I Know Places - Ziam AU

23. Deja Vu

Trisha rushed immediately to the hospital after she received a phone call from the police. It felt like her world was crumbling apart all over again.

Just a few years ago she lost her husband, and a few months ago she almost lost her one and only son due to the air plane accident, resulted she had to let go of her son in law and her very first grandchild. Now she couldn't lose the only one left in her life.

Once she arrived, she walked fast to the hospital receptionist. "Zayn Malik," her voice was hoarse and thick because all of the crying. "Where is he?" She managed to be as calm as she could. "Where is my son?"

"Right here, please." A nurse that was standing nearby led her to the ICU's where Zayn was being taken care of.

Trisha gasped at the sight of her son. He was dying. His body was attached to several machines she had no idea of all the function, but she knew her son's life depended on those machines.

She approached the bed and leaned down to cup Zayn's face carefully, afraid that she'd hurt the fragile boy. His face was full of bruises and cuts, his lips were no longer chapped with reddish, his eyes were swollen in his favorite color; the form of back, blue and purple. She also noticed his cheeks were a bit sunken. The sight totally made her heart clench. It was all like a deja vu all over again.

Zayn looked so far away from her.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Ma'am. But could you please fill in the information forms?" The nurse asked politely, handing some papers to her. Trisha nodded her head, filling in the empty spaces in the forms.

"He was found stuck between the steering wheel and the seat in the car. Thankfully his legs are fine." Trisha gave the nurse a small smile, before looking back at Zayn sadly. "The eyewitness who helped him and called for a help told the police that your son kept calling someone's name weakly before he passed out, but to the police's confusion, your son was alone in the car and seen as the one who was driving the car." The nurse continued explaining. "And it wasn't looked like an accidental accident, the eyewitness said it seemed like Mr. Malik here do it on purpose. He lost the control of the wheel on purpose."

Trisha handed the forms back to the nurse once everything in it has answered correctly. "It's his husband," She then held her son's hand–the one with no IV attached–and kissed it softly, gripping it gently in her hands. "We just lost him." She said quietly, shaking her head.

The nurse gave her and her son a sympathetic look, "I'm really sorry to hear that.. Some people would actually do things out of their minds because their deep condolences toward someone who really meant the most for them."

"You're right," Trisha whispered, holding her tears back.

"The doctor will come back here to check him up again for any further injuries." The nurse said before excused herself out.

No long after, a man in his late-forties wearing a white coat with stethoscope around his neck stepped into the ICU's. "Good evening, Mrs. Malik." He greeted. "Good evening, doc." Trisha moved a little away from her son, giving Dr. Smith a space to check Zayn's vitals.

"Will he be okay?" Trisha couldn't hold the urge of asking. It was like a deja vu after all. Asking the same doctor the same question at the same place and on the same person, all in several months ago. Dr. Smith only hummed at the question, instead he asked one to her,

"How was he doing so far? I suppose the 'hallucination' continued?" He checked his watch while pressing his forefinger and his middlefinger to Zayn's neck, where his veins pulsing. Dr. Smith's not only a general practitioner, but also a physiologist who took care of Zayn after the airplane accident and since he was a kid.

Trisha let out a sigh, "yes it did, and it's getting worse until now." She massaged her forehead because she was so stressed out, but seeing the reaction Dr. Smith gave out it seemed like Zayn will be alright. "The nurse just told me the detail of the accident. He was seen alone. I was thinking that he fantasied Liam was there with him."

The doctor nodded, was not surprised at all because this kind of thing commonly happened to some of his patients who's through the same syndrome. Of course, to those patients who were too deep in their fantasy world. And Zayn is one of the most chronic ones.

"H-he was actually running away from me." Trisha admitted. "I told him everything you've explained about this syndrome, he wasn't having it and didn't want to believe me. But he saw it himself firstly, when he was on a vacation with Liam.. He told me that 'they' took a picture and Liam wasn't there. He phoned me and cried to me and I told him to go home, so I could explain to him everything he's looking for. I couldn't have it anymore, I can't keep hiding things from my son." She sniffed, wiping the tears in the corner of her eyes. "He then took his car key and talked just as if Liam was there, he walked out of the house and it was like he was holding someone's hand, in fact no one was there! Liam wasn't there... I don't know who's gone mad.. Me or him." She covered her face, couldn't help herself but blowing up in front of Dr. Smith, let alone in the ICU's. Lucky there were only the three of them.

Dr. Smith approached her and rubbed her back in comforting manner. It must be hard for a parent to see their child acting that way.

"There's nothing we can really do about this. The only thing that can stop Zayn from living in his fantasy is his own self." Until this day, Dr. Smith was still trying to figure out of why this syndrome just started for Zayn when he was becoming an adult, meanwhile to the other fantasy prone persons, it'd just started at their younger age. But for Zayn, it started right after his head collided with the ground from the heights, along with the amnesia.

"But what can I do to convince him?" Trisha asked helplessly.

"Spend more time with him, then on, he would adapt to the new condition of his life. He would slowly forgetting about his husband." Dr. Smith nodded his head, he tried to assure himself of his own statement too. Because, really, everyone would just become helpless when it came to healing Zayn's rare, chronic, syndrome. "Liam was surely the last person or thing he had in his mind before the explosion. It does make sense if he keeps fantasizing about him, even after he lost his memory."

Trisha only nodded at that, because she always thought of the same thing. And she couldn't deny the fact that her son's soul was confused of where its half gone—where Liam's soul gone.

"But, Mrs. Malik," Dr. Smith dragged her out of her thoughts. "Yes?" She could tell that Dr. Smith was trying to get into something he had in his mind by the furrowed eyebrows and his narrowed eyes.

"Do you really think that Mr. Payne has already died?"