Chapter 85: Grik's Past (Part 4)
"ANISE!"
My eyes snapped open. I lunged upward, my hands frantically grasping at the empty air, desperate to catch a woman who was already buried under a mountain of ice.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The frantic, rhythmic chirping of a heart monitor assaulted my ears. The suffocating, freezing dark of the cavern was gone.
It was replaced by blinding fluorescent lights and the sterile, chemical stench of bleach and rubbing alcohol.
I was not on Mount Everest. I was lying in a crisp hospital bed.
A nurse rushed into the room, speaking rapidly in Nepali, her hands gently but firmly pushing my shoulders back down against the mattress. A doctor followed closely behind her.
"Mr. Robert, please remain calm," the doctor urged in heavily accented English.
"You are in a hospital in Kathmandu. You suffered severe frostbite, broken ribs, and a severe concussion, but you are miraculously alive."
I grabbed the doctor's white coat, my grip terrifyingly weak.
