Chapter 1: When will she gain consciousness

35 2 0
                                    

It's been 5 days since accident.
Dr. Han enters the room where the girl is lying unconscious. He looks at her in despair. He don't know when she will open her eyes. Will he be able to apologise for his mistake and repent or will he be branded as a murderer? Various thoughts drowns him in the lake of guilt and shame making his chest heavy and painful. Unable to hold anymore, he comes out to breathe.
" Dr. Han, are you alright?" Asks nurse Seo who saw him gasping.
" Yes, I am fine. Umm.... About her identity, did you find anything?" Asks Dr. Han.

When Dr. Han rushed her to the hospital, he forgot to grab her bag, only to realise it the next day. For 3 days, his subordinates are trying to search for her identity in order to reach her family.

" Sorry doc, we didn't get anything to confirm her identity. But I found one pendant which is holy symbol of islam, so I am guessing probably she comes from an islamic culture. And her facial features are not similar to us. She has long double thick eyelashes, pointed nose, plump lips, like arabic people. And also we found two rings, two pendants, one watch and a pair of earrings, it was either pure gold, diamond or platinum. Her watch is an expensive one too. And yes, she also had a diamond nose pin. Isn't nose piercing a culture among India and Pakistan. Whatever it is, she is definitely a foreigner in my opinion. Sir." Nurse Seo reports everything she knows.
Dr. Han thinks if she was living all alone here, then it will be difficult to find her identity unless she wakes up.
"Please take care of her for me" Dr. Han says before leaving.

Nurse Seo is 50years old woman with 26 years of practice experience and she loves to travel. Since last 10 years, she has been taking one month leave every year to explore the world and refresh herself with different culture and experiences. This is why she couldn't keep herself quiet when someone asks her a question. She overflows with energy to share the knowledge and experience she has.
Nurse Seo enters the girl's room and starts her job like recording her vitals, changing her clothes, giving medicine shots and other stuffs as usual. While doing her job, she saw her fingers twitching for a while. With joy, she comes near her head and starts tapping her shoulder in hope of getting response but in vain. However, she informs about the incident to Dr. Han immediately. He comes for the visit in afternoon and starts checking her reflexes with a positive feeling. The moment he turns the light on to check her pupils, her fingers flicked followed by her lips. He overjoyed with this big surprise. He then tries to wake her up. Few minutes later, she half-open her eyes in a dull, difficult and heavy manner. He couldn't wait to ask if she is OK.
Dr. Han: Hello there, how are you? How are you feeling? What's your name?

Am..mi
This is all she utters and again falls in a stupor. However, Han knows that this is a good sign. She is probably too weak to gain complete consciousness but she'll wake up in one day or two. Han takes a good sigh of relief.

Nurse Seo: Sir, she probably said something before falling asleep. Did you catch that.
Dr. Han: Write down the patient's name. It's Amy.

He says and leaves the room.

Next day, finally, she wakes up at dawn, with full consciousness. Nurse Seo takes no time to inform Dr. Han and he rushes to the hospital immediately. Nurse told him that it seems that she is fully awake but not responding to her call. She tried to speak with her in english and even tried in arabic language too just hoping she might understand and reply but it wasn't the case.
Dr. Han enters the room and focuses on observing her before taking any action. He notices that her eyes are looking around, at him, at sister, but they are listless and curious at the same time. She tries to move her hand, but too weak to move it. It looks like that she wants to ask something but her larynx is not ready to listen to her command. Dr. Han feels that it would be better to introduce himself first and quench a bit of her curiosity to make her feel comfortable before asking her any question.

Dr. Han: Hello Amy, it's nice to meet you. I am Dr. Han, your physician. One week before, you had an accident and injured your brain, so we had to perform brain surgery to remove the hematoma out and in the process we even had to open your chest to stop lung bleeding. Sorry to perform this surgery without your consent but we had to in order to save your life. May I know how are you feeling now?

Amy still stares at him hintlessly. Dr. Han gets a little jumbled here with lots of questions in his head.

Dr. Han: Miss Amy, you are here since a week. We weren't able to find your identity and contact your family. Your family must be worried about you. Could you please atleast give us any contact number of your family so that we can inform them about you. Please.

He begs her politely.

Amy: You don't know me?
" What do you mean?" Han asks in surprise.
Amy: I don't know you.
Dr. Han: I understand. I know you are a bit confused right now. We are just trying to help you. We....[ he was interrupted in between]
Amy: Then why are you asking me questions? I don't know anything.
Dr. Han: What do you mean? What are you trying to say?
Amy: You tell me exactly what is happening here.
Dr. Han: I already told you that you had an accident.
Amy : I repeat. Why you keep asking me questions? It seems like I suppose to know something that I don't? Can you please tell me why?
Dr. Han: What do you want to know? Please,  tell us. We'll try our best to help you out.
Amy: You said something earlier. Doctor, accident, family, contact. What are these things. Help me understand these things. ( she forces herself to speak up while still looking as if in a delirious state)
Dr. Han( confused, baffled, surprised, struggling in his mind to understand Amy's situation): You....( after thinking a while).. Do you even know, what is your name?
Amy (clueless. Doesn't even seem to be bothered by the question. ): What it is? ( Asks bluntly with a little bit of frustration).
Dr. Han: You don't even know your name.

[Although Amy doesn't seem to understand her situation, atleast she know the answer of this question. ]

Amy: No.

This is it. Either she is still in a delirious stage which he hopes to be true or at worst probably she is suffering from amnesia. To confirm the diagnosis he tries to make her read, count and asks about the things in her surroundings and to his dismay, her answer to every question was that she don't know. The way she responded to every question surely confirms that she is not in delirium.

It's amnesia, he confirms.
He is in trouble now. He don't even know where she is from. The only hope was she herself but considering current situation either she regain her memory or .....*don't wanna think about it*.(she has to start a fresh).

Our Destiny Was An AccidentWhere stories live. Discover now