When I woke up, there was no light. There was no sound. There was only the sensation of a scream trapped in my throat, and a singular, jagged shard of memory.
Pain.
It wasn't just a headache. It was a physical, crushing weight, the kind that rewrites your entire existence in a split second. I remembered the screech of tires—a sound like a demon tearing through canvas. I remembered the impact.
It was a truck. Massive. Unstoppable.
I could still feel the phantom sensation of gravity betraying me. The world had flipped upside down. The car I had been in... or was I walking? No, I was in a car. I remembered the vehicle rolling, the sickening crunch of metal folding like paper.
And then, the flight.
I had been thrown out. I could recall the rush of wind, the terrifying weightlessness, and the ground rushing up to meet me. That was it. That moment of impact, of me flying away like a ragdoll, was the last thing written in the book of my life.
Everything after that was a void.
I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt like they were made of lead. Panic began to set in, a cold liquid rising in my chest.
Who am I?
The question floated in the darkness. I reached out with my mind, trying to grab onto a name, a face, an address. Anything.
What is my name? Why am I here? Who was driving the car?
Nothing. It was as if someone had taken an eraser to the whiteboard of my mind.
I tried to force it. I gritted my teeth, physically straining to pull a memory from the abyss. I focused on the concept of "Me."
ARGH!
A searing bolt of lightning tore through my skull. It wasn't just a headache; it was a punishment. It felt like a hot iron being pressed against my frontal lobe. The pain was so absolute, so blinding, that my body simply gave up.
I felt myself falling backward, not off a cliff this time, but into the soft, suffocating embrace of unconsciousness. The darkness swallowed me whole once again.
Time lost its meaning. It could have been hours, days, or years.
When consciousness returned, it didn't come with a bang, but a slow, agonizing crawl.
The first thing I noticed was the smell. Antiseptic. Bleach. Stale air conditioning. The universal scent of a place where people go to heal, or to die.
I peeled my eyes open.
"Urgh..."
I instantly regretted it. The overhead fluorescent lights were aggressive, stabbing directly into my retinas. I squeezed them shut, groaning. My head was still throbbing, though the monstrous spike of pain from before had dulled into a constant, rhythmic hammering.
"Oh! You're finally awake."
The voice came from my left. It was high-pitched, chatty, and far too energetic for someone in a hospital ward.
I squinted, letting my eyes adjust to the harsh white room. To my left, separated by a thin beige curtain that had been pulled back, was a woman.
She looked to be in her mid-thirties, sitting upright in her hospital bed with a surprising amount of vigor. She had messy brown hair and was clutching a remote control like a weapon.
"I was wondering when you'd wake up," she continued, not waiting for me to respond. "You've been out like a light. I've been watching Passions of the Valleys for three hours straight. Can you believe what Brenda did to Rodrigo?"
I stared at her, my throat dry as a desert. Who is Brenda? Who is Rodrigo? Who are YOU?
"Water..." I croaked.
She didn't seem to hear me. "I mean, I know Rodrigo cheated with the maid, but Brenda poisoning his prize-winning horse? That's just excessive, right? Or maybe it's poetic justice."
I stared at the television mounted on the wall. Actors with too much makeup were screaming at each other. I had no idea what this show was. I didn't know if I had ever seen it. Did I like soap operas?
I don't know.
The realization made my stomach churn. I didn't know my favorite TV show. I didn't know my favorite color.
"I..." I tried to speak, but the exhaustion was heavy.
I let her talk. For what felt like an hour, she narrated the lives of fictional characters, filling the silence of the room with mindless noise. In a way, it was grounding. It stopped me from thinking about the terrifying blank space in my head.
Eventually, the door to the ward whooshed open.
"Checking vitals," a soft voice announced.
A nurse walked in, checking a clipboard. She glanced at the chatty woman, gave a polite smile, and then looked at me. Her eyes widened slightly.
"Oh! Doctor! He's awake!"
She moved quickly to the wall intercom and pressed a button. "Doctor Evans, bed three is conscious."
The room suddenly became a hub of activity. The chatty woman finally stopped talking about Rodrigo's horse to watch the show.
Two figures entered the room.
The first was a woman who commanded the space immediately. She looked to be about forty, with sharp, intelligent eyes and a demeanor that screamed authority. She wore a white coat, but even through the professional attire, I—being a man, even a man with amnesia—couldn't help but notice she had a figure that the lab coat was struggling to hide. She had hidden her assets well, but not perfectly.
Trailing behind her was a young woman who looked like a carbon copy of the first, just twenty years younger.
She had the same eyes, the same nose, but none of the confidence. Her coat was slightly too big, and she held her tablet like a shield. It was like looking at a before-and-after picture. Mother and daughter, without a doubt.
"Good afternoon," the older woman said, her voice professional but not unkind. She shined a penlight into my eyes. "Can you track my finger?"
I followed the light. Left. Right. Up. Down.
