Morning came and a nurse came with it, a cheerful, young woman with a kind face and a Chansey waddling beside her. The Chansey carried a tray with a bowl of warm broth, a small French bread and a cup of what looked like juice. The nurse smiled brightly, seemingly unaware of the internal turmoil their presence invoked.
"Good morning, Celeste," she said, smiling, her voice gentle. "I'm Nurse Alina. We were all so worried about you, how are you feeling today?"
My heart pounded, but a wave of relief washed over me. The name wasn't Olivia. It only kind of sounded like it. My mind, a messy collection of memories, flashed back to the girl named Olivia, the bully from my high school, the one who had made my life a living hell and the probable cause of me being stuck in the hospital bed. The memory of her sent a cold shiver down my spine. The nurse's kind eyes, the same icy blue color as hers, held no hint of cruelty. I was just paranoid, not sleeping that night before must have made me tired.
The nurse, oblivious to my turmoil, besides the slightly faster sound of the monitor, gestured to the Chansey. "You were a little agitated last night. So, we asked Chansey here to help you rest. She's a good girl, isn't she?"
I forced a tight smile, unable to look at the Pokémon. The Chansey, not sensing my discomfort, waddled closer, its plump body a disconcerting mix of cuteness and power. I was obviously still not used to it. It held out the tray, and I took it, my hands careful not to touch the stubby arms. How did it hold the tray? It didn't even have opposite thumbs! This was a nightmare. A nightmare with a kind nurse, and a cute docile Pokémon, but still a nightmare.
"Are you feeling better now, dear?" Nurse Alina asked, her voice soft and full of concern. The Chansey beside her made a low, reassuring hum.
I knew I had a choice to make. I could either play along and pretend to be this girl, or I could reveal the truth and risk being locked up for good, especially with her history of schizophrenia and psychosis. I had no idea what to do. My mind was reeling for an answer, and I quickly made a plan. I would play the confused teenager. No one would believe me if I said I was almost thirty and had never seen a Pokémon before. But my lack of knowledge would also be suspicious. My training as a nurse taught me that severe trauma, like what my counterpart had experienced, sometimes causes a type of selective agnosia, a neurological disconnect, sometimes even amnesia. I could probably capitalize on that, using my lack of recognition as a shield.
My throat was dry, and my heart was pounding in my chest. I took a shaky breath, a single, hoarse word escaping my lips.
"What…happened to me?"
The nurse turned her attention back to me, her kind smile now replaced with a more guarded, professional expression. She took a moment, as if carefully choosing her words. "You were found in your bathtub by your family's maid," she said, her voice still gentle but now devoid of the easy warmth from before. "You had a serious wrist injury, and we were worried about you. Your dad was at a work trip, but she called the ambulance for you "
It was a simple, professional answer that was still horrifying. My mind, still scrambling, latched onto her words. It didn't explain the Chansey, the navy-blue hair, or the fact that I was 17 again. Also, where was my mom? My Brazilian mother would never let anyone else clean her house for her, she was a veritable clean freak, almost OCD. Why did I have a maid?
The nurse looked at the Chansey again, now with a concerned expression. The two shared a glance, a silent conversation passing between them that told me, in no uncertain terms, that I had asked a question I shouldn't have. The Chansey made a low, mournful sound, and the nurse's guarded expression softened into one of profound pity.
"Celeste," the nurse said, her voice a hushed whisper, "the chart says you only have a father. I'm so sorry."
The words hit me with a physical force. My mother was a clean freak, a vibrant woman, an awesome housewife who loved her girls more than anything. My little sister was a ball of laughter and joy, my first "baby", 9 years younger than me. They were my world. And in this world, they didn't exist. More of my family was gone.
A cold, black hole opened up again in my chest, a void of grief and despair that was even worse than the fear of a world with Pokémon. I looked at the nurse, tears started streaming down my face. My family was dead. I was a stranger in my own body, in my own life, in a world that wasn't my own, and the only family I had left was a father who had already lost a daughter and a wife and didn't come to visit me while hospitalized.
The nurse's eyes softened. Her hand gently rested on my arm, just below the bandage. "He's coming as soon as he can, Celeste. He's on a work trip to Brazil, and he's been calling twice a day. He's arranged for a flight as soon as he knows you're free to go home."
The words were a jarring mixture of comfort and dread. My father, alive and so close, yet still so far away. He was in Brazil, my home country. A wave of grief washed over me, a physical ache in my chest that was almost worse than the emotional pain. It was a cruel trick of fate. I had returned to a world with a living father, but in that very world I had no mother, no sister, and no family of my own. The only way to see him was to convince everyone, including myself, that I was a sane and normal 17-year-old girl, to get my discharge.
I had a new purpose. My new short-term goal wasn't just to survive; it was to get out of this hospital and see my dad.
"Can I please have my phone?" I asked, my voice still hoarse from crying.
The nurse looked at me, a flicker of surprise on her face. It was the first normal question I had asked since waking up. She smiled and went to a cabinet near the bathroom, bringing me a small, "universe" patterned backpack, something really 2012ish. She zipped it open and took out a phone, handing it to me.
My hands trembled as I took it. It was a familiar, rectangular shape, but it felt ancient. The rounded edges, the smaller screen, and the clunky home button all belonged to a different era. It was an "iPhone" from 2012, a relic from a past I had forgotten. My new plan, a fragile act of self-interest, began to form. This wasn't just a phone. It was my only window into this new world.
The nurse and chansey bid their goodbyes, reminding me to eat my breakfast, but left me alone after that. I couldn't even think about eating, I needed to know what the difference was between my life and the life of my counterpart. I had to know what had changed. And how this world was different from mine.
