The Nordic

A weird Nordic woman survives a plane crash only to make things weirder for Dr. Bailey.

 

The Nordic

 

Miss Lawn was awakened with great pain. All she could see was the smoke surrounding her. She could smell the burnt corpses, remembering nothing from her past. She tried to drag her suffering body, accompanied with the sounds of the sirens of the police cars and ambulances, but the iron rods fallen onto her legs had blocked her movement. She cried out for help as her vision was cleared and she saw disjoined limbs and burned piles of flesh around her. She could see people sitting on their seats, all were dead. She cried again, as she felt some water dripping. The firemen had put the fire out already, to let the doctors into the ruined plane.

“What a mess,” the doctors spoke. “It’s a miracle to find someone alive here.”

“I’m alive,” Miss Lawn yelled, trying to catch their attention. A female doctor appeared through the thin mist, coughing and waving her arms to tear the mist.

“There you are,” she smiled as she called some others to carry her to the ambulance. They arrived quickly. Miss Lawn did not struggle, did not even move as she watched herself being picked up and carried away. The doctors went on checking the ruins.

“A child,” Dr. Novak spoke, “He’s still breathing.” The group of doctors rushed towards the child, trying to help him get back to life. They were hopeful for the last survivor they had found, although he was mortally wounded. “Come on, let’s carry him!” They picked the kid up quickly and tried to rush back to the ambulance.

“Damn! The kid’s about to die,” Dr. Novak spoke as he tried to give him a heart massage. “This does not work!”

“Clear up,” the nurse spoke. “I’ll try electrocuting him.”

“That will harm him,” Dr. Bailey shouted. “This is hopeless…” He left the ambulance with hopes to find some other survivors. Dr. Black stood up and dived through the mist, calling him.

“Doc,” she yelled. “You should see this.”

Dr. Bailey sprinted through the ruins, where Dr. Black was standing. Dr. Black was a woman in his twenties, who was an inexperienced doctor. She dragged his arm to make him look at the ground, where a blond white woman was lying.

“That’s strange,” he spoke. “I’ll check if she’s alive.” He kneeled next to the Nordic woman, wondering how she was left unhurt after all the fire surrounding them. “Alive,” he spoke, then waved his hand to attract all the doctors there. “An unhurt survivor,” he yelled before commanding Dr. Black to go and call everyone.

The Nordic woman was not old; she looked younger than Dr. Black. She was taller and more muscular than most of the people. She was lying with her eyes closed, but just as the doctors had arrived, she opened her blue eyes. Her white skin was not severely burnt as the other survivor, who could not even name herself and tell them how it had happened. The Nordic could remember, so keeping her alive was a primary objective for the doctors then. Dr. Black and Dr. Bailey picked the woman up and the carriage was then pushed by some other nurses towards the ambulance.

They took some other survivors, who died on their ways to the hospital, but the Nordic woman was still alive and would tell them about the accident after recovering from the shock and that was some success for them. To keep her conscious, they kept on questioning the Nordic woman.

“Do you understand us, madam?”

“I do,” she replied.

“What is your name?”

With no hesitation, the woman replied. “Astrid Sundström.”

“Nationality?”

“I’m Swedish,” she replied. She had a clear accent, not different from a native speaker. “I was here to find some relatives, but you see…”

A police was, too, in the car and was noting down. “Tell me about the accident, madam,” he spoke.

“It was disastrous,” she replied, rushing her hands through her pockets to check if one of her belongings was there. She tapped the left pocket of her jeans happily. “That’s all I can say,” she concluded. “Just a crash.”

“I see. We are taking you to the hospital for a treatment.”

“I don’t need it. I’m fully awake and these are just scratches.”

“Yeah, and that’s why it is strange. How could you stay alive, unhurt?”

“I…” She stared at the lights above her, illuminating her white face as she thought of an answer. “There were some seats which have not delivered much damage. I was sitting there next to a woman called Angela, a plum woman with shaggy hair. I think she survived too.”

“What’s her surname?”

