The air in the room feels too still, too heavy, like it’s holding its breath.

My body is stiff, each

movement slow and unfamiliar, like I’m learning how to use it again. The woman—this stranger who
feels both distant and important—sits beside me, her eyes shining with unshed tears, her hand still
gripping mine as if afraid I might slip away.
I want to ask her who she is. I want to ask her where I’ve been, why everything feels so fragmented.
But the words get stuck in my throat, tangled with fear and confusion. The machines next to me beep
steadily, their rhythm a constant reminder that I’m somewhere real now—somewhere concrete. Yet it
feels as unreal as the dreams I’ve been lost in.
“You don’t remember, do you?” she asks softly, her voice laced with sadness.
I shake my head, though even that small movement sends a wave of dizziness through me. “No,” I
whisper. “I don’t… I don’t know who you are.”
Her face tightens, but she doesn’t let go of my hand. “I’m your mother.”
The words hit me like a wave, knocking the breath from my lungs. My mother. The woman from my
dreams, from the fragments of a life I thought I’d left behind. The memories rise up inside me,
distorted and blurred, pieces of a puzzle I can’t fit together.
“I… I’ve been dreaming,” I say, my voice hoarse. “I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
She leans forward, brushing a strand of hair from my forehead. “It’s okay,” she says softly. “You’ve
been asleep for a long time. It’s going to take time for things to make sense again.”
Asleep. The word echoes in my mind, twisting and curling until it feels like a lie. I wasn’t just asleep. I
was lost. Drifting between worlds, between dreams and nightmares, trying to wake up but never sure if
I could.
“How long?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
Her lips press into a thin line, and she glances at the floor before meeting my eyes again. “Two years.”
The world tilts beneath me, and for a moment, I think I’m going to be sick. Two years. Two years of
my life—gone, swallowed by whatever void I’ve been trapped in. My chest tightens, panic clawing at
the edges of my mind. I want to scream, to cry, to do something that makes this feel real, but all I can
do is sit there, frozen.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, shaking my head. “How… how did this happen?”
Her grip on my hand tightens, her expression pained. “You had an accident,” she says slowly, as if each
word is difficult to say. “You fell. Hit your head. They said… they said you might not wake up.”
The words swirl around me, pieces of a story I can’t fully comprehend. An accident. That’s why I’ve
been here, why I’ve been trapped in this in-between space. My mind, my body, separated from the
world I once knew.
I stare at the ceiling, trying to piece together the broken fragments of my memory. But every time I try
to focus, the images slip away, dissolving like mist. All I remember is the endless darkness, the shadow
of the other me, and the pull of something I couldn’t quite escape.
“I kept dreaming,” I murmur, more to myself than to her. “I kept dreaming that I was awake… but I
wasn’t.”
She nods slowly, her eyes filling with understanding. “You were lost inside your own mind,” she says.
“The doctors told us it was like… you were trapped. But they didn’t know if you could hear us, if you
were aware of anything.”
Trapped. That’s exactly what it felt like. A prison of my own making, with walls I couldn’t break down
no matter how hard I tried. And the other me—the one who taunted me, whispered that I would never
wake up—she was right, in a way. I was running, hiding from something I didn’t want to face.
And now, here I am, finally awake… but not free.
I look at my mother, at the pain in her eyes, and feel a strange, cold distance between us. I know I
should feel something—relief, maybe, or gratitude. But all I feel is an emptiness. Two years. I’ve been
asleep for two years, and now I’m back in a world that’s moved on without me.
“Why do I feel like I’m still dreaming?” I ask, my voice barely audible.
She squeezes my hand, her touch warm and steady, but it doesn’t feel like enough. “It’s going to take
time,” she says gently. “You’ve been through something… something none of us can fully understand.
But you’re here now. You’re back.”
Back. The word hangs in the air like a promise, but I don’t know if I believe it. I don’t know if I ever
truly left that other place—the place where shadows whispered, where my reflection spoke to me,
where reality bent and twisted until I couldn’t tell the difference between waking and dreaming.
A nurse enters the room, her footsteps soft on the sterile floor. She checks the machines, adjusting
something I don’t understand, before glancing at me with a warm smile. “You’re doing well,” she says,
her voice soothing. “It’s good to see you awake.”
I nod numbly, though her words don’t comfort me. Awake. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long, what I’ve
fought for. But now that I’m here, it feels hollow. I’m awake, but the world around me feels just as
fragile as the one I left behind.
The nurse leaves, and my mother stays by my side, her presence a steady anchor in the sea of
confusion. But I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing, that I’m not whole. The other me,
the one who chased me through my dreams, warned me that waking up wouldn’t be the end. And she
was right. I’m awake, but I’m still lost.
“I need to remember,” I say suddenly, my voice breaking the silence. “I need to understand what
happened.”
She nods, her face soft with concern. “You will,” she says gently. “But it doesn’t have to be all at once.
Give yourself time.”
Time. It feels like the one thing I don’t have. Time has been stolen from me—two years of my life,
swallowed by the darkness. I don’t want to wait anymore. I don’t want to be patient. I need answers.
I lie back on the bed, closing my eyes. The sounds of the room fade into the background, replaced by
the soft hum of my thoughts. I try to focus, to dig deeper into the haze of my mind, but all I find is
silence. There’s nothing there—no memories, no clues, just the faint echo of the dreams I’ve left
behind.
But then, in the darkness behind my eyelids, I hear it.
A voice.
Soft, distant, but unmistakable.
“You’re not done yet.”
My eyes snap open, my heart pounding in my chest. The room is the same, my mother still sitting
beside me, but the words hang in the air like a threat. I don’t know where the voice came from, but I
recognize it.
It’s her.
The other me.
She’s still here, lurking in the corners of my mind, waiting. And as I lie there, staring at the ceiling, I
realize something that chills me to the bone.
I’m awake.
But I’m not free.