A Key To Another World

Chapter twenty-three

It was now the middle of the night and Michael was sitting on the hospital bed unable to fall asleep. His parents were gone now that visiting hours were over, but they would be back in about eight hours. He couldn't move properly because of the pain, even with the nurse giving him pain medication, and he was all alone. He hated it, all of it.

If only there was a way to get back to my dream. Do I have to go back into a coma to do that?

A brilliant idea popped into his head. What if he hit his head so hard that he went back into a coma? Would he return to Xenonan and his girlfriend or would he have a completely new experience? Would it be a good dream or a nightmare? After thinking for a while, he decided against it. It wasn't worth the risk.

Curiosity got the better of him when he spotted a drawer right next to his hospital bed. He just managed to reach it and opened it. Inside were some papers, pencils, a remote control for the small TV and the last thing that caught his interest, his smartphone.

It was barely recognizable. There were scratches everywhere, and the display was completely covered with cracks. But it still worked, somehow, when Michael booted it up by pressing the power button. The image on the display was blurry and the touchscreen didn't work properly in the upper half.

If it really was just a dream, would the pictures and videos with me and Zoe have disappeared?

He tapped the gallery icon several times because it was taking too long to open. But when he scrolled through the gallery, there were no recently taken pictures and videos, the last one was almost a year ago when Michael took pictures of the drawings he had done then. He sighed sadly, turned off his smartphone and threw it back in the drawer.

Maybe a little TV will help me feel better. Man, it's been a long time! I hope they still have those old cartoons I loved to watch as a kid.

As soon as Michael hit the on button on the remote, the news started playing on the TV. A man named Steven stood behind his desk holding a stack of papers.

Steven: "Good night, I'm Steven, the news reporter who is supposed to brief you in the middle of the night, and it's now twelve o'clock at night."

There was a pause and the news reporter cleared his throat.

Steven: "A few days ago, an unknown explosion occurred here in this city that took the life of a nineteen-year-old girl named Jennie."

A picture of the girl was shown. Her hair was blonde and long, and she had hazel green eyes. Michael recognized her immediately. It was the girl who had bullied him that day at school. Her appearance caused a shock in him and he clutched the remote control so tightly that the plastic creaked.

That fucking bitch of a whore!

The scene switched back to the news reporter.

Steven: "Today I have a guest on the show with me and he has assured me that he knows more than all of us because he was there when the event happened. Peterson, please explain to all the people watching us right now what you experienced that day."

Peterson... Was this the guy that saved my life?

The scene changed again, this time showing a man in his mid-forties standing in front of a house. The streets were blocked, the windows of the surrounding houses and cars were broken, and the police were everywhere.

Peterson: "Good night everybody. It's been exactly two days since it happened. I happened to be walking home from work that night. As I turned around the block, I saw this young girl walking on the other side. Suddenly I heard a loud zooming sound, some kind of missile flying towards her. I don't know exactly what it was, but it was coming from some rooftop. It exploded and threw her limbs in all directions, it was horrible! All the windows nearby shattered in the explosion and all the alarms on the cars nearby were wailing!"