“I don’t know… Doesn’t she remember?” The Nordic smiled faintly, only the most careful doctor had realized that she was smiling and that was Dr. Bailey. He stared at the woman, trying to understand everything.

“She does not remember anything,” Dr. Black replied. “Her memory’s just gone… Maybe if you talk to her, she’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think she’ll remember me. We just asked our names and such, nothing else.” The officer who had been noting everything down nodded and his pen shook gently again. “I just want to sleep, if it’s over.” She shut her eyes, ignoring their questions.

The Nordic woke up in an empty room, lying on a bed. The hospital was smelling medicine and seemed hygienic enough for a decent hospital. She stood up, looking through the window glass. She was the wires surrounding the building. “This must be a high-security one,” she spoke and moved her hand towards her pocket to take out the device she had hidden there, but her series of gentle movements was interrupted by Dr. Bailey who had just entered the room.

“Good day, madam. My name is Dr. Joachim Bailey and I am your doctor for this month. Then you are free to go. I have some questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Alright, ask me.” The aggressive Nordic sat onto the bed, crossing her wounded arms and staring angrily at the doctor.

“Could you just tell me about the accident?”

“Alright… I was sitting next to the woman when suddenly the pilot warned the passengers about something. I’m not good at the flight terms and I don’t remember, but I guess it was turbulence. Then the plane started shaking madly. We heard a crash and mist blocked our vision. I was awakened on the ground. That was disastrous. I saw many people crying. I think they all have died already.”

The doctor nodded. “Except your friend Angela.” He paused and glanced at the silhouette of Astrid. “Do you have anybody to inform, madam?”

“I know people who live here in the US, but I don’t know any addresses to contact them. That’s why I came here to the country, to find them.”

“I see. You will stay in this hospital for a month or so, until you are fully healed. Then you could set off to find them again.”

“I think I’ll just return to Sweden,” she smiled. “Though I think one month is long… Too long for me. I was planning to stay here only for a week.”

“It is short for you to be able to walk again. Your legs are wounded severely and you have to wait. We can only inject you some painkillers.”

“Do it then…” Astrid did not know how her body would respond the painkillers, but she knew she had to do something to relieve her pain. A nurse came in with an injector and held her muscular arm, and then the injection was done. The nurse then left with the doctor and Astrid stretched before lying onto the bed again.

The tranquilizer did not work for Astrid. She woke up with a bearable pain, though. It was not the thing waking her up. Her body needed salt.

She left her room and asked the lady sweeping the corridor where she could find some salt. “Go to the cafeteria,” the woman replied. “It is downstairs, near the main entrance. You’ll find it easily.” Astrid nodded and ambulated with her white slippers and green patient robe on the cold white marble floor of the hospital. She descended the stairs, passed the elevator behind and quick as a flash, she found herself there, looking at the shopkeeper named Edgar.

Edgar was a thin, nerdy teenager. He stared at Astrid before asking what she wanted through his glasses framed with thick black plastic. He blinked his eyes for a second, ignoring Astrid who had just glanced at his messy ginger hair. “May I help you?”

“I need salt, quick!” Astrid could not wait for the slow kid. She needed some salt, as soon as possible.

“Here you are”, grinned the kid, giving her some little paper bags and wondering why she was behaving so addictive. Astrid could hear his mind speak about herself and to express that she could hear Edgar, she looked daggers at him before disappearing.

Astrid thanked him and decided to eat the salt in her room, away from the public. She rushed towards the stairs and climbed them with massive agility, only to find out that the doctor was there in her room.

“I thought you were trying to escape,” he spoke as Astrid hid the bags of salt in her palms. That was when the doctor had realized that Astrid did not look normal. She was too muscular for a woman and huger than the bulk of humanity, especially her head. With the thick skull of her under her flesh, her brain looked bigger and stronger.

“I would not escape you,” she reacted, watching the doctor leave. The doctor looked fine, but he was curious. He would surely not fit into the shoes of a servant. She tore open the bags and sucked the salt passionately.