"Good," she muttered, scribbling something. "I'm Doctor Evans. This is Dr. Grace, my daughter and resident. Do you know where you are?"
"Hospital," I rasped.
"Correct. Do you know why you're here?"
"Truck," I said. The image of the grill filling my vision flashed in my mind. "Accident."
"Very good. And do you know your name?"
I opened my mouth.
Say it. Just say your name.
The silence stretched out. The daughter, Dr. Grace, leaned forward nervously, biting her lip. She looked terrified that I might fail the test on her watch.
"I..." I swallowed hard. "No."
Doctor Evans didn't flinch. She nodded as if she expected this. "Retrograde amnesia. It's not uncommon with severe head trauma. It often clears up as the swelling goes down."
"Does anything feel different?" the daughter asked. Her voice was softer than her mother's, shaky. "Numbness in the toes? Blurred vision?"
"Just... my head," I said. "And I'm tired."
"That is to be expected," the mother said, stepping in front of her daughter to check the machines hooked up to me.
They spent the next twenty minutes asking standard medical questions. Does this hurt? Can you feel this? Squeeze my hand.
I answered as best I could, but frustration was bubbling up inside me like lava.
I wanted to grab Doctor Evans by the shoulders and shake her. I wanted to scream. Stop asking me about my toes! Tell me who I am! Check my wallet! Call my family! Do I have a family?
But every time I tried to ask, they deflected.
"Rest is the priority right now," Evans said, patting my shoulder dismissively.
"But my name—"
"We are running checks on your admission details," she said smoothly. "Police are involved regarding the accident. For now, you need to stabilize. Grace, check his IV."
The young doctor fumbled with the bag, her hands trembling slightly under her mother's gaze.
It went on like this for the whole day. Nurses came in, changed IV bags, and left. The young doctor, Grace, came back once to ask if I was allergic to penicillin.
"I don't know!" I snapped. "I don't know anything!"
She flinched, looking like I had slapped her, and scurried away.
By the time evening rolled around, I was exhausted physically and emotionally. I had no energy to stand my ground. I felt like a ghost haunting my own body.
The sun began to set, casting long, orange shadows across the sterile room. I was getting angry. The frustration was a physical weight in my gut.
As Doctor Evans did her final rounds, I opened my mouth to shout, to demand answers, to demand that they treat me like a person and not a medical puzzle.
"That's it for today," Evans announced, cutting me off before I could make a sound. She closed her folder with a snap. "We will meet tomorrow for further tests. Try to sleep."
"But—"
"Sleep," she ordered.
And just like that, I was wheeled back to my designated spot. The curtains were drawn halfway.
I lay there, fuming. I kept my mouth shut because I had no other choice.
The hospital grew quiet. The bustling sounds of the day—the squeak of rubber shoes, the announcements over the intercom, the rattling of carts—faded away, replaced by the hum of the air conditioner and the rhythmic beeping of heart monitors.
As soon as the night nurse left the room and dimmed the lights, the silence was broken.
"You know, my husband never visits," the voice drifted from the other side of the curtain.
It was the lady in her 30s. The soap opera fan.
I stared at the ceiling, praying she would stop.
"He says he's busy with work," she continued, her voice bitter. "But I smell her perfume on him. He thinks I'm stupid. He thinks because I'm sick, I don't notice."
She started ranting. She listed every grievance she had against this man. He didn't take out the trash. He forgot their anniversary. He looked at other women.
I listened as much as I could, mostly out of politeness, but my eyelids were heavy. The drugs they had pumped into me were doing their job. Her voice became a drone, a background noise that eventually pulled me down into a fitful sleep.
I woke up in the pitch black.
The hospital was silent. The only light came from the crack under the door.
I blinked, trying to figure out what had woken me up.
Then I heard it.
Whimper.
It was coming from the bed next to me.
The lady. She was crying.
It started soft, just little catches of breath.
Haa... Haa...
I felt a pang of sympathy. She had spent hours complaining about her husband earlier. Clearly, she was heartbroken. She was alone in a hospital, sick, and her marriage was falling apart. It was tragic, really.
I turned on my side, facing away from her curtain, trying to give her privacy. I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep.
Haa... Ahhh...
The crying got slightly louder. It was rhythmic.
Oh... oh god...
I frowned. It was a strange way to cry. It was very breathless.
Haa... Nngh...
Wait.
I lay frozen in my bed, my eyes wide open in the dark. The rhythmic sound of the bed frame squeaking slightly joined the vocalizations.
The noise was clear as day now.
That wasn't the sound of sorrow. That wasn't the sound of a broken heart.
I realized with a jolt that she wasn't crying.
Those were soft moans.
The rustling of sheets became frantic. The breathing became faster, sharper.
She was masturbating.
I stared at the wall, the beep of my heart monitor speeding up just a little bit, thinking about the long, awkward morning that awaited me tomorrow.