The world, which had been a frantic battlefield of memory and confusion moments ago, was now a perfect, silent tableau. Her presence alone had muted the clamor of the dining hall, transforming the chaotic sea of students into a distant, incomprehensible hum.
The sight of her—slender, beautiful, with an effortless calm that made the world around her seem to fall away—was a sudden, sharp ache in my chest. To look at her was to witness a grace I could only ever be an audience to.
In that instant, my mind was no longer in the dining hall. It was a chaotic rush of a thousand memories I had a hard time burying for years—of silent libraries and chance encounters in hallways, of the curve of her smile and the impossible way it lit up a room.
These were not just thoughts; they were echoes of a life I had spent decades replaying. And now, all those unsaid words, all that quiet longing, came rushing back to me with a force that took my breath away.
"What are you staring at?" the boy beside me asked, his voice a distant hum pulling me back. He tugged impatiently at my arm, his face a mix of youthful curiosity and hunger.
"The food line's over here. Come on."
My eyes, however, were fixed on her. My body, once a heavy cage of overindulgence, now felt impossibly light, almost hollow, as if the person I had become had been shed in the fall.
I moved with a jarring agility I hadn't possessed in decades, my feet taking impossibly fast steps. Yet my mind was elsewhere, my gaze fixed on the ground in a trance-like state, a phantom of her silhouette still burned behind my eyelids.
The mundane act of moving towards the queue, away from her, felt like a betrayal of a moment I had waited a lifetime for. But he was stronger, and with a final, unyielding pull, he started to move me in the opposite direction, towards the serving area. The cold ceramic of the plate now in my hand felt alien, a tangible piece of a world that no longer felt real.
I stumbled along, my mind still reeling. The chaos of the dining hall rushed back in, a sensory overload of noise, motion, and the aroma of savory dishes. The queue stretched out, a winding serpent of uniforms, each student a vibrant, noisy burst of youthful energy.
I felt the strange, forgotten sensation of my own quickened breath, the lightness in my limbs that felt both exhilarating and terrifying. My friend guided me toward the correct line, and the simple act of waiting felt strangely alien.
"This is our line, for class 10-B," he said, his words a bright, cheerful noise.
"We're almost at the front, we just need to get our food and we can talk more before the orientation starts."
I just nodded, a non-committal hum from a throat that felt tight with all the things I couldn't say.
Finally, we reached the front. A kind-faced kitchen lady, her uniform crisp and white, smiled as she ladled a generous scoop of steaming white rice onto my plate, followed by a mound of fluffy scrambled eggs. The rich, comforting scent of the food filled my nostrils, a primal memory of simpler mornings.
My friend then led me to a station where I poured a stream of dark, hot chocolate-flavored milk into a waiting cup. The warmth of the mug in my hand was a small, grounding comfort in a world that spun with impossibility.
We navigated the crowded tables, the air thick with the murmur of a hundred conversations, until my friend found two empty seats near a bustling group. He slid into one, already digging into his breakfast with the unbridled appetite of a teenage boy.
"So, what do you think about the new schedule?" he mumbled between bites, his mouth full. I picked up my spoon, the metal cold against my fingers, and stirred the eggs on my plate. His words were just background noise in the face of the questions raging inside my head. Every bite felt mechanical, a hollow echo of nourishment.
My gaze, though ostensibly on the steaming rice, kept pulling towards the far corner, drawn by an invisible thread. The fear was a cold knot in my stomach, a counterpoint to the impossible warmth that threatened to bloom.
Was this a cruel trick of a dying mind?
A final, vivid hallucination before the fall claimed me completely?
Or had the universe, in some unfathomable act of grace, truly granted me this impossible return?
The thought was intoxicating, terrifying. To hope, after decades of resignation, felt like an act of profound vulnerability. Yet, the very air she breathed across the hall, the faint echo of her laughter carried on the din, made it impossible not to.
Could this solid form truly be her, or just another trick of a desperate mind? I was terrified of allowing myself to believe in this fleeting moment, to feel the impossible warmth of that hope, only for it to shatter, again.
With the brief reprieve of the queue and the settled quiet of our table, I finally lifted my gaze. My eyes darted across the vast space, past the sea of uniforms, until they found her again.
She was still there, leaning casually against the pillar, a beautiful, unapproachable reality. She was talking to a friend, a look of quiet amusement on her face. The casual grace of her hand as it lifted a cup was so familiar, so achingly real.
I had spent so long mourning a phantom of the past, grieving a life that never was, and now here she was, solid and breathing and not even a hundred feet away.
All of the regret that had fueled my sleepless night and my tragic fall coalesced not into a purpose, but into a desperate, silent prayer: don't let this be another lie.