How to Save a Life

This was something I managed to find among the stuff I wrote last year. This was written for all those who lost someone during the storm "Ondoy" that hit the country late in September last year.

It was a rainy afternoon once again. Adults squealed as they attempted to seek shelter from it as little kids begged their parents to let them go out and dance in the rain. She couldn’t take her eyes off the window, yet she couldn’t stand looking at the rain anymore. After five minutes of debating with herself as to what she wanted, she finally decided to go back to the thesis she was working on.

 

She frowned at her pink laptop and sighed. No matter how hard she tried to focus on her task, she couldn’t resist stealing glances at the window. She gave up on her paper and leaned back on her chair. She stole another glimpse at her window before shutting her cinnamon brown eyes. The rain poured even harder than it did a few minutes ago and it did nothing to clear the stirring emotions that had begun to bother her.

 

She would have drifted off if her red-haired roommate did not run in and practically slam the door shut. She barely understood what her best friend was telling her. All she could hear was the rain pounding against the window; the sound practically ringing in her ears.

 

Ignoring all that her friend was saying, she hissed, “It’s raining again.”

 

There must have been something in her voice that caused her friend to stop talking and gently whisper,

 

“Nikki.”

 

At the sound of her name, she opened her eyes and looked at her friend straight in the eye.

 

“Cara, you’re back.” She hollowly replied.

 

Cara ignored the greeting, stared right back at Nikki, and went straight to the point. “This has to stop. He wouldn’t want you to do this. He’d probably call you ‘Drama Princess’ again if he saw you acting all emo.” She finished as a weak attempt to make the brunette smile. However, all she got in response were a small empty smile and an equally blank stare. Nikki placidly apologized before she looked out her window once and let her mind wander once again.   

 

 

He was always a kid at heart; she knew that. He may have been their oh-so courageous leader, yet he was one of the most childish people she would ever know. Like all children, he loved to play in the rain. No matter how many times she warned him about getting sick afterwards, he simply laughed it off and dragged her along to dance with him in the rain.

 

For some reason his whole life was connected with the rain. During one of the dinners she had with his family, his mother shared the story of how he was born on one of the rainiest days of that year. He first discovered his love for soccer at a muddy school field under the pouring rain. Funnily enough, every graduation day, it had to rain before or after the ceremony.

 

He always dragged her out to dance with him in the rain. He didn’t care if she was wearing her best dress or her most ragged set of clothes. Although she made a huge fuss about it at first, she eventually learned not to care about her clothes whenever he asked her to go out and play with him in the storm. She never thought she would live to see the day she’d stop worrying about her clothes. There was just something in his chocolate brown eyes when he asked her to join him in the rain that she couldn’t resist.

 

 

It was raining that afternoon, and everyone was anxious to go home. The rest of the group had left for the ice cream parlor five minutes ago. Although they tried being discreet, she saw right through them immediately. They just wanted to give her some alone time with him since this was the first time they would get to be together all month.

 

“Nikki! Nikki!” his voice loud voice rang through the school corridors. Despite the number of people who could hear them, he didn’t seem to care as long as he got his message across.

 

“What do you want now?” she teased once he was next to her, huffing and puffing like he just ran a marathon, when all he did was to shout her name while running from his classroom to their lockers.

 

“I want you to play with me.” He cheekily replied. He flicked his chestnut brown hair out of his eyes and grabbed her hand.

 

“Play with you?” she asked, confusion written all over her pretty face.

 

He looked toward the empty field and clarified, “Yes, Nikki, play with me in the rain.”

 

Before she could react any further, he ran for the doors that lead to the field. He ignored her squeals of protest as he dragged her with him. At the speed he ran, they managed to get to the field in less than ten minutes, despite Nikki not running at all. He let go of her hand and ran to the middle of the field. He danced around the muddy, wet field without a caring that his football shirt was soaking and that he looked like he had a bath.

 

“What are you waiting for?” he shouted at her, “Join me!”

 

“Tyler! You’re crazy!” she shouted back, attempting to seek a shaded place. “We could get sick!”

 

“For once in your life, just have fun.” Tyler advised. “Screw the outfit.” He added, sensing the source of her apprehension.

 

Her eyes widened in horror at his last words. “Never!” she retorted.

 

“You’re just jealous!” he teased while he ran to her. “Come on, now don’t be shy!”

 

“Nooooooooo!”

