The door opened with that particular hospital-door whoosh that sounded like someone deflating a very large balloon. Miss Johnson sailed back in, carrying a clipboard and radiating the kind of cheerfulness that could probably cure depression through sheer force of will.
"Well, well! Look who's sitting up and looking human again!" She parked herself next to my bed. "How are we feeling, hon? Scale of one to ten, with ten being 'ready to run a marathon' and one being 'please just let me become one with the mattress.'"
I considered this carefully. Physically, I felt pretty good—better than I had any right to after being unconscious for thirty-six hours. Mentally, I was still processing the fact that either I'd experienced something completely impossible, or my brain had decided to take a very creative vacation from reality.
"Maybe a seven or seven and half?" I said, my voice still carrying traces of the sandpaper quality but much improved from my earlier croaking attempts. "Like I could probably walk to the bathroom without face-planting, but I wouldn't trust myself with anything requiring fine motor skills."
"Excellent!" She made a note on her clipboard with a flourish. "And headache? Nausea? Any dizziness when you sit up?"
I took inventory. My head felt clear, my stomach was behaving itself now that it had food, and the world remained steadily in focus. "Nope. Pretty much back to normal."
"Wonderful. Now..." Her expression shifted to that particular brand of professional concern that nurses had probably been perfecting since Florence Nightingale. "I need to ask you a few questions about what happened. Do you remember anything about Sunday night? Before you lost consciousness?"
Here it was. The moment where I had to decide whether to be honest about the interdimensional lottery ticket situation, or spin a story that wouldn't result in a psychiatric evaluation.
I glanced at my mom, who was leaning forward with the kind of attention usually reserved for crucial plot points in soap operas. Her eyes held that mixture of worry and curiosity that meant she'd been wondering the same thing but hadn't wanted to stress me out by asking.
The smart play was obvious. Tell them something believable, something that fit into the nice, orderly world of medical explanations and rational causes. The alternative was trying to convince a healthcare professional that I'd been abducted by a holographic computer system after being given a magic lottery ticket by someone who looked like they'd raided the costume department of a low-budget sci-fi movie.
"I was working my shift," I said, settling into the lie with the ease of someone who'd spent years explaining why homework assignments were late. "Just standing behind the counter, doing the usual night-shift stuff. Reading, mostly. Then I started feeling... weird."
Miss Johnson's pen hovered over her clipboard. "Weird how?"
"Dizzy. Like the room was tilting." I paused, adding details that would make the story more convincing. "And kind of nauseous? Like when you stand up too fast, but it just kept getting worse instead of going away."
This wasn't entirely false. The moments before the blue screen had appeared were fuzzy in my memory, possibly because my brain had been too busy trying to process the impossible to catalog the mundane details.
"Did you eat dinner that night? Drink enough water?"
I nodded, though honestly I couldn't remember what I'd eaten. "Yeah, I think so. I mean, I brought snacks from home like always."
"Any history of fainting? Low blood pressure? Diabetes in the family?"
"No, nothing like that." Mom chimed in, her voice carrying the authority of someone who'd filled out every medical form known to mankind. "He's always been healthy. Never had any problems like this before."
Miss Johnson made more notes, her pen scratching across the paper with the sound of bureaucracy in action. "And you don't remember anything after feeling dizzy? No one coming into the store? No unusual customers?"
The image of the rainbow-colored person flashed through my mind—those enormous goggles, the craft beer, the way they'd stared at me like I was a particularly interesting specimen in a lab. But admitting to that would lead to questions I couldn't answer without sounding completely insane.
"Nothing," I said. "Just the dizziness getting worse, and then I woke up here."
She nodded, apparently satisfied with this explanation. "Well, that certainly sounds like a simple fainting episode. Could be dehydration, low blood sugar, stress, lack of sleep—any number of things. The important thing is you're feeling better now."
She flipped to a fresh page on her clipboard. "One more question, and I'm sorry if this seems intrusive, but I have to ask. Were you robbed? Did anyone threaten you or hurt you? Sometimes people don't remember traumatic events right away."
I shook my head. "No, definitely not. The register was still locked when I woke up, right? All the money was still there?"
