A second chance.
That was what I wished for.
The one thing I prayed for every night before I sleep. The one thing I prayed for, at the very night before I woke up in an entirely different life.
A new life.
My second chance.
❈❈❈
I was 30 years old wh...
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—St. Vincent's Hospital, year 2026—
I always hated hospitals.
They always gave me this eerie feeling once I stepped foot inside them. A feeling I could not explain but enough to make me uncomfortable whenever I was in one. It could be from the air flowing within it, how they would always be filled with scents of disinfectants, antibiotics, and sometimes soap. Or perhaps the sound of whisperings; either from those who were sitting in the waiting lobbies, or those who were sitting on wheelchairs waiting for their treatments, or even the doctors and nurses who were having meetings in groups on hallways. It might also be the white marble floors, and the echoing sound made by rushed footsteps. Everything about hospitals which I despised, which then became the reason why I always stayed far away from them.
Yet there I was one eventful day, sitting in the waiting lobby, surrounded by patients of all likes—some dozing to sleep, some coughing their lungs out, some looking around anxiously just like I was—each and everyone was there waiting for our turn to meet our doctors and to finally hear the news of our fate.
All the back pains, all the headaches, and the lack of energy I had been feeling in my body for the last few weeks had become too unbearable. I even began to suffocate on cold nights, constantly feeling a burning pain in my lungs and shooting aches on my joints or bones whenever I tried to sleep. After weeks of trying my best to find my own cure, I finally surrendered and went out to get a medical check to find out if there was something wrong with my body.
It was only five days ago when I last came into this hospital for my medical checkups and tests, after going through them for three days in a row. And I returned today only to get my test results. I came in without knowing what I hoped to hear, only waiting to know what the tests would say and how they would help me cure myself.
There was not a hint of negative thoughts in my mind when they called my name from the waiting list. I was sure enough that it would be impossible for things to get even worse than what I had overcome before. I was wrong.
What came next was far than what I had prepared for.
A mass. A presumed mass, as they called it, was found through the tests which I had taken.
My eyes were plastered straight at the X-ray photographs that were shown on the computer placed on the desk in front of me. No words came out of me as I did my best to keep listening to the doctor as he explained everything to me, pointing at some parts on the photos and the listed information he had in his data.
"As you can see, these spots are spread around your spinal column. You did tell me before that you once had an accident, Mrs. Jeon?"
"Uh—yes, I did," I told him. "I was injured on my back, but it was a long time ago, Doctor."