 

Tyler didn’t care about what Nikki said since he ran to her and took her hand. Amidst her screams of protest, he twirled her in circles. Surprisingly, he was light on his feet and he twirled her around in a waltz. She tried resisting at first, but then he was much stronger than she was so she just gave up. Despite her determination not to enjoy herself for fear of ruining her blue dress and silver heels, she laughed and waltzed along with him in the rain.

 

She didn’t know what gave her the change of heart. As far as she was concerned, the rain could just get them all muddy and wet, or even worse, get them both sick. But whenever she saw his happy smile and heard his cheerful laugh, all thoughts of mud and sickness instantly flew out of her mind.

 

After they finished dancing in the rain, Tyler’s chocolate brown eyes gazed deeply into Nikki’s own cinnamon brown ones and asked, “Will you go to prom with me?”

 

She was mildly surprised with his question before her face broke into a smile.

 

Nikki tilted her head upward and shut her eyes to kiss him softly on the lips.

 

“So, is that a yes?” Tyler flirtatiously asked, wrapping his arms around her tiny waist.

 

“Yes. Oo. Si. Oui. Hai… Yes, in every sense of word…” she whispered before capturing his lips for another kiss.

 

It was also right then and there that she promised herself something. No matter how much her clothes were ruined, as long as she saw the smile on his face and the laughter in his eyes; she was always going to willingly play in the rain with him.

 

 

She sweetly smiled while she let these memories play in her mind’s eye.

 

“Pleasant dreams, Nikki?” Cara whispered while she poked Nikki’s side.

 

Nikki sat upright on her chair and replied, “Not a dream. I just remembered one of the happier high school memories.”

 

“He’d be glad to know that you’re thinking happy thoughts, Nikki.”

 

Cara went over to the chair and embraced her best friend. She moved over to her own desk and booted up her computer. Both of them attempted to work on their respective jobs. Nikki just couldn’t concentrate because of the pitter-pattering noises the rain made against their window. She was at the brink of screaming at the rain had Cara not broken the silence.

 

“While you were dozing off, I heard from the news that this typhoon Anna is going to be as bad, if not worse than typhoon Diane three years ago.”

 

“What?!” Nikki gasped, forgetting all irritation with the rain as she turned to look at Cara with widened eyes.

 

“Yup.” Cara confirmed, still reading the news from her computer. “Anna is already within Philippines’s area of responsibility. According to the news, it’s already packing sustained winds of a hundred and seventy-five kilometers per hour and gusts at two hundred and ten kilometers per hour.”

 

“How about rains?” Nikki barely let out a squeak.

 

Cara pityingly looked at her friend before answering. “It depends on its movement. The slower it is, the heavier the rains will pour. Now, it is moving at a pretty slow pace.”

 

Nikki just gave Cara a melancholy look before she looked toward the window. The tropical depression Diane was one of the worst typhoons to hit Manila in the last fifty years. With winds of eighty-five kilometers per hour, gusts of a hundred kilometers per hour, and thirty-four centimeters of rainfall in just six hours, Manila was not prepared for such a storm. Diane took at least three hundred lives, one of those lives being the life of the one she loved.

 

 

Nikki woke up to a dark, rainy Saturday morning. The rain has poured like bullets from the sky since the night before. Nobody would be willing to go out on a day like that one, but then she was lucky enough to stay at home. Other people still had to go to work or attend their Saturday classes, and not many people were happy to go out of the house when it was raining cats and dogs.

 

“Just because we’re already in college doesn’t make us waterproof!” her boyfriend Tyler exploded when he heard that there was still Saturday class.

 

While it was only Cara who went to the same university as Nikki, their group was still as close-knit as ever. They always hung out every weekend at each other’s houses.

 

She looked at her clock and learned that it was only ten in the morning. Two more hours before she could call anybody since they were all at school. While she wasn’t complaining, it was pretty boring to wake up to an empty house since Cara had Saturday class, and she couldn’t call Karen or Mia since those high schoolers would probably have wanted to sleep in.

 

Nikki decided to kill time by taking a bath, making herself look decent, and fixing a nice lunch for Cara and herself, since she knew the former would be hungry when she got home from class. By the time she was done, it was already fifteen minutes to twelve. Cara’s Saturday classes ended at twelve and she usually got home fifteen minutes later.