"As far as we know, yes. Your coworker—Judy?—she found you behind the counter around seven in the morning. Said everything looked normal except for you being unconscious on the floor."
The image of Judy discovering me was both mortifying and oddly touching. She probably panicked, called 911, and then spent the entire ambulance ride fussing over me like a grandmother whose favorite grandchild had scraped a knee.
"So no signs of a struggle, no evidence of theft," Miss Johnson continued. "Which is good news, obviously. Sometimes these fainting episodes can be scary, but they're usually harmless."
She stood up, tucking the clipboard under her arm with the satisfied air of someone who'd successfully completed a task. "I'm going to go update the doctor on your condition. He'll probably want to run a couple more tests, just to be safe, but from what I can see, you're responding beautifully."
"Tests?" Mom's voice carried that particular parental edge that appeared whenever medical professionals mentioned doing things to her children.
"Nothing dramatic," Miss Johnson assured her. "Probably just some blood work, maybe an EKG to check your heart rhythm. Standard stuff for unexplained fainting episodes. Better safe than sorry, you know?"
She headed for the door, then paused and turned back with a grin. "Oh, and hon? Next time you're working those late shifts, make sure you're eating regularly and staying hydrated. Night shifts are hard on the body, especially when you're young and think you're invincible."
The door whooshed shut behind her, leaving me alone with my mom and the lingering scent of industrial disinfectant.
"Dizzy and nauseous?" Mom asked immediately, her eyes narrowing with the laser focus of someone who'd just detected a potential inconsistency in a story. "You didn't mention that before. Have you been feeling sick lately?"
"Not sick, exactly," I said, scrambling to maintain the narrative I'd just constructed. "Just... you know how night shifts are. They mess with your sleep schedule, make you feel off sometimes."
This was actually true. Working nights did make you feel like you were living in a parallel dimension where normal human biology didn't apply. But it was also a convenient excuse for any vague symptoms I might need to explain away.
She reached over and placed her hand on my forehead again, checking for fever with the same automatic precision she'd probably been using since I was two years old. "Your temperature feels normal. But maybe you should think about getting a different job. Something with regular hours that doesn't have you standing around all night in an empty store."
"Mom, I'm fine. It was just one incident."
"One incident where you collapsed unconscious for thirty-six hours," she pointed out with the devastating logic that mothers wielded like surgical instruments. "That's not 'just' anything."
Before I could respond, the door opened again. Dr. Martinez—I'd finally caught his name from his badge during one of his earlier visits—walked in with the measured pace of someone who'd learned that rushing around a hospital usually caused more problems than it solved.
"Good evening," he said, nodding to both of us. "I hear you're feeling much better."
"Yeah, pretty much back to normal," I said.
He pulled out a small flashlight and approached the bed. "Mind if I do a quick check? Just want to make sure everything's functioning as it should."
The next few minutes passed in the familiar ritual of medical examination. Follow the light with your eyes. Squeeze my hands. Can you feel this? Any pain here? He listened to my heart, checked my reflexes, and asked me to perform various simple tasks that proved my brain was still connected to my body in all the appropriate ways.
"Reflexes are good, pupils are responsive, coordination is normal," he muttered, more to himself than to us. "Blood pressure is fine, heart rate is fine..."
He stepped back and made some notes on what I was beginning to recognize as the universal hospital prop—the clipboard that never left any medical professional's hands.
"Well, I have to say, you seem to be in excellent health," he announced. "Whatever caused your fainting episode, it doesn't appear to have left any lasting effects."
"So he's okay?" Mom asked, though her tone suggested she wouldn't be fully convinced until I'd lived another forty years without incident.
"From what I can see, yes. His vital signs are all normal, his neurological responses are appropriate, and he reports feeling well." Dr. Martinez turned to me. "Any lingering symptoms? Headaches, confusion, memory problems?"
I shook my head. "Nothing like that. I feel... normal. Like it never happened."
"Good. That's exactly what we want to hear." He paused, considering. "However, I would like to keep you overnight for observation. Unexplained loss of consciousness can sometimes have delayed effects, and I'd rather be cautious."
