~Alexander~
"CLEAR!" The word detonates in my mind, a verbal thunderclap that kick-starts my heart into a frenzied rhythm. My body jerks as life surges back through veins that had resigned to stillness. Air floods my lungs in a ragged, desperate rush, and my eyes snap open to a bleached-white blur.
I'm sitting upright, my chest heaving as if I've just broken the surface from the depths of a dark ocean. The faces encircling me are a mixture of clinical detachment and wide-eyed disbelief. Doctors and nurses, clad in their scrubs, masks dangling beneath their chins, are frozen mid-movement, their expressions mirroring the shock of a miracle they can't quite comprehend.
But it's not their amazed faces that anchor me to reality; it's the sudden, piercing recollection of her—Tabby. The memory cuts sharper than any scalpel, more precise than any defibrillator's jolt. I died that night in the woods. The realization is a cold splash of dread. Tabby, she's out there, she's vulnerable, she's... she's only 11.
A surge of adrenaline kickstarts my limbs into action. I throw the sheets off, the hospital gown clinging to me like a shroud I'm desperate to shed. "Tabby..." The word is a wheeze, a vow, a promise as I attempt to vault off the bed.
But hands—firm and insistent—press against my shoulders, coaxing me back down onto the stiff hospital mattress.
"No, you need to rest," a stern voice instructs, more accustomed to obedience than resistance.
Rest? The word is laughable. Rest is a luxury afforded to those not haunted by the image of an 11-year-old girl alone and scared, a girl who thinks the only person who's ever cared for her is gone. But I'm not gone. Not yet.
The restraint ignites my frustration, transforming it into a seething, primal anger. "You don't understand," I growl, my voice gravelly, raw from disuse or screaming—I can't tell which.
I make another attempt to rise, my muscles coiling, ready to fight against the well-meaning imprisonment of medical protocol. But the hands are relentless, and I'm forced back, pinned by the sheer number of them. My heart hammers, a caged animal within my chest, each beat a drum call to action.
They don't know. They can't know. Tabby needs me. I have to get to her. I have to save her. The thought is a loop, a mantra that fuels my struggle. She's out there, and time is a currency that's slipping through my fingers like sand.
"Sir, please, you just woke up from your deathbed!" The urgency in the doctor's voice claws at me, but it's like he's speaking from the other end of a long, echoing tunnel. His words, meant to tether me to caution, only urge me to break free faster. I can't afford their shock, their whispers of a car wreck, their pity that I'm the sole survivor of a tragedy I have no memory of. They don't understand that the man they saved isn't the man lying in this bed.
The same doctor who brought me back with a jolt of electricity tries to tell me more, but his voice is a distant buzz against the forefront of my mind. New memories crowd into my consciousness. Kyle. That's me now. I'm 21, and my family—no, his family—is gone, torn away by the same accident that nearly claimed this body.
A sharp sting pricks the corners of my eyes, and I'm blinking back tears for people I never met, mourning losses that aren't mine. The doctors, sensing my distress, finally give me space, leaving me alone on the hospital bed, though they would never understand my battlefield of conflicting emotions.
I hate this—the invasion of grief that belongs to someone else. It's an emotional hangover, a part of the process when I jump into a new life. It always fades, but the initial wave is a brutal reminder that I'm trapped in a cycle of borrowed time and borrowed hearts.
When the tears dry up, survival kicks in. I need to know where I am, how long they might keep me here. My gaze sweeps the room, hunting for clues, when a chill realization hits me. There's a void where there should be sensation—my legs. Panic, a living thing, thrashes in my chest. I can't feel my legs.
I reach out with a trembling hand and hit the call button next to the bed. The wait is a short eternity, my mind racing with questions, fears, and plans I need to make. I have to get out of here, have to find Tabby, have to—
The door opens, and a nurse walks in, his presence a calm in the eye of my storm. He's about my age, with soft grey eyes that carry a quiet understanding and brown hair that flops over his forehead.
I take a deep breath, trying to steady the tremor in my voice. "I can't feel my legs. Am I—?" The question dangles, too heavy to finish. But he's already nodding, a silent confirmation of my fears.
I'm in a new world now, bound to a wheelchair, but my resolve doesn't waver. I'm Kyle, I'm 21, and I have a mission that won't wait for grief or paralysis. I will find Tabby, no matter what it takes.
Lying in the sterile white of the hospital bed, the stiff sheets rustling with every shallow breath I take, the numbness where my legs should be feels like the cruelest joke. "Why can't I feel my legs?" The question slips out, laced not with fear for me, but for Tabby. How am I supposed to reach her if I'm stuck in this bed, if my legs won't carry me?
I'm not scared about not walking again for me. No, it's the way this paralysis throws a wrench into the urgent gears of my plans. How do you sprint across forests and fields to a hidden campsite when you can't even stand?
A dark thought creeps in. I've never ended a life—my life—on purpose before. But the option flashes in my mind like a warning light. If it means getting back to Tabby faster, should I? Would I? But the gamble is too great. I could come back as a baby, and that's time I can't afford to lose. Time Tabby doesn't have.
A bitter laugh almost escapes my lips, but it gets caught in the tightness of my throat. How did everything get so messed up? Why did I have to storm out of the tent like some sulky child? If only I'd stayed, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe Tabby and I would be on the road right now, far from anyone or anything that could hurt us.
But regrets are as useless as my legs at this moment. They won't bring Tabby back to me any faster. They won't heal the cold, empty space where sensation used to be. All I've got now are a dead man's memories, a body that's failed me, and a clock that's ticking down on Tabby's safety.
The hospital room feels like a prison now, the beeping of the heart monitor a timer on my inaction. I've got to think, got to plan. There's got to be a way out of this, a way to get back to her. Because if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that I'm not giving up. Not on my watch. Not on Tabby's.
The nurse, catching the distant look in my eyes, inhales sharply—a breath that feels like the introduction to unwanted news. "Did the doctor not tell you?" he starts, and there's a note of apology in his voice. He glances away for a moment, as if gathering the strength to deliver a heavy blow. "That woman has too much on her plate..." he mutters under his breath, more to himself than to me.
"Well, you will be able to walk," he says, meeting my eyes again. "But it might take a while because you have shattered both your kneecaps and your ankles."
I blink. Walk? There's a chance?
He continues, detailing the damage in a clinical list that starts to blur together in my mind. "We gave you medicine to relieve the pain, and you will have to get surgery once you stabilize and—" His words keep coming, but I'm only half-listening now.
As he speaks, a dark temptation whispers to me. Would it be easier to just... end it? Start over? Maybe in a body that isn't broken? The thought is a siren call, sweet and deadly. I glance at the door, half-expecting the doctor to walk in at any moment and fill in the gaps the nurse is leaving. But the doorway remains empty.
When the nurse finally pauses, I gather that I'm in the United States. To my luck, I had just graduated college in England and was visiting for the winter, planning to go back. Which means I have a house in England. A house. A base. Somewhere to return to once I get Tabby. Sadly, it seems Kyle's family had visited him as a surprise, and then that is when everything went wrong. Such a small family, too.
For the first time since waking up, something like relief washes over me. It's not much, but it's a sliver of hope—