Dr. Bailey realized how strange the woman was, but tried to call it off for a while. He was going to have a cup of coffee to relax and forget about it. He called the elevator and went to the cafeteria, where Edgar seemed to be willing to chat with the doctor. As Dr. Bailey sipped the coffee near the brown stool behind which Edgar was serving, the teen leaned towards the doctor to gossip about the new patient.

“Your new patient, sir, I must say that she is odd.”

“I know.” He smelled the coffee. “She looks huger than average.”

“You know what? She just came here, asked for some salt and went away aggressively. I think she is telepathic, too, because when I thought that she was strange she looked angrily.”

“That is interesting, now.” The doctor nodded mystically. “But just don’t bother… She has survived a near death experience and an increase in psychic power is common. So, how is school?” They were chatting detached from the life of the patients upstairs. They did not know that the Nordic was doing something discretely, secret from everyone else. The woman who was responsible for the hygiene of the second floor heard Astrid speak in a language – a language which did not sound Scandinavian. She saw that Astrid was recording something odd. She would distinguish those Scandinavian languages from any other, her mother was Norwegian. She was going to find that out, no matter what.

The night had arrived as dense as a rain cloud. The clock struck midnight and those who had nothing to do were asleep. The patients in the hospital, they were asleep too. The doctors had to wait, though. They had to protect the patients.

Astrid was dreaming herself in front of his Nordic commander. “We will defeat the Gray race,” the commander was announcing to his soldiers who had gathered in front of him. “We will find servants and defeat them.”

The soldiers in their white tight clothes shouted in a monophonic, robotic way: “Yes sir!” The commander, then, called out the names of the twenty people who would try to find servants for them. Astrid was one of the twenty and the mission was rather a holy one for them. Those twenty were commanded not to fail and live on. They were commanded to die to succeed. Astrid entered the laboratory to be teleported to a land where there was life. She found herself within the ruins of a plane.

Astrid was half awake in the bed. She could hear the rain outside. She realized that it would be a mistake to go out in the rain. Her sensitive skin would not bear that rain. She heard her door be open slowly. The cleaning lady, whose mother was Norwegian, had come in to find the recorder. Astrid had already understood her intention, but she knew that the lady would not understand what was recorded. She waited there in the bed as the cleaning lady leaned towards the recorder on the cold ground and take it away.

The nurse played the recording. It sounded all jumbled, in an unknown language spoken fast, fluently. Astrid’s voice was distorted, but it was because of the damaged microphone of the recorder. She put her pink cheek closer to the speaker and focused on the sounds made, to hear clearly, hoping to understand. She couldn’t.

She was going to return the recorder. She turned back to grab the doorknob when she felt a hand over her mouth. Astrid was speaking with that language again, as the lady felt heavier and heavier. Then, when Astrid was sure of her safety, she left the lady who had fainted and would suffer from amnesia behind, returning to her room with the recorder. “Earth is not safe anymore,” she thought as she entered the room.

The next morning, the amnesic lady was found at the door of Astrid by another nurse. She called for help and the cleaning lady was taken away to where the reasons of her amnesia would be determined. Dr. Bailey, who could not sleep that night and who was wandering around in the hospital when Astrid had attacked the lady mentally, had heard about the lady’s amnesia. “Astrid,” he stood up, leaving his coffee behind on a table in the cafeteria. “I knew it.”

He entered Astrid’s room, who was then fully awake and was sitting on the hospital bed. They stared at each other for a minute, then Dr. Bailey spoiled the silence.

“I know that it was you.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” she spoke. The angry doctor approached her aggressively this time, with a raised voice.

“I know you did it! I have a witness!”

“Don’t you disturb me, doc. Think of my power? I will defeat you, servant!” The doctor would not understand. She would not explain anything, either.

“You won’t confess, will you?” She saw Astrid stand up on the floor and start raising her hand. As she moved her hand, the bed was being levitated, too.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Astrid roared at her doctor. Dr. Bailey stepped back, discretely getting closer to the alarm on the wall.

