"Hwaaaaa-aaaa-hh-ungh."
A lazy yawn slipped out as I curled up beneath the sheets. The memories before waking were hazy, tangled together like fragments of a long fever dream.
"…Was the surgery a success?" I whispered, slowly sitting up. My voice sounded unfamiliar, but I brushed it off.
What I couldn't ignore was how I felt… lighter. Not spaced out or numb. Just… light. It wasn't the floaty, artificial high of hospital morphine; it was like I'd suddenly become as light as a feather.
I opened my eyes.
Blink.
I blinked in surprise.
Once.
Twice.
To be sure, I blinked a few more times, trying to make sense of the new clarity in my vision.
"Where am I?" I questioned myself. This definitely wasn't the ICU. The smell was also different, I couldn't name it with the right word but it definitely wasn't a chemical and antiseptic smell.
"Mom? Dad?" I called out for my parents. Usually, they'd be at my side before I could even finish the sentence, but for the first time in my life, they didn't come rushing in.
There was just an empty silence that lingered in the room as I sat up cautiously, bracing for the familiar snag of IV lines or the rush of nausea, but there was nothing.
My fingers searched towards my forearms for the familiar tape and needles of an IV, but my skin was smooth.
The chronic pain of my heart was gone, replaced by a buoyant, airy lightness that made me feel as if I were made of nothing but thought.
I was weightless.
I waited, expecting the door to open at any moment. Maybe Mom and Dad were just busy elsewhere?
While I waited, I studied the room. That's when the "wrongness" of the room started to sink in.
The ceiling wasn't that white hospital tile, no weird machines or white-grid ceilings. It wasn't my bedroom, either; mine was way bigger and practically made of bookstacks and family pictures.
The room looked like someone had just moved in, with a minimalist to a fault: a bed, a lamp, and some papers I'd never seen before.
"Hello? Nurse? Anyone?" confusion began to bleed into genuine fear. When no one came, I reached for the phone on the table. I just wanted to see the time, but the screen caught the light. I froze.
Wait... who is this?
That definitely wasn't me in the reflection. It was a stranger's face, but for some reason, my heart did a weird little skip of familiarity.
I stared at the face looking back at me.
The person staring back was someone I had never seen before. It was some teenager I'd never met, yet there was a haunting sense of recognition in the eyes.
Before I could process it, a white-hot spike of pain drove itself into my temples.
I dropped the phone, my hands flying to my head as I doubled over.
"Guh…!" I groaned, my teeth gritted against each other due to pain, the pressure behind my eyes becoming unbearable. It felt like my skull was splitting open to make room for something new.
Flashes of light turned into images, faces I didn't know but somehow loved, places I'd never been but knew by heart, the scent of a different home, the warmth of strangers who were somehow his parents.
These were not my experiences, yet they held the weight of truth.
'Wait, are these... mine?'
These were memories, unbidden and overwhelming, flooding the empty spaces of my mind.
I collapsed onto the bed before I understood what was happening.
***
I lay there, staring at a ceiling that wasn't mine. Technically it's mine now. But the idea itself feels foreign.
My first thought wasn't "What happened to me?" or "How did I get here?"
No.
The first thought I had, ingrained by years of binge-reading habit, was:
'I never did find out what happened in those fifty-seven chapters.' It was a stupid thing to dwell on, but now that those chapters were my reality, the lack of knowledge felt like a death sentence. A lot was happening, at some point it felt that it was Over-Preparation with different plans taking form in different groups.
Hhh-t...
But the "story" didn't matter as much as the hole in my chest.
I miss my family.
"M—Mom…"
Ugh... nn...
"D-dad… I'm… I'm so…"
I missed them.
Everything could have been different if I hadn't let go during the surgery. If I had fought harder, if I hadn't let the darkness take me so easily, I might still be there.
I could have been in a hospital bed right now, crying in my mother's arms with happiness instead of crying alone in a stranger's body.
'Was it because I stopped fighting?' I'd given up, hadn't I?
I just want one more chance to look at them and smile, to give them a memory that wasn't just me dying.
"S-snf... s-sorry… Mom… Dad… I'm so—sorry for… for giving up."
Mmph…
I bit the sheet to muffle the sound, but the tears wouldn't stop. The bedsheet grew damp beneath my cheeks as the weight of my cowardice finally broke me into full crybaby.
But there was no one to look. I slumped against the wall, my face between my knees. I cried because I could finally run, but I had nowhere to go. I cried because I could finally breathe, but the air felt empty without the scent of my mother's perfume or tye comforting smell of my father's work jacket.
I reached up, clutching the front of my shirt, right over that strong, healthy heart.
"Give it back," I choked out, my vision blurring as the stranger's eyes filled with very familiar tears. "I don't want it. I'll take the pain. I'll take the needles. Just let me go home."
The heart didn't stop. It just kept beating, it was strong, indifferent, and perfectly healthy, mocking me for the price of a life I have been asking for my whole life.
All I could do was lie there and mourn the life I'd let slip through my fingers.
…
I took a breath and pulled myself together.
'Come on, Lucifer. Don't be a cliché.'
Crying over getting exactly what I wanted, "a working heart" felt a little ridiculous.
'So, giving up isn't an option,' I thought, placing my hand over my chest. My heart was thumping against my ribs like it actually wanted to be there.
It was a sensation so foreign it felt like a gift I wasn't supposed to have.
After a few minutes of crying, the crushing weight on my chest started to lift.
I can think more clearly now, and I realised, it's pretty embarrassing to spend my second life crying after I spent my first one wishing for it.
It was a miracle I'd only ever imagined.
It felt wrong to mourn while holding the very thing I'd died wanting: health. And I'm crying over finally being healthy?
I was healthy, which was great, but being the only person in the room was less great. If Mom saw me like this, she'd probably give me a lecture I'd never hear the end of.
Thinking about my parents, I could almost feel my parents' presence in the room. Mom's sharp, worried tone and Dad's silent strength. Though I wish for them to live a long and happy life even after losing me.
I don't want to mourn forever for me. Even if I have done it myself.
I knew if Mom were here, she'd be yelling at me to get up while Dad watched from the doorway looking stressed. A sob tore out of my throat.
"I'm here," I whispered to the empty room, the words giving me a strange spark of strength. "Mom, I'm right here. My heart doesn't hurt anymore. Look at me."
"I'll do it," I sat up straight and vowed. "I'll take care of this life."
…