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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—Present life. The infirmary, year 2015—
It had been a while since these things ever happened to me.
I had never fainted after my treatments had ended, and I had never failed to control my strength for years after. I suppose, it had made me a bit reckless, thinking I was strong enough to not let them come back to me again. Not the cancer. But having loss of consciousness and being taken away by the dark that used to scare the hell out of me.
Thankfully, I was not completely out of it this time. I was not completely powerless.
I could hear the faint sound of Hara and Jiyoung screaming out my name. And I heard them screaming out for help. I could hear the rustling sounds of people surrounding me as I lied unconscious on the cold floor. I could still sense how cold the floor was, the flow of breeze when someone lifted me up, and how I was being carried by a pair of powerful hands.
That was when the darkness thickened and my dreams started to come back.
My faint memories always came back through these dreams. They came as pieces of fragments that I would later have to put together as I woke up, sometimes they kept repeating themselves until they were recorded at the back of my mind for me to recollect them later. This time, all I saw were flashes of white, a crescent-like eye smile, a soft kiss, a warm embrace from two strong hands which had the scent of antibiotics, and distant voices of hushed whispers. The sound of the whispers increased the more I listened to it, yet the words were muddled together as they came one another. Until finally they slowly subsided and turned faint, and I could hear only one voice remained.
"If only I found you first."
I woke up with a start, gasping at the tightness in my chest which pained me. Thankfully, as I took a deep breath, my body started to relax and my senses cleared. I opened my eyes to see a bright light coming from above me before I looked around with blurry eyesight.
I heard voices coming from somewhere near as I felt the stiff mattress beneath me. It was then when I looked around, seeing where I was laid down and noticing where my hands were resting on. I had one hand clutching on the sheets and was surprised to see the other gripping tightly onto a strange hand that was resting on the bed, right beside me.
"Ms. Mae, looks like our sleeping beauty is awake."
I looked up to see the owner of the unfamiliar voice, and met a pair of eyes looking down on me with a warm gaze.
"Ah—" I gasped the moment I noticed that it was neither of my friends I have been with before, or anyone I knew, in fact, and immediately pulled my hand away from his. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he said, smiling at me. "I really don't mind. Your hand is pretty soft, I kinda like it."
I squinted my hazy eyes and tried to recognise him. His voice sounded so familiar but I could not pinpoint who it was.
