Chapter Text
I know this dream of life is never-ending it goes around and round and round again
Penny Lamb was unsure where she would end up after she was chosen to return to life, perhaps a bedroom in a house, filled with a loving family, or maybe even in a plush chair at her own birthday party. She was experiencing neither of these as she became aware she was laying on asphalt, she groggily blinked her eyes open and realized that the situation she found herself in was perhaps the least desirable option possible.
She was surrounded by the flashing lights of paramedics and her fallen friends,
Ocean, Constance, Noel, Mischa, and Ricky, in the wreckage of the cyclone.
She was in shock, the lack of physical pain she felt was completely overshadowed by the grief she felt, her eyes tearing up. She didn’t even notice the paramedic approaching her. “Are you okay? Ma’am can you hear me, are you hurt?”
Penny suddenly snapped into focus, and took stock of how her body felt, looking away from her friend’s bodies, she tried her best to answer the man through her tears.
“I-I’m okay,” she said, and she supposed that was true, physically she was fine, Karnak kept their promise, she was back, she was alive, but at what cost?
“Okay, let’s get you up so we can look you over to make sure,” the paramedic said,
He helped her up, but had to quickly support her as her knees began to buckle from the grief.
“It’s going to be okay,” he tried to reassure her, but how could it possibly be when-
Suddenly five breaths were taken in by five people who never expected to breathe again.
“Oh may god, they’re alive!” the paramedic exclaimed,
he suddenly grabbed his radio, “I need five stretchers stat, get the ambulances ready, I’ve got people in critical condition here!”
He let go of Penny, “can you stand?” he asked her, all she could do was nod her head, content with that answer he went to attend to the injured.
Penny was overcome with so many emotions; shock, at the whole situation; joy, at the fact she finally knew who she was, no longer a blank slate, but a real person; horror, at the fate her friends; elation, her friends were alive, the cyclone wasn’t an immediate death sentence; dread, they must be in so much pain, and they might not survive the night with the state of their injuries;
They all coalesced into one grand feeling to overtake them all, guilt.
Guilt at the state her friends were left in after the Cyclone, guilt that she was the only one unscathed by the accident, guilt the she was perfectly fine while her friends were gravely injured, and worst of all the horrible sense of guilt she had at the relief she felt from being completely unscathed by the accident.
After getting everyone secured into ambulances, Penny was made to tag along, they insisted that she could have some potential internal injuries, but she knew they wouldn’t find anything, but she was glad for it nonetheless, so she could keep up with everyone, and know… know what happens next.
It was a whirlwind from the fall fair to the hospital, the children were quickly rushed to separate operating rooms, Penny overheard some things from the staff; broken bones, internal bleeding, death likely; each word making her flinch.
She was taken to one of the emergency rooms, where a nurse looked her over. She was asked many questions,
“What’s your name?”
“Do you feel any pain?”
“Can you tell me what day it is?”
She knew it must be strange, everyone was hurt so badly by the accident, but here she was, completely unscathed, not a scratch on her.This led to even more questions,
“How did you end up at the site of the crash?”
“Were you on the ride?”
“what do you remember?”
Penny knew better than to give the whole tale, sure that if she wasn’t committed the whole thing would be chalked up to some sort of head trauma, so she said the closest answer to the truth she could come up with, "darkness," she said, it felt like the most appropriate description for the place she found herself in.
After that, they felt content to leave her alone, having more pressing matters to attend to. They allowed her to use a phone to call her parents and let them know she was alive. She even had permission to leave, with strict instructions to come back if she started feeling any pain. She knew she wouldn’t, not physically at least.
They were expecting her to leave of course, but she knew she couldn’t, she had to know the fates of the choir, she couldn’t imagine going on, without at least knowing if they had a chance of survival. She begged the nurses for any news, all she was told was they would update her when they could.
It wasn’t until well into the early hours of the next day when they were finally able to give her an update.
“It was touch and go for a while, but it looks like they’re all going to make it.”