 

True enough, Cara came home fifteen minutes after twelve. Nikki looked up from the newspaper and saw that her friend was soaking wet. Nikki heated their lunch while Cara took a quick shower.

 

“You wouldn’t believe the rain outside!” Cara exclaimed once she finished showering. “It was raining lightly when I left this morning, but come nine o’clock, it was raining cats and dogs. In fact, I was lucky to get out immediately.”

 

“Good thing our place is too high for the floods to reach.” Nikki said. “By the way, have you heard from the others?” she asked.

 

At this point, the two girls reached the dining area where Nikki had lunch ready for them. They sat down to eat and continued discussing the storm. After eating, they waited for the rain to stop so that they could go out and visit their friends at the other universities. The only flaw to this plan was that the rains did not stop at all. In fact, the rains got even worse to the point that streets were literally covered with flood water.

 

At around three in the afternoon, Cara turned on the TV to see what was going on in the news while Nikki read a magazine.

 

“Apparently, nature chooses nobody in terms of whom it chooses to affect. In fact, some celebrities have also been affected by the typhoon Diane.” The television announced. “According to reports, model Stephanie Gomez has been stranded on the roof of her house in Hanada Village due to the floods caused by the typhoon.”

 

At the words “Hanada Village”, the girls’ ears perked up. Tyler and his family lived there, and Hanada Village was a place that was frequently flooded. They saw a pretty red-haired girl with blue eyes crying while she sat on the roof of her house screaming for help. She also protectively embraced a blond and blue eyed child who looked as though she was praying. Surrounding them were other people also stranded on their roofs screaming for help. Nikki and Cara scanned the screen for any sign of the Ricks family.

 

Riiiiing! Riiiiing!

 

Cara ran for the telephone and answered it hurriedly, but Nikki kept her eyes on the television screen, searching for any sign of the Rickss. After five minutes, Cara rejoined her at the couch.

 

“That was Ice.” She informed. “He said that he and Joey are okay. The floods aren’t affecting their place”

 

“The others?” Nikki asked, “Has he heard anything?”

 

“He says that he hasn’t heard from anyone else. But he told us to go and stay online for any updates regarding missing people and whoever else needs rescuing.”

 

Nikki nodded at once and fetched her laptop from their room. She and Cara stayed in the living room, updating them selves with the news. They even contacted a rescue team to rescue the Ricks family at Hanada Village, but then they heard no news from anyone else. After a few hours, they received calls from Mia, David, Alex, Ken, Matt, and Terrence asking about their condition and assuring them that they were all safe from the storm. Nikki still wasn’t at ease, since Tyler and Karen still had not called to say that they had been saved.

 

 

The following day, Nikki woke up to an even darker and stormier morning than the day before. She was surprised that she managed to fall asleep since she practically had a fit worrying if Tyler was safe or not. The last time she had contacted him was the night before the storm hit the city, meaning that it was at least twenty-four hours. She was positive that he should have been declared officially missing, and all that she could do was to wait for him to contact her and to pray that he was still safe.

 

Riiiiing! Riiiiing!

 

Cara was still asleep, so this time Nikki ran to the phone and heard a young girl’s voice on the other end.

 

“Nikki? It’s me, Karen!” Karen practically stammered to the phone.

 

“Karen!” Nikki screamed. “Are you okay? How’s Tyler?”

 

“Yes. We’re okay. We’ve just been rescued two hours ago. We were transferred to Masara Village, and you might want to thank Vincent Go. He came back for us after he rescued our neighbor Stephanie Gomez and her niece.”

 

Vincent Go was a famous college football superstar who happened to be the team captain of Tyler’s football team. He was also dating Stephanie Gomez, the model who got stranded on her roof that Nikki and Cara saw on the news.

 

“Good to know you’re okay. Is Tyler there? I want to talk to him.” Nikki whispered.

 

Karen hesitated before she told Nikki what happened. “Tyler accompanied Vincent to rescue more people from Hanada Village. He met up with Matt, Ice, and Joey an hour ago before they headed back there with Vincent.”

 

“Dear Lord, I hope he’s okay…” Nikki sobbed. “Thanks for informing me about this Karen.”

 

“Bye, Nikki. I’ll update you if anything happens.”

