The memories came back to Javier in fragments during his rehabilitation sessions, each piece of physical therapy seeming to unlock another vivid recollection of his time in unconsciousness. What the doctors dismissed as typical near-death hallucinations felt more real to him than the hospital room where he now spent his days recovering.
"Tell me about these dreams again," Dr. Herrera said during one of their sessions, notepad ready as Javier struggled through leg exercises on the parallel bars.
"They weren't dreams," Javier insisted, pausing to catch his breath. "I was somewhere else entirely. A place that felt more real than this."
The first memory that had returned was of awakening on a grassy slope that seemed to exist in perpetual golden hour. The light was warm but not harsh, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. A gentle mist hung in the air, creating an atmosphere of peace that Javier had never experienced before or since.
"I was lying on this hill," he continued, his voice taking on the distant quality it always had when describing these experiences. "Everything was green and soft, like the most perfect spring morning you could imagine. But I wasn't alone."
The woman had been sitting nearby when he first became aware of his surroundings. She appeared to be in her early forties, with long dark hair and eyes that held both deep sadness and overwhelming love. She was beautiful in a way that suggested she had once been strikingly gorgeous but had been worn down by difficult experiences.
"She was waiting for me," Javier said, moving slowly along the bars as the memories flowed. "Like she had been there a long time, just sitting on that slope, looking out over this landscape that seemed to go on forever."
"What did this landscape look like?"
"Rolling hills covered in the softest grass I've ever seen. Flowers that seemed to glow with their own light. In the distance, there were mountains that looked like they were made of crystal, and there was a river of souls flowing in the distance towards the mountains with bright forms of souls moving to the mountains. And the sky..." Javier paused, struggling to find words. "The sky was every beautiful color you've ever seen, but all at once, and somehow it wasn't overwhelming."
But it wasn't the scenery that had made the experience so profound—it was the woman herself and the conversations they had shared over what felt like months of time.
"She introduced herself as Emiko," Javier continued, the name coming back to him with crystal clarity. "She said she was the mother of the girl I had helped before my accident."
Dr. Herrera made notes, but Javier could see the skepticism in his expression. "And what did she tell you about this girl?"
"Everything. Details that were so specific, so intimate, that I couldn't have imagined them." Javier's voice grew more intense as the memories became clearer. "She told me her daughter's name was Aiko, that she had beautiful eyes but looked broken when I found her. She described exactly how the girl's hair had been neglected, how it had become matted and tangled because the relatives caring for her saw it as a burden."
The conversations with Emiko had been unlike anything Javier had ever experienced. She spoke with the desperate love of a mother who had been separated from her child by circumstances beyond her control, sharing memories and details that painted a vivid picture of a little girl who had once been cherished but had been made to feel unwanted.
"She told me about a scar on Aiko's left hand from when she fell off her bicycle at age seven," Javier continued, the memory as clear as if it had happened yesterday. "About how Aiko used to hum a lullaby called 'Sakura' when she was nervous or scared. About a pressed flower from her mother's funeral that Aiko kept in a book of fairy tales."
"These are very specific details."
"That's what I keep telling everyone. She knew things about her daughter's childhood that were too intimate, too personal to be random hallucinations." Javier paused his exercises, turning to face the doctor directly. "She told me about the exact words Aiko said the night before she went to live with her aunt: 'Will you visit me in my dreams, Mama?' And about a favorite hair ribbon that was red with tiny white flowers that got lost during the move."
Dr. Herrera continued taking notes, but Javier could see he was intrigued despite his professional skepticism.
"What else did she tell you?"
"That she had made mistakes, gotten involved with dangerous people because she thought it would give her daughter a better life. She regretted staying away from her family, especially from her little sister who was helping care for Aiko. She wanted me to find them both and ask for forgiveness."
The most powerful part of the experience had been the sense of time that existed in that place. What felt like months of conversation had somehow occurred during the brief moments when his heart had stopped during surgery. Emiko had kept him company through what she explained was his journey back to consciousness, preventing him from moving toward what she called "the edge."
"She said I wasn't ready to cross over, that I had important things to do in the world," Javier explained. "She kept me on that slope, talking to me about her daughter, about love and regret and the importance of not letting fear keep you from the people who matter."
"And you believe this was a real encounter rather than your brain processing trauma?"
"I don't know what I believe about whether she was really there," Javier admitted. "But the information she gave me—those details about her daughter—that can be verified. If I can find Aiko and tell her these things, and she recognizes them as true, then I'll know the experience was real."
As his rehabilitation session ended and he was wheeled back to his room, Javier reflected on the final moments of his time with Emiko. She had told him that their time together was ending, that he was strong enough now to return to consciousness.
"Take care of my daughter," she had said, her form beginning to fade as the misty landscape dissolved around them. "Tell her that her mother never stopped loving her, never stopped being proud of who she was becoming. And tell her that the choices I made to stay away weren't because she wasn't worth fighting for—they were because she was worth protecting, even if it meant breaking both our hearts."
The last thing Javier remembered was Emiko's smile as she disappeared completely, leaving him alone on the slope before everything went white and he heard the distant sound of medical equipment beeping steadily.
Now, weeks later and growing stronger each day, Javier carried those memories like a sacred trust. Whether Emiko had been a real spirit or a creation of his traumatized mind, the mission she had given him felt absolutely real.
Somewhere in the world, Aiko was living her life, not knowing that her mother had spent what felt like months telling him how much she loved and missed her daughter.
Javier intended to find her and deliver that message, along with the specific details that would prove whether his experience had been miraculous or simply the brain's way of giving meaning to trauma.
Either way, Aiko deserved to know what her mother had wanted to tell her.