By Lisa
Falling! Such a strange sensation. The wind rushing past me, my arms flailing out but finding nothing. Plummeting downwards, in a fast and furious descent towards the blue water below. My heart feels wrenched from my chest….the air forced from my lungs as I hurtle down past the unfriendly cliff face. The visions in front of me flash past, as I fall.
I am aware that someone is screaming. Me maybe. I’m calling for Tom. My mouth wide open crying his name over and over…but then my voice catches in my throat and I can’t get it out. I want to. I want to tell him I love him…before it’s too late, but my descent is quick. It feels like it’s taking forever but in fact the seconds are whizzing by…the water getting closer and closer.
Suddenly SMACK! The water rushes over me, its icy fingers grab hold of my body and pull me down. Down, down, down…deeper, deeper, deeper. The coldness pierces my body like sharp knives, stabbing my arms and legs as I thrash about in the water, trying to pull myself up for air. I can’t breathe. My mouth is fall of water. My lungs are screaming out for oxygen, but I taste only the dry mush of chalky water which is forcing itself down my throat. I don’t want to swallow, but there’s nothing else I can do.
Then I have the scariest feeling of all: I can no longer remember which way is up to the surface? Which way to try and pull myself? My chest feels like it’s being crushed and I need air desperately, but my mind is struggling to function. The lights are dimming, blurring. Claustrophobia, suffocation, drowning. I don’t want to die!
In my frenzied battle in this underwater world, I have only one other thought. TOM! My husband-to-be. Handsome, caring, wounded. I wondered frantically how badly hurt he had been. My heart races just thinking about me never being there to hold him again. I don’t want to leave him. He’s been through so much already, losing Joanna! I don’t want to hurt him.
My mind becomes muddled and incoherent. Blankness. Emptyness. The lights are fading into darkness. This is it! The aching in my ribcage is overwhelming. My lungs feel like they are bursting out of my chest. The water above me is tumultuous and holding me down. Squeezing every bit of life out of me.
Tom! My mind screams for the last time as any glimmer of hope disappears. I’m faced with nothing. A black, endless, nothing. A non-existence, a limbo, a floaty insignificance. And now not even Tom can penetrate my oblivion….
Complete and utter disbelief. I feel frozen in shock, mouth open, eyes wide…a silent battle running in my mind – this cannot be happening!
“ALEX!” I scream after her cries have ceased and finally finding the power to move, I inch closer to the edge.
“No Tom,” Will tries to hold me back. Maybe he’s afraid of me falling or maybe he’s just trying to protect me from what I might see.
I can hear the water lapping the rocks below. A sound so gentle and serene it scares me. It’s like it’s laughing at us, playing games with us. I have to get down there…but how?
Will reads my thoughts. “Back there,” he points to somewhere in the distance where there is a route down, channelled out in the rocks. It looks dangerous and I can’t believe how far away it seems. We’ll never make it.
I try to set off after him, but the pain in my shoulder makes me cry out. I had almost forgotten it was there, my mind caught up in Alex. My hand reaches for it, pushing the blood stained shirt down hard on the wound as I nearly buckle over in pain. Will notices and rushes towards me.
“Get Alex,” I scream at him. “Save Alex!” My sincere determination registers in Dr Will Preston’s eyes and he breaks into a run, knowing that I will follow as soon as I can.
The rocky road down was more precarious than I had imagined it would be, but I had to get down there. I found myself wondering how Tom would be able to negotiate it, the bullet in his shoulder was causing him a lot of pain and he was losing a lot of blood. He was trying to be brave, soldiering on, forcing himself forward.
The reception on my mobile was abysmal, but somehow I managed to contact the emergency services. They were on their way. They said they would be here soon. But was soon going to be soon enough?
Reaching the edge of the water, I realised how deep it was here. The quarry, largely unused and water-filled stood so lonely and unknown. I surveyed the treacherous water for Alex. For anything. It seemed strangely quiet and untouched. Looking up at the cliff where we had all been standing only a few moments before, I almost felt sick. It towered over me….it was such a long way to fall.
Then out of the corner of my eye I saw something. My breath caught in my throat, was it Alex? In this whole time we had forgotten about Claire and the sudden memory churned deep in my stomach. Brushing aside any feeling of resentment I felt towards her, I waded into the water. It could be Alex?
The coldness washed over me, numbing every inch of my body. Freezing my limbs and my senses, I pushed myself onwards. Alex’s chances were deteriorating with every second that I took.