“Calm down,” he spoke as he felt relieved after feeling the button under his finger. He sighed with relief, watching Astrid who had gone mad with fury. As unexpected as a sudden storm, he raised the alarm. Upon hearing the alarm, Astrid dived through the huge, closed window. She landed, fast as a bullet, and tried to make it to the fences on time.

In seconds, the security officers had arrived into the room. The head of the security team, named Jackson, ordered the personnel to activate the “Currency System” and charge the fences with electricity. The others got to the window, trying to shoot Astrid.

Astrid had reached the fences as quick as she could. She jumped and got held of the bars to climb over, but fell meters away from the fences after getting electrocuted, with a sharp, painful cry. She could not bear the pain and passed away.

Astrid woke up about 48 hours later, tied onto a bed tightly. Her heart was beating at 242 beats per minute, but this was normal for her. The thing she could not bear was the feeling of being defeated. His commander would kill her for it. She tried to save herself telekinetically, but she could not. Her abilities were being blocked. She listened to Dr. Bailey outside, talking to another man with a deep voice, to understand what was blocking her ability.

“We’ve been researching on her and we can prove that she just fits the definition you have.”

“Well done, for pacifying a Nordic type. These are hard to bear, pretty much of a headache. Though, let me go and check her physical appearance.” The chat ended just before a man in his formal suit had entered. Astrid asked who he was in the Alienic language. The man smiled, he had understood her, but he did not react. He instead looked at Astrid and spoke in English. “Thick head, strange anatomy, heart beating at extremes…” He approached Astrid and touched her dry cheek. “Cheeks dry… Skin like them. Yeah, surely an alien.” He turned back and left the room. “Are you done with the alien, sir?”

“Well, I still don’t understand,” replied Dr. Bailey.

“She is a Nordic type alien. There are many living among us, but she is the only one we could catch. We must learn why they come to Earth.”

“Let me go and ask her,” Dr. Bailey spoke upon entering her room, but the aggressive yell of Astrid welcomed him.

“Let me out.”

“Tell me how and why you came here first.”

“I teleported into the ruins. I can tell you why, if you do give me my belongings and set me free. Thirdly, I wonder who the witness was. I wonder who spoiled my plan.”

“I cannot give you the recorder right now. It is in Mr. Karlsson’s car.”

“Who is he?”

“The Alien researcher… That’s all he told me.” Astrid nodded. “And I can only let you out after learning your reason to be here. That is the procedure. In addition, the witness was me.”

“You,” Astrid looked at him angrily. “I will ruin you!”

“Your power is blocked already, both by the electricity and the thing Mr. Karlsson has injected. Now tell me why you are here.”

“You don’t know anything,” sighed Astrid. “Nothing at all.” Dr. Bailey left the room hopelessly, leaving the interrogation to Mr. Karlsson and his helper, who had many poisons for every kind of living things, even aliens.

“Why are you here?”

“Stupid humans… You all are too blind to see.” Karlsson looked at the huge man before he picked up a syringe for the alien and approached her.

“He’s injecting some poison. If you don’t tell me why, you will not be alive anymore. If you tell me quickly, we can save you.”

“Win or die,” she thought, the commands of the Alien commander. She waited until the poison took over her body. Then she started a monologue, telling how she was teleported. She ended her life then, with a speech complicated, yet simple.

“Win, or die, that’s why the aliens are here. You cannot save the world now, it is too late, and you are already invaded.” She paused to breathe. “As for the reason, it is all in the cassette which you keep, along with my reports. Though, I’m sure you will not decipher it. Go to your car and you’ll see what I mean.” She gave a painful cry just before she died and Mr. Karlsson left the room, looking down.

“She is dead.”

Mr. Bailey remained wordless as she watched Karlsson go towards the stairs and leave the hospital. Mr. Karlsson unlocked his car, grabbed the evidence bag and checked if the cassette was there. It was lost, gone without a trace, mysteriously. As Karlsson stood there, heartbroken, he promised to solve the case – even if he died.

Author's Note

I knew a Swedish named Astrid who died in a plane crash. I want to dedicate the story to her. RIP.

Reviews

[rosarinne]

Wow.. it's very good. (:
I loved the descriptions and just about everything else.