. Her eyes moved to mine and she scowled. They traced my face and I was almost too scared to ask her the next question. "Do you know where we are?"

She closed her eyes and her frown deepened. "The sky fell...why is the sky falling now?"

What? Oh, shit.