Sasha awoke with a strange sensation, as if the cold had seeped beneath her skin. It wasn't the typical chill of a hospital room, nor the physical sensation of cold sheets. This cold came from within, as if something deep, dark, and unfamiliar was rising inside her.
Her gaze, once alert and curious, now drifted aimlessly, lost among the flickering ceiling lights, unable to focus on anything around her.
The world was unraveling, but Sasha couldn't connect to it. Every sound, every movement, felt like it was happening miles away. Distant voices echoed through the hallway—doctors' footsteps, murmured conversations—all of it blurred and meaningless. It was as if she were trapped between two worlds, and neither one belonged to her.
Her lips moved, trying to form words, but she couldn't remember what to say. The syllables danced in her mind like fragments of a forgotten language, yet none of them could pierce through the fog that surrounded her. She knew there had once been something important to express, something vital to say—but she couldn't remember what, or why.
A shiver ran through her body. It wasn't the usual fear she felt in unfamiliar places. This was something new—abstract, foreign. It was fear, but not her own.
Her mother's face appeared above her, blurred by tears and pain. Sasha stared at her indifferently, unable to feel the emotional connection she once had. Her mother's desperation bounced off an invisible barrier that now kept Sasha isolated.
—"Sasha… can you hear me?" her mother asked, her voice trembling, barely reaching her consciousness.
Sasha watched her mother's lips move, heard the sound of her words, but didn't understand them anymore. It was like watching a movie from far away—a story she was no longer part of. Her mother's tears didn't move her. Whatever she had once felt for her was gone, dissolved into the emptiness now filling her.
A doctor entered the room and gave her mother a glance full of quiet sympathy. Sasha barely noticed him. The faces around her were shadows moving without meaning, like blurred actors on a stage of a life that no longer felt like hers.
—"Sasha is gone," the doctor murmured solemnly.
The words hung in the air—cold, distant—but they failed to break through the haze. She heard the name, but didn't recognize it. That body was hers, yes—but she no longer felt it as her own.It was as if something else had awakened in her place, watching quietly from behind her eyes.
Her mother's face twisted into a desperate cry, but Sasha didn't flinch. Everything felt so far away. So unreal.
Then a scream shattered the room.
—"Doctor! Doctor!"
Something shifted.
The body that had been still for thirty minutes began to move. Slowly, her chest rose in a heavy inhale, as if her lungs were relearning how to breathe. Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing eyes that no longer looked like her own.
The doctors rushed over, stunned by the impossible. Sasha was alive—but something inside her had changed. She scanned the room with a new kind of clarity, yet everything felt unfamiliar. The faces around her, once familiar and comforting, stirred nothing in her. She was an intruder in her own skin—a stranger who had returned from death, but no longer belonged to this world.
Her mother threw herself at her, wrapping her in a tight embrace.
—"Sasha!" she sobbed, as if her daughter had come back from the dead.
But Sasha didn't move. She felt the warmth of her mother's body, but couldn't understand what it meant. The words and emotions swirling around her felt foreign, like they belonged to someone else.
The doctor gently pulled her mother back.
—"We need to run more tests," he said, his voice calm but laced with disbelief.
As the nurse checked her vital signs, Sasha felt a strange energy pulse through her body. The hospital, with its sterile walls and clinical air, seemed charged with something else.An invisible presence pulsed in the room, as if the walls themselves were breathing. As if death had paused to watch.She looked out the window. In the heavy, gray sky, she thought she saw the reflection of what now lived inside her.
—"Tell me your name," the nurse asked, stepping closer.
Sasha remained silent. The name no longer meant anything. She wasn't Sasha.A name? That wasn't what she was searching for. What she craved was silence. Truth.
The woman who claimed to be her mother reached out, trying to comfort her, but Sasha only felt a faint discomfort. The physical contact, once warm, now felt oppressive.
—"Get ready, Sasha. Your father's coming to pick us up," the woman muttered while speaking on the phone.
Sasha didn't answer. The words bounced around her mind without triggering anything. Everything that had once defined her, everything that had once mattered, had vanished.
When they finally made their way to the hospital's ground floor, a man was waiting by a car. The moment she saw him, a sharp pain pierced through her skull. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the woman's arm wrap around her, helping her walk. But Sasha felt nothing for him.Or for her.Or for anyone.
—"This time will be different, Sasha," the man said, his voice full of empty promises. "We'll go to therapy. I swear."
Sasha didn't respond. She knew she wasn't herself anymore.And no one seemed to notice.