“Yes, yes, he’s just – ” she stopped again and looked back at his face, heart racing as she scooped her phone off the ground. His eyes were closed. His face was again slack, as if that had not happened at all. “He was. I think he was. I don’t know. He grabbed my arm, but now he’s…”
As she drawled off, not finishing her sentence, she heard sirens on the nearby access road, closest to where they were. She stood up and waved, leashing Shadow as she went, as the two paramedics ran towards them with their medical kits slung over their backs. The man lay on the sand, motionless, chest softly rising and falling as if he were asleep.
***************
Alianna had a lot of plans for her day off work today, but sitting in the hospital while being interviewed by police about a mysterious man she found on the beach was not one of them.
“And you’re certain there was nobody else in the area with this man?” the officer asked her as he skimmed over the notes he had taken.
“As I said, it was just my dog and me, going for our morning walk,” Alianna explained for the third time, “he wasn’t moving, there was nobody else around, I was standing in the sea when Shadow found him and started barking. Are there any missing people that match his description?”
“No,” muttered the officer. He’d written down details about the man’s features – with the man himself now in a hospital bed in the next room, and doctors buzzing around him, making observations about his health. The police had described him as being about six feet and two inches tall (although it was hard to say for sure with him lying down), with black hair, Caucasian, light blue eyes, wearing dark clothing. He had no identification that they could find, and she certainly hadn’t seen any on the beach.
She thought about the description of his eyes – light blue. They weren’t wrong, but there was something about them. They were a sort of pastel, with a depth to them that she hadn’t seen in a person before. Almost unearthly. But then, everything had happened so quickly. Maybe they were just glazed over.
“We have everything we need here for now. Thank you for your time, ma’am. If you remember anything else or want to add anything, you know how to contact us.” The police officer closed his notepad, tucked it into his pocket, and gave a short nod before walking away with his partner and rounding the corridor, out of sight.
What to do now? She couldn’t just…go. Was this man alright?
Alianna stood outside his hospital room, pacing in front of the chair she had been sitting on. A doctor appeared in the doorway to her left, exiting his room, and gave her a kind smile.
“You’re the woman who found him, aren’t you? Are you a friend of his?”
“No,” she said shortly, “I’m not, but…is he okay?”
“Well,” started the doctor, folding his arms and leaning back against the wall behind them. “We can’t find any signs of injury. His observations are all normal. Brilliant, in fact, for somebody who isn’t conscious. So, we aren’t sure exactly what has caused him to be in his current state. We might know more when he wakes up, but right now we have no immediate concerns.”
She shuffled on her feet, unsure what to say and still not able to bring herself to leave.
The doctor sensed her unease. “You can go and see him, if you’d like to. I’ll bring you a hot drink, and something to eat. You must be hungry by now.”
Alianna smiled at the doctor’s warmth and his perceptiveness. That, or he had heard her stomach rumbling. “I’d like that. Thank you. Anything you can find is fine, but a cup of tea would be great.”
“A cup of tea, coming up. I might even be able to manage a biscuit to go with that.”
Alianna nodded her thanks as she peered around the doorway into the man’s room. He was linked up to a machine monitoring his heart rate, which, as the doctor had said, seemed fine, if the beeping of the monitor was anything to go by. She knew absolutely nothing about medicine, but she’d heard these things on television before.
She stepped towards his bed and studied his face, now free of sand and salt. He was stunning. A sort of ethereal handsomeness that stole her breath. His hair had dried, flecks of sand still visible, and shone under the artificial lighting of the room. She looked down at his clothes. He’d been changed out of his attire and was now wearing a hospital gown. His wristband merely said ‘name unknown’.
Alianna breathed a heavy sigh and sat down next to his bed, not really sure what she was doing here. There was a knock on the open door, and the doctor returned.
“It’s not the best, but it’s food,” he said, placing a tray down on the table in the corner of the room. “A cheese sandwich, a cup of tea, and one of my own personal digestive biscuits. You are welcome,” he finished, giving her a coy smile. “We will be nearby if you need anything else, but if his state changes, let us know.”
Alianna thanked the doctor again as he exited the room. She hastily shoved the digestive biscuit into her mouth, barely pausing to take a bite, letting out a quiet groan of relief at finally getting her hands on something to eat.
Alianna jumped as she heard a noise – a voice – to her left.
She looked at the man, still lying in his hospital bed, eyes now open and looking straight at her.
“Oh, my goodness, sir, it’s good that you’re awake. I’m Alianna – Ali. I found you on the beach, and you weren’t conscious,” she garbled, speaking quickly as she stood from her chair, brushing biscuit crumbs onto the floor. “The doctors have said you’re alright, they can’t find any injuries, but maybe you can tell them what happened to you? I’ll go to get them now.”
He said something again, made some sort of noise. She couldn’t understand him.
“Can you say that again? I’m having trouble hearing you.”
He made the noise one more time. More of a string of noises, now.
“Hang on. I’ll get the doctors. Maybe they can help us.”
