Slowly and Painfully ー ✓

Chapter 52: The Dream, the Painter, and the Musician

Stars.

The first sight I beheld once I had fluttered my eyes open were stars.

The plastic glow-in-the-dark stars that I ordered for a cheap price online, customized with some DIY decorations, and pasted on my bedroom ceiling.

Wait, what?!

I horrendously gasped like a resuscitated person who almost drowned. I felt suffocated, drenched—yet my body was completely dry. No broken bones. Muscles physically fine. My lungs seized the air. I impulsively kicked something soft and light off the mattress.

Mattress. My fingers curled its edge as I glanced down, seeing the checkered woven fabric on parquet flooring. That is my blanket. My thoughts were too fast for my mouth to keep up with. I tugged onto my pink floral sleeves. This is my bed. I am wearing my pajamas.

Up ahead, I saw a wooden table. Notebooks, pens, and a variety of highlighters were cluttered all over it. Ah, my study desk. I began to recollect that it was supposed to be used for studying, but the contradicting tidiness of paintbrushes and color pencils kept in aesthetically pleasing glass jars indicated my purposes otherwise.

Images of my childhood, my daily routine, and my recent class sessions in the 21st century ran through me like a slap of reality. Briar Rosette. That's me. The one and only.

I could barely contain myself, accidentally bashing the back of my head against the shelves on the wall behind me. The sketchbooks and the watercolor pads lost their balance. They fell flat on the wooden boards along with the other art books and literatures that I use for references.

I think I made an incredibly loud sound that can stifle a neighbor's snore. Not as loud as firearms but...

Gosh, did I actually compare my literal headbang to a friggin firearm?

Soon, I heard footsteps approaching my bedroom door. It swung open with helter-skelter motion, revealing a woman in white nightclothes and funny mismatched slippers. She must've hurried, really hurried.

"M-Mom?" I asked, eyes enlarging.

She rushed towards the bed and hugged me tightly, examining me with a concerned gaze. "What's wrong, my daughter?"

It's been a while since I last received that question at the other end of the line.

Although I was undeniably emotional, I was never the type to let the waterworks fall, especially in front of my parents. Whenever they left me alone in the house because of emergency meetings and urgent business calls, little Briar Rosette never cried, never whined by the doorstep. She only did such during their absence, sobbing usually at dinnertime as she heated and ate the precooked meals alone. She wanted to seem independent, indifferent. She believed being weak would disappoint her role models that led very busy lives.

I believed being weak would make me unhappy.

But right now, just by being wrapped around my mother's arms, I was washed over with immense relief and security.

Home.

I'm finally home.

Huh? What do I mean with finally?

All of a sudden, pictures of scenarios clicked and crammed into my head. It flashed, then vanished. In repeat. Flash and vanish. Flash and vanish. I held onto the imageries like hanging onto a ridiculously thin thread of vividness and otherworldly sensations. I held onto them firmly, reviving a realm that I once breathed in, a body that I once possessed.

Then, I recalled someone.

A cliff. Hands. Warm hands. My legs were running, leaping. River not too far down below. And... And...