Chapter 1

• The blue room had a gloomy atmosphere about it with the beeping machine giving off a sound which everyone could associate to hospitals.
• The machines and monitors gave off their own different sounds as I started to feel the sounds bugging me to wake up.
• I had been half asleep and half awake for sometime but suddenly I could see my environment better as I opened my eyes wider with the machine’s beeping increasing its pace.
• I at first winced at the bright light from the windows which was not much but soon enough got used to it as I looked around.
• “H-hello,” I croaked and was surprised at my own voice. It felt like I had not used my voice in a long time. It was rough and cracked when the sound escaped my lips.
• Where was I, I thought to myself. Why was I at the hospital? Anyone could see that it looked like a hospital.
• The smell of drugs and the heavy sounds of doctors and nurses' names being called from the corridors gave it all away.
• I struggled to sit up but found out I had no strength to do so. I had no choice but to wait in bed until someone would remember me and come to check up on me.
• If only there was a familiar face that would walk through that door, it would make things a bit easier for me and I would not have to feel so alone in the room.
• Just as I had thought, the door opened up to reveal a handsome yet familiar face. It was a man in a doctor's uniform. He had a chart in his hands as he stood by the door looking me over.
• I could tell that he was familiar and I knew I had seen him somewhere but I could not place where I had met up with him.
• Trying to ask him questions was useless as I was very tired and needed to save my strength for the next hour or so.
• He looked down at his charts and back to me with a grin as he saw me awake. He slightly raised his brow before closing the door behind him.
• “Miss Charlotte Garrettson?” he rolled the name on his tongue as he slowly walked to the bedside, dropping the chart on a table. “Welcome back to earth.”
• Charlotte Garrettson. Was that my name? It was a very bold name and I did not even know what I looked like. In fact, I had no recollection of anything.
• Back to earth, I thought to myself. What did that mean?
• He loomed over me with his white coat scraping against my hands while his masculine perfume hit my nose with a strong scent which made me grimace.
• My eyes started to get drowsy as I started to feel my memories rushing through my head.
• What was going on? Why was it happening all at once?
• I struggled to keep my closing eyes open as I found him checking my vitals.
• In a desperate attempt to stay awake, I grabbed his arm with my last strength and decided to call him by the name of the most familiar person I had in my head, “Marcus.”
• I let go of his arm before falling back into bed. The last I saw of him was his head shaking as the darkness enveloped my sight, piercing me into the night.
• ***
• The lights started to get brighter and brighter as I was plunged into the light and the darkness letting me out of its hold.
• To me, I had been asleep for not longer than a minute, but to the world I had been asleep for hours.
• I awoke to wince at the lights of the now fully opened windows which let in the bright rays of the sun.
• I heard murmurs around and I looked away from the window to find two people standing by my bedside. They stood by my foot with their faces filled with hopes and expressions of shock and surprise.
• I immediately recognized them to be my parents.
• “Oh Charlotte,” a crying woman ran to hug me followed by a man who had a sympathetic look on his face.
• They both enveloped me into a hug as I patted their backs slowly wondering what was going on and why they were behaving in a weird way.
• “Are you both okay?” I asked when they let me go as they settled down on the bed beside me. “You both seem to have gotten a bit… older.”
• I found my voice to be doing better than the last time I had used it. It was no longer rough but it still had hints of coarseness in it.
• The two of them exchanged glances as they both nodded in unison.
• “Why are you both acting weird?” I eyed them as I adjusted myself on the bed, sitting up to lay my back on the bed rest. “Oh God. I don’t know how I got in here but I can’t wait to get out of here. I feel like I’ve been here for ages.”
• “Well,” my mother began. “That would be because you have been in a coma for the past three years.”
• This was certainly news to me as I looked at her in shock. I wanted to talk to them and call them liars, but the looks on their faces were not like those of liars.
• Besides, I knew my parents to be straightforward people and not people who played expensive jokes like this.
• “Mum, dad,” I carefully called them out, being careful with what I was going to say next. “If this is a joke, stop it. What do you mean I’ve been in a coma for three years?”
• “It’s true,” mother confirmed her story again. “I don’t know how to say it to you or what to say to make you believe it but that’s the truth about the whole matter. I wish it was a lie, but…”
• The woman could not finish her statement as she broke into tears while her husband consoled her by patting her on the back.