 

Nikki put the phone down and sighed. Apparently, there was nothing she could do but wait. Wait for lots of things: for Tyler to call her, for the rain to subside, for a chance to be able to go out and help the victims. She went online and checked the updates regarding the storm. The notifications were still filled with information about missing people and whom to contact. The number of missing people had increased overnight, and there was a new statistic added: the number of deaths due to the flood.  

 

 

All the media focused on was how the celebrities had been affected. In fact, Vincent Go’s rescue mission of his neighbors, along with his girlfriend Stephanie Gomez was called heroic by the media, despite his protests that he was not a hero and only did what he felt that he had to do.

 

The suspense practically killed Nikki. Even though the rain had subsided, the floods still raged on. It was already night time and still there was no sign of Tyler or the others, and the news wasn’t helping calm her nerves either. There had been reports that people had died from rescue missions. There was also news of shooting and land slides among other things. Calls for volunteers in relief operations areas were also present in the news and online. Death toll was already at eighty-seven people, while there were three-hundred people missing.

 

Riiiiing! Riiiiing!

 

Cara and Nikki looked up from their computers and raced each other to the phone. For the first time in the history of their friendship, Nikki outran Cara and snatched the phone from the receiver as though her life depended on it.

 

“Nikki, it’s Matt.” The voice on the other end said once she lifted the phone. “I…. don’t know how to say this…. But…. You guys need to come to the hospital at once.”

 

“What happened?!” she screamed into the receiver.

 

“Tyler… he…” Matt began but he could not bring himself to say what happened to his best friend. “Nikki, just come here please. And hurry…”

 

 

After enduring an hour’s worth of traffic, Nikki and Cara finally reached the hospital Matt directed them to. The girls practically ran into the building and demanded of the receptionist where Tyler Ricks was confined. The nurse then instructed them to go to the operating room. They reached the operating and saw the Ricks family and all of their friends crying outside the room. Cara collapsed into Matt’s arms while Nikki stood there, staring at the door as though in a trance.

 

Yuuko Ricks gently tapped Nikki and brought her over to a family that sat a few feet away from them. Nikki barely registered what they were telling her. All she managed to hear was that Tyler got hit on the head by the wall that collapsed at Hanada Village and that he had lost so much blood that he was even lucky to make it to the hospital alive. While she remained cool and expressionless outside, her mind experienced complete chaos. She hardly realized that she had already fallen on her knees and her friends had to help her stand up.

 

At that moment, a doctor came out of the operating room and requested for Tyler’s immediate family. Nikki could do nothing but stare at the doctor’s face as he delivered the news. Vivian and Karen broke down while Samuel was beyond tears. Nikki didn’t need for them to tell her what happened. After a sorrowful apology, the doctor opened the door for all of them to enter. They all dragged their feet into the room where he was. Once they got in the room, Nikki flew to his body and threw herself upon him.

 

“Tyler! Please! Come back!” she screamed, clutching on to him. “You can’t leave us! We need you. I still need you…”

 

Nikki hoped and prayed with all her might that this was all a horrible nightmare and that she would wake up to dance with him in the rain once more. He did not respond, nor did his head turn her way.

 

Nobody did anything to hold her back and she was thankful for that. She was glad that they all understood that this was the last time she could hold him. She shook him some more, but it was useless. The rain Tyler loved so much would be the thing to take him from her. Once this little piece of insight finally crashed into her, she finally broke down and let the pent-up tears flow.

 

 

“Nikki?” Cara softly called her attention.

 

Nikki directed her gaze to her friend and saw that she held a single long-stemmed pink rose. She gave Cara a surprised stare.

 

“You weren’t able to go out today… And knowing your ritual. I figured that I should get you one.” Cara explained the rose in her hand.

 

Ever since that day, Nikki had a storm ritual. Whenever it rained, she threw a pink rose out her window to remember that her love had been taken by the rain. This was also her prayer for others not to suffer the same thing or something worse.

 

“Thank you.” Nikki murmured, taking the rose from Cara. She walked to the window and directed her thoughts to the wind.

 

“Hi Tyler! I hope you’ve been behaving up there and not giving the gods any headaches. Not a day does by without thinking of you. I think you know this, but I still miss you. I just can’t dance in the rain alone. Things just aren’t the same without you…  That’s it for now… I love you, baby. See you when I join you up there.”

 

With that, she gently kissed the rose before she threw it outside her window. It may not be able to save a life, but she knew that it was no use dwelling on that now. She couldn’t help but think maybe things would have been different if she had known how to save his life.