First person in That Eye, the Sky 5: Racing to the scene

This snippet gives us several discrete elements of Ort’s inner world.

Feeling using simile or metaphor: How the narrator feels, using a vivid simile (expanded with the phrase ‘shell and all’).

Reading of situation: What does the narrator think is happening?

Limitation: In what way is the narrator's knowledge limited? 

Belief: What does the narrator believe about the world/future if their fear turns out to be true?

Take another look at just the phrases about knowledge and perception in this snippet:

I don't know why, but I feel like I just swallowed a whole egg, shell and all. I can tell something bad's happened – I'm not stupid – but no one has told me yet. I don't know. If my Dad is dead, we just won't live anymore.

First person narrators have limited information. We can use this fact to emphasise the stress of not knowing what’s happened. Try to fold this feeling into your variation, even if you just use the phrase “I don’t know”.