I turned it on, the screen lighting up with a picture of a smiling teenage girl with colorful with navy blue hair and my father with the same navy hair standing beside her. They looked happy. They looked very "alive". I scrolled through the photos, a fresh wave of grief and despair washing over me. There were pictures of my friends in Brazil and photos of me and my mother from when I was a child. I saw a picture of my father, my pregnant mother, and me when I was nine. I saw my mother, alive and well in pictures of a past that wasn't mine, the reality for my counterpart.
A thought hit me. Was this the big difference? When I was going thought the shit I went through, my mom was a momma bear, even without really speaking English, she went to my school and put the terror of God onto those mortals, when she heard about the bullies. Maybe this me, not having mom to take care of that, didn't have the psychological strength to live. Also, my dad here was probably an absentee dad here. He was always obsessed with mom, and her loss probably hit him hard… and he always said I looked exactly like her, must have been hard seeing a ghost all the time.
I scrolled further, and my heart caught in my throat. There was a photo of my father at his computer with two screens at home, a chaotic mess of papers scattered around and codes on the screen, with a small, glowing Rotom hovering beside his head, its spectral form a mix of electricity and ghostly sheer. Another picture, taken when I was around thirteen, showed me smiling, my shorter, navy hair glowing under the sun, and by my feet, a small, cute eevee sat with its tongue out, its fluffy, dog-like body a jarring anachronism in my mind, my memories overlapping with my teenage hood years dog, Maya. My memories of my family were now intertwined with creatures that didn't exist in my world. The craziest thing was that the pictures were eerily similar to some I remember having and taking with my family and friends, only with blue hair and the addition of Pokémon in some of them.
I paused looking at the photos, and looked at the phone because something was clearly different and nagging at the back of my mind. It was a small, a blue cold rectangle of metal and plastic in my hand. It was a lifeline and a prison. It was my only connection to a life I didn't know, a world I didn't belong in, and I would use it to its fullest potential. The phone, an "iPhone" didn't have an apple on its back, I noticed, but a poke ball. Looking through the specifications of it, I found out it was an "Ipoke" 4S. And the social media all had different names and symbols, like Pokebook and Pokegram, and Swablu, not Facebook Instagram and Twitter. My thumb hovered over the icons, my heart beating loudly. These small differences were all crazy, but subtle reminders that I was really in another world.
I opened Pokebook and the sight of it was a jolt. The page was a mirror of my own teenage social media, a chaotic jumble of photos and status updates from a life I thought was past. I scrolled through the feed, a strange mix of recognition and detachment as I saw posts that were almost identical to what I remembered. Photos with my friends from Brazil, laughing at inside jokes, felt like they were taken just yesterday. Some of the pictures were so similar, they were identical save for the color of my hair and one of two Pokémon in it. I felt a fleeting sense of comfort, a hollow echo of a life that wasn't mine.
That comfort evaporated the moment I opened Swablu.
My thumb hovered over the icon, a small, blue cloud-like bird that was the symbol for the app. The number of followers on the account was zero. There were no likes, no comments, no "reswabs". It was a window into a private, desolate world. The "swabs" were a stark contrast to the happy, normal life I had just seen on Pokebook.
They were short, fragmented cries for help.
@nighttime_blue The colors are so loud today. Red and yellow in the park. Can you hear them? They're screaming for help
@nighttime_blue The whispers won't stop. They follow me. They sound like a million buzzing insects in my head. I can't stand the migraines anymore.
@nighttime_blue I saw a little girl holding a pink, fluffy Pokémon and the whispers got louder. The thing smiled diabolically at me with a hundred teeth. How can she not hear it?
@nighttime_blue Sometimes I see flashes of people I don't know. Like a woman in a lab coat, or a man with a beard and a notebook. I think they're trying to guide me.
@nighttime_blue I want to disappear. To float away like a cloud, and just… vanish.
@nighttime_blue: Again I saw something I shouldn't have. They saw me too. I know they saw me. The whispers won't stop warning. I'm afraid.
I stared at the screen, a chilling confirmation of my fears. The last posts were from two days ago, right before the time on my medical chart. It was a cold, hard confirmation of my worst fears. Her public life was a facade, a series of happy photos to hide a world of pain and loneliness. The mother she didn't have to protect her, the trauma she endured alone, the depression that consumed her. It all led here. But that last post was strange. It sounded like the girl saw something or someone she shouldn't have. Maybe Olivia doing something wrong?
I looked at the phone in my hand... This wasn't just a phone. It was a diary of a life that had just ended, and a window into a secret world I was now a part of. But that last swab, something wasn't adding up. It almost sounded desperate, and that she was scare of something, or someone. I also had only more questions and no answers about her supposed schizophrenia…poor girl.
I continue to look through her apps, and in a passcode protected app (same passcode my whole life, I'm so predictable…), like a hidden folder, tucked away in the deepest part of the phone, I found a series of photos. They were all blurry, out of focus, and taken in what looked like dark alleys, on different days and times of the week. The photos were a frantic series of shots of a person. The person had their face half-hidden by a hat everytime, but their eyes were clear, a cold, empty red that sent a shiver down my spine. The last photo was the most terrifying. It was a close-up of a hand, a hand with a silver ring with some sort of symbol on the pinky finger, holding a knife over the body of a dead Pokémon. My blood ran cold, my heart monitor started beeping like crazy, and I started trying to calm down. What craziness had this teenager gotten into? She was a witness to a murder!