We The Shadow: Origins

Enter the Dream: Jean-Paul Guérin

"Sir, this is the third time you're asking us to run the tests-"

"I know. Can you just do it?"

"Uh, of course, yes, right away sir." The attendant nodded with a small sigh, stepping through the doorway into the operating room.

Placing his hand on the glass window between him and his daughter, Doctor Jean-Paul Guérin, found himself clutching at strands of hope. Or was it desperation?

Hope for his daughter to open her eyes after an eternity of floating between consciousness and death. Or desperation for him to feel her warmth in his arms after being separated for far too long?

Hope that his daughter would recover from the same plight that had taken her mother and his wife away from him. Or desperation to not be alone in this world again?

His eyes stared through the glass window pane, fixed on the group of doctors who were stood beside his daughter's bed. For a moment, he found himself staring at her coffee brown hair, before turning to the attendants. Some scribbled on notepads, others kept their attention on the numerous monitors placed around the room. It was the same process he had watched them complete twice before, only now, Jean could see that their enthusiasm had faded.

Stood in one of the many hallways of AP-HP, one of the largest hospitals in central Paris, only silence surrounded the middle aged man as his fist curled up against the glass. A weak sigh escaped his lips, the smallest sign of defeat weaved into his breath.

After his wife had fallen unwell to an illness he had never seen before, there was no option but for her to be put into a medically induced coma. As a studied neurologist, Jean had spent the majority of his life studying the brain, it's functions and the many, many, illnesses afflicting the most important organ in the human body.

And yet, even he was stumped. His wife's illness spurred him on to research the brain even more, in the hope that he would find an answer. Or was it desperation?

His wife, Roselle, was the only person who stayed by his side through the long nights of studying through university. At the time, his friends were more interested in other things, but the nature of Jean's demanding studies and longing for a future in the medical field meant that he had little choice in the matter.

Roselle was his life, his better half, his sun and the star in the night sky he turned to for light in the dark sea of loneliness.

As fate would have it, the two would go on to stay in each others' lives after university. Their love materialised into a marriage and with Jean's brilliant successes in the field of neurology, he could make it up to Roselle for the many times he had to stay back to study.

But she was already past that.

The smile in her eyes would light up Jean's heart every time he saw her and when he held his newborn baby daughter in his arms, he was sure he could die from happiness on the spot. Young Amélia would grow up with both parents in her life, with both parents to tuck her into bed at night and with both parents to smile with when she passed the entrance exam for Paris' most esteemed high school.

It was around that time, Roselle started to show the first signs of weakness.

The late night headaches turned into migraines and then into unbearable, excruciating pain.

The comfortable nights together turned into tears of a wife as she cried into the shoulder of her husband.

And Roselle was too amazing to show any of this to their daughter. So when she was put into an induced coma, Amélia was naturally confused. Jean did his best to keep his daughter's hopes up, masking his own desperation.