I hauled at the red dress that buoyed in the water in front of me and pulled Alex to the surface. Tom stood at the edge, watching for any sign from me. The pained expression on his face was not only from the gunshot wound in his shoulder. His heart was hurting. He thought Alex was dead. I couldn’t tell, and therefore could not reassure him in away.
He helped me pull her out onto the shore and then moved to her lips to hear if she was breathing. Nothing. Her eyes tight shut and unresponsive. Things did not look good.
Alex lay still in front of me. Not moving, not breathing. Her face pale and cold to the touch, her hair wet and limp lay out under her head on the rocks as I supported her body. “Come on darling!” I willed her to live.
Will was feeling for her pulse. My eyes darted from Alex to his face as I waited for a reaction. I was grateful to hear him sigh and he gave a very small nod. “It’s very weak,” he said, but at least it was there.
Will removed his jacket and together we tried to warm her freezing body, wrapping her up in the depths of the coat. I rubbed her arms to stimulate the blood flow and warm her skin. “C’mon Alex,” I said as we waited for help to arrive. “Stay with us!”
Mouth-to-mouth! Will breathed life back into Alex. Ever breath made her chest rise and fall, but nothing seemed to be happening…her body shut down by her cold state. Will was getting tired, but he continued. Breath after breath after breath….gulping huge amounts of air before giving away each one to Alex…
Nothingness became something. It materialised around me as I felt the air being forced into my lungs and the caring arms encircling my body. I noticed things. Strange things. Clammy hands on my arms, lips over my mouth, the hard uneven rocky surface under my back. A silence filled with a buzzing energy from deep inside me. Then I heard voices…Will and ….Tom! I wanted to scream out for them, but I couldn’t move. So cold….so frozen.
The darkness in front of me filled with haze and then light. A blurred image pricked my eyes as I tried to focus, but before I could see anything a surge grew up from deep inside my body. A violent rush, an expelling of salty water, as my body arched and Will held me on my side as the water escaped from my mouth. Weak and numb I gulped in the air, as Tom stroked my hair. My eyes could see him now, tears falling softly down his face. Tears of relief. I knew now that I had made it. This was real. He was holding me.
Then I saw the deep red of his shirt and I remembered. “Tom?” I managed a distant whisper but he shushed me with a kiss on the forehead. In the distance I could hear the wail of sirens getting closer. It was a good sound – I welcomed it. I allowed myself to close my eyes again, feeling safe in Tom’s embrace and I do not remember much about the journey to the hospital.
Alex drifted in and out of conciousness for much of the ambulance ride. We sped through, sirens blaring as we rushed her to the hospital. As I sat and watched the paramedics tending to her, I cried and Will looked solemn and quiet, allowing my silent display of emotion.
At the hospital, I was led away to have my shoulder seen to, but I made Will promise to stay with her. He nodded and put a comforting arm on my back. “She’ll be fine!” he reassured me and I watched them wheel her away down the corridor with Will following behind. It broke my heart not to go with her. Memories of how I lost Joanna surfaced in my mind and I could not beat them away.
It seemed like an eternity before I was able to go and be with her. Hours had gone by and I had heard nothing. My mind dreamed up different scenarios as I walked the length of corridor to where Alex had her own room. I pictured how she would look, what I’d say. My heart skipped as I opened up the door and shushed in.
Will turned to look at me. “She’s doing fine,” he whispered as he vacated the seat by her bed. I moved past him and sat down in the chair resting my bad arm, now encased in a sling, against the bed. Thanking Will, I watched him walk out of the room to get a coffee, when I suddenly had the urge to ask something.
“Any news on Claire?” I don’t know why I asked that, it’s not that I really cared. The rescue teams had stayed behind at the quarry to search for her, but it had seemed pointless. There was no way she’d be found alive now, if she wasn’t already.
Will shook his head, already resigned to the fact that she was gone. It had a sense of finality about it. She had caused so much pain for so many people and it was relieving to know that it was over now. Claire was gone.
Looking back at Alex as she slept in the hospital bed, I dreamed about our future together. The wedding we should have had today would still happen when she was well enough. And all of our friends will be there and there would be no Claire to ruin anything or harm anyone.
As Alex stirred in her sleep, I smiled to myself. Things were going to be just fine. I lowered my weary head down on the bed and slept next to my bride. It was a strange place to spend our honeymoon night, but as long as we were together it didn’t matter.