Mysterious Saviour

Karina woke to white.

The world was too bright, too clean, too still. For a moment she thought she’d gone blind, until the beeping to her left began to sync with her heartbeat. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The smell of antiseptic filled her lungs. Sheets rustled. Something warm pressed against her arm. A nurse’s hand.

‘Easy now, sweetheart. You’re safe,’ the woman said softly.

Safe. The word didn’t fit in Karina’s mind anymore.

She turned her head as hard as she could. Her throat burned as she spoke. 

‘Whe… where’s my grandma?’

The nurse hesitated just long enough to make Karina’s stomach drop. And then she smiled.. ‘She’s here, dear. She made it.’

Karina’s heart almost burst from emotion.

‘Show me! Please! I need to see her!’ She said as she held onto the nurse’s arm.

The nurse didn’t argue. She knew better than to make someone like Karina, who’s thought of the worst about their family, wait. With a small nod, she walked to the divider curtain and flicked it aside.

Behind it, Winona.

Her grandmother lay on the neighboring bed, wrapped in layers of gauze and IV lines, her face bruised, one arm in a sling. Her breathing was shallow but it was steady. 

Karina whimpered on her bed. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t even process the sight, then she started sobbing. The sound broke out of her from the bottom of her chest. She stumbled from her bed, dragging her IV pole halfway before the nurse caught her. 

‘Easy, honey, easy!’

Karina clutched at her grandmother’s sheets, pressing her forehead against the old woman’s hand. 

‘You’re alive… you’re alive! Grandma, you—’

The nurse gently stroked her shoulder. ‘She’s a tough one,’ she said quietly. ‘You both are. She was found not far from the bridge. Locals called it in after the storm cleared.’

Karina couldn’t stop crying. Relief and exhaustion collapsed together inside her.

The nurse gave her time before continuing, voice careful. ‘There was someone with her when we found them. A boy.’

Karina’s head lifted. Her tears paused mid-breath. ‘A boy?’

The nurse nodded toward the windowed partition across the hall. ‘Over there.’

Through the glass, Karina saw a small, scrawny figure lying still in a hospital bed. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen. His limbs were thin. His face were half-covered in bandages. His skin was pale as paper, lips cracked, an oxygen tube trailing from his nose.

Karina’s gaze lingered on the mysterious person.

The nurse spoke again, breaking her forming  thoughts. ‘He hasn’t woken up yet. They said he was with your grandmother when they found her. He was the one who tried to drag her up the riverbank, before ultimately toppling over himself.’

Karina’s mouth went dry.

‘He… saved her?’

‘Looks that way,’ the nurse said. ‘Poor thing must’ve been through hell. Nobody knows who he is. No ID. No family listed. The police are looking into it.’

Karina turned back to Winona. Her grandmother’s eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t wake. Then her gaze slid back to the boy across the glass.

Something tugged at the edge of her memory. A shadow, a voice beneath the water, the rough hand that had covered her mouth, the one that had thrown her keys at her and said, “Go inside. I’ll go back for her.”

Karina’s breath caught. Her chest tightened. She sat slowly on the edge of her bed, staring through the glass until the rest of the world blurred.

It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

And yet, her grandmother was alive. The boy found with her. 

Is it the same boy who had vanished into the fog to save her?

Karina’s fingers curled around the sheets.

‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

Karina watched him for a long time, until her tears dried into salt on her cheeks. The boy didn’t move. Other than the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Then, as she blinked, she thought, just for a second, that his head had turned toward her. But when she looked again, he was still.