The smell of bleach, cleaning chemicals and artificial fragrance invaded her senses—the unmistakable, pungent smell of the twenty-first century of human civilisation.
Numbers and lines moved about on a screen next to her, just out of her peripheral, and a machine beeped steadily, repeatedly, doing her head in.
Then a man and woman in scrubs rushed into the room, followed by more others, all exclaiming some variation of "She's awake!" with a bunch of acronyms that went over her head.
It was all so familiar, yet so unfamiliar at the same time. She tried to speak, but there was a tube shoved down her throat that prevented her from doing so.
What she even wanted to say, she didn't know. She couldn't remember a thing, but she could feel a deep-seated sense of regret and a grief that rattled her to the bones.
Dazed and groggy, she wiggled her toes when people told her to and... that was all she managed before exhaustion tugged her back into darkness.
* * *
A miracle.
That was what everyone called it after Cassie woke up from a two-month coma. Everyone minus the medical professionals, who had seen it all. But certainly, to all the family and friends and relatives who had already lost hope of her waking, she was a walking miracle.
Well, not quite walking. Waking from a two-month coma meant even longer months of rehabilitation. Some two months after the 'miracle', although parts of her memory had come back to her, bit by bit each day like picking up scattered pieces of a ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, physically she was still weak and bound to a wheelchair.
Her family tried their best. Mother cooked her favourite dishes she'd loved growing up. Father brought her her favourite books. Her brother cracked his lame-ass jokes. She smiled with thanks, but nothing changed the way she felt like a broken shell.
Apparently, someone had broken into her apartment two months ago and smacked her over the head with a baseball bat. The police found signs of struggle—good, she was proud of herself. And weeks of investigations later, they determined that the mess in her apartment had been staged to look like a break-in for monetary valuables, when in fact the only item of substance that had gone missing was her laptop, which held highly confidential client files.
The current theory was that it was an attack from one of the many opponents in her many cases. It sounded like a horrible ordeal she'd suffered, but she couldn't bring herself to care.
Perhaps it was because such a lengthy coma had damaged her brain, but what she cared more about were the memories that plagued her day and night.
Memories of an entirely different world.
A world with monsters and death and loss she couldn't quite put into words.
And many more beautiful things that made up for the ugly. Like a grand palace in the middle of a lively city with uneven roads and roofs. Like dancing in a ballroom with handsome men and pretty ladies around her. Like being in the arms of a charming prince—or king?—who had eyes only for her and nothing else. Like welcoming and holding a beautiful child of her own who radiated light in the midst of darkness.
Every night, she fell asleep to these images flickering before her like a film on replay. They felt more real than her present reality, yet everyone—including the medical professionals this time—told her that it was common for patients to dream and hallucinate while comatose, and that was what these memories and experiences were: dreams and hallucinations.
"Look, Cassie, this just came for you."
She turned in her wheelchair to see her dad coming with a bright bouquet with a card attached.
YOU ARE READING
Bride to the Cursed: a Snow White retelling
Fantasy[COMPLETED] When a king makes an order, he expects it to be followed. When King Dane divorced his wife, he expected her to get out of his sight and stay out of his sight. Not reappear three months later in his bed, spouting nonsense about being a 'l...
