What do you mean you don't know me?!

Untitled Part 4

I anxiously awaited the school day to end, Phil avoided me all day, but kept glancing at me and sending me nervous smiles. What was going on?! The final bell rang and the class streaked out of the room. Phil approached me and asked me to follow him, so I did. He led us to a classroom on the opposite end of the school, and informed me about how nobody ever uses it because the walls keep crumbling. Very safe.

He started unpacking a bunch of papers and set his laptop up on a table, patting the seat next to him. I warily joined him,

"Phil, what are we doing here exactly?"

"I think I know what happened. And how to get you out of here."

"You do?! Tell me!"

"Okay, look at this:" He turned his laptop to face me, and I saw a bunch of blinking lights and flashes of words. It kept getting brighter and I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead and the back of my neck. I was hearing snippets of sentences, whispers of words, muffled thoughts and choking tears. It was getting louder and louder, I couldn't see or hear, could barely breathe and I was smelling something....weird...the smell of plastic cleanliness and rubber gloves. The world was spinning. The ground gave way and disappeared beneath my feet. I could feel myself falling, falling deeper and deeper into the black abyss. I wanted to scream but I couldn't form a single word, thought or sound.

I tried to grab onto something, anything, to slow my descent and avoid a horrible and painful death when I met the bottom. And then I saw something. It wasn't as dark anymore. The meaningless noise I was hearing now formed into coherent words and sentences, whispers of hope. I heard a voice, Phil's voice, begging me to open my eyes. And so, I did.

I peeled my eyes open and tried blinking the blurriness out of them, trying to make sense of where I was. I wasn't in the classroom anymore. I glanced around, and saw white walls and a neat arrangement of beds and curtains. I'm in hospital? I attempted to move my arms, to sit up, and groaned at the sheer amount of effort that took.

"D-D-Dan?"

"I turned my head at the voice, and saw Phil, sitting in an armchair beside my bed, eyes puffy and hair a complete mess. His clothes were wrinkled, as though they'd been slept in for a lot more than one night. He looked at me with pure disbelief, almost not daring to hope that I was real.

"Ohmygod Dan! You're okay! You're alive!"

Life suddenly seemed to return to him and he sprang out of his chair and jumped onto me, hugging me with fierce relief. This is Phil, the real Phil, MY Phil. This is the Phil who I know and love, the Phil I was with. The most incredible sensation shook through my body and I found myself laughing and crying and hugging him with all my might. I couldn't believe it, I'd escaped the alternate realm!

"Phil, Phil what happened? Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital, you got hit by a bus on your way back home, and..and you've been in a coma for two weeks."

It was like I'd found the last piece of a puzzle under some cushion, it all made sense now. The feeling of detachment and surreality, the alternate universe, everything.

Everything I'd been through while I was in the coma came blurting out of me, I retold the entire story to Phil, who sat there with wide eyes and an open mouth, trying to comprehend the sheer amount of confusion and pain I'd felt, and trying not to lose control and burst into tears again.

When I was done he assured me that we'd go get ice cream and pancakes or anything I wanted to get my mind off of the experience, meanwhile I focused on his face, his expression, his eyes, and smiled with all the warmth I could master, and uttered

"I'm just happy that you remember me."