The disappointment must have shown on my face, because he smiled. "I know, nobody wants to spend an extra night in the hospital. But thirty-six hours is a significant period of time to be unconscious. We want to make sure there's no underlying condition we're missing."
"Is that really necessary?" Mom asked. "He seems fine."
"Most likely, he is fine," Dr. Martinez agreed. "But sometimes conditions like seizure disorders, cardiac arrhythmias, or even blood sugar issues can cause fainting episodes and then go dormant for a while before surfacing again. One night of monitoring will give us a much better picture of what we're dealing with."
I wanted to argue, to insist that I was perfectly healthy and ready to go home. But the rational part of my brain—the part that wasn't still trying to process impossible blue screens and interdimensional lottery systems—recognized that he was being reasonable. If I really had just fainted from perfectly normal medical causes, then spending one more night under observation was a small price to pay for peace of mind.
And if something genuinely weird had happened to me, well... maybe it was better to be in a hospital if any delayed effects decided to manifest.
"Okay," I said. "One more night."
Dr. Martinez nodded approvingly. "We'll do some blood work in the morning, just to rule out any metabolic issues. If everything comes back normal, you'll be discharged after lunch."
He moved toward the door, then paused. "Oh, and son? Make sure you're taking care of yourself. Regular meals, adequate sleep, proper hydration. Night shift work can be hard on young people, and your body was probably telling you to slow down."
After he left, Mom spent another hour fussing over me. She adjusted my blankets, fluffed my pillows, and asked approximately fifty variations of "Are you sure you're feeling okay?" before finally accepting that I was, in fact, not going to spontaneously collapse again in her presence.
"I should get going," she said eventually, though she made no move to actually leave. "It's getting late, and I have to work tomorrow."
"Mom, go home. Get some actual sleep in an actual bed." I gestured toward the fold-out chair that had been serving as her accommodation. "That thing can't have been comfortable."
"It wasn't that bad," she lied with the transparent dishonesty of someone who'd probably woken up with cricks in muscles she'd forgotten she had.
"Go," I insisted. "I'm fine, the doctors say I'm fine, and sitting here watching me sleep isn't going to accomplish anything except making you exhausted."
She stood up reluctantly, gathering her purse and the jacket she'd draped over the back of the chair. "Promise me you'll call if you need anything. Anything at all."
"I promise."
"And if you start feeling dizzy again, or nauseous, or anything weird—"
"I'll hit the call button immediately."
She leaned down and kissed my forehead, a gesture so familiar and comforting that it made my chest tight with emotion I wasn't prepared to deal with. "I'll be back first thing in the morning to pick you up."
"And Mom? Thank you. For sitting here, for taking care of everything, for... you know. Being here."
Her eyes got that watery look that meant she was fighting back tears. "That's what moms are for, sweetie."
After she left, the room felt simultaneously larger and smaller. Larger because I was no longer sharing it with another person's presence and energy. Smaller because I was alone with my thoughts, and my thoughts were circling around the events of Sunday night like vultures around roadkill.
I lay back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling, which featured the kind of acoustic tiles that suggested the hospital had been built sometime in the 1970s and hadn't been updated since. Each tile had dozens of tiny holes that created patterns if you looked at them long enough—faces, animals, abstract shapes that probably said more about the observer's mental state than about the tiles themselves.
The rational explanation was obvious and comforting. I'd been working too many late shifts, not eating properly, probably dehydrated from surviving on energy drinks and vending machine coffee. My body had finally said "enough" and shut down for a little while. Simple. Medical. Explainable.
The alternative explanation involved interdimensional lottery systems and mysterious people in rainbow outfits and technology that defied everything I understood about physics and reality.
One of these explanations resulted in me going home tomorrow and maybe switching to day shifts. The other resulted in... what? Becoming some kind of protagonist in a story I didn't understand, with powers I couldn't control and responsibilities I hadn't asked for?
I closed my eyes and tried to let sleep take over. Tomorrow I'd go home, return to my normal life, and this whole experience would become just another weird story to tell at parties. The kind of story that got embellished over time until it bore no resemblance to what actually happened.
But as I drifted off to sleep, I couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had happened to me on Sunday night, it was far from over.