The water was cold, a deep crushing weight
enveloping me, merciless black that stole the air from my lungs and rational
thoughts from my head. The frantic symphony of the ship's alarm blaring in the
background, the distant, muffled shouts of my husband, the desperate, wrenching
scream that felt like it was tearing through my throat but only caused my last
remaining precious supply of air to leave me. I remember hitting my head on the
rails when the cruise started to capsize, the impossible speed of me falling
overboard, the icy cold that seized my body like a vise, dragging me down into
a world of endless shadow. It wasn't a quick darkness; it was a slow, agonizing
suffocation, every moment a battle I was losing, and couldn't fight back
because i probably had a concussion. Everybody says that in your dying moments
your life flashes before your eyes… My last, frantic thoughts really were not
of salvation, but of their faces, a beautiful, agonizing montage of my life
with my husband, my six-year-old daughter's smile and my three-year-old son's
laughter, a vivid, cruel reminder of the life I had and the family I was
failing to get back to. The salt stung my eyes, the cold burned my skin, and
the silent, final embrace of the deep consumed me with my last breath, leaving
only the gut-wrenching despair of a mother who coudnt hold on, couldn't save
her own family, and couldn't even save herself.
For a moment, there was nothing.
And then, a different kind of light over my eyelids.
It wasn't the salty air of the ocean, but the clean, sterile scent of
antiseptic. Even with my eyes closed, I recognized that scent and those sounds,
as I've spent years hearing them while working as a nurse. I opened my eyes to
the soft, rhythmic light of medical machinery, the world coming into focus as a
blur of white sheets and muted sunlight. Panic, cold and sharp, shot through
me. I tried to sit up, but the jolt sent a wave of pain through my left arm. I
looked down and saw my whole forearm wrapped in a thick, white bandage, the
gauze stained with a faint trace of red vertically. I followed the line of the
bandage, and my stomach clenched. It ran almost the full length of my forearm.
My hand, which I now noticed was a little thinner than I remembered, trembled
with the shock. Could I have hit something underwater that cut my arm? Looking
at myself laying down, why was I so thin? Did I just wake up from a coma? But
if so, why was the bandage still dirty with blood?
The heart monitor connected to my chest picked up on my distress. The
rhythmic beeping sped up, a frantic, electronic echo of my own terror. The
sound grew louder, more insistent, until a soft rythimic thudding on the floor,
approached the room. The door slid open, and a figure entered. But It wasn't a
nurse.
My mind, a messy collection of memories and thoughts at that moment—struggled
to make sense of the sight before me. It was a Pokémon, not a creature of a
video game, but a creature of flesh and bone. Its body was a plump, pink egg
shaped, with small, red dark pink pouch on its belly. It carried a single egg
in it, and had a perpetually gentle, maternal expression.
But I wasn't feeling gentle. I was feeling the kind of visceral terror
one feels when seeing the impossible, and my breath caught in my throat. The
heart monitor shrieked, a panicked, multi-toned alarm that cut through my
thoughts. My first reaction was to yank on the IV drip and heart monitor
cables, a desperate, irrational attempt to run. The pink creature was too fast.
It reached a red button by my bed and held me down with its surprisingly
strong, stubby arms while looking down on me with a surprisingly gentle
expression. I started to scream, but the creature was too strong; I couldn't
even lift my torso. Frantic footsteps began pounding down the hallway, but the
sound only made me more agitated. An old woman with stern expression in a white
medical coat and scrubs entered the room, her eyebrows pinched as she looked at
the creature seemingly for answers. It started to frantically repeat variations
of its own name.
"Chan, chansey, Chan!"
That just made me more scared. The doctor came to the other side of the
bed and helped hold me down, nodding her head as if she understood the
creature. She tried to talk to me, but my panic was a roaring gale, and I
couldn't comprehend what was happening.
"She doesn't seem to be calming down," the doctor said to the creature.
"Please, Chansey, use Sing."
The pink blob began to sing a soft, calm melody that reminded me of Mary
Had a Little Lamb but without words, and my eyelids started to feel heavy, my
body relaxing against my will. The last thing I thought was how that doctor
wasn't affected by this impossible lullaby, and what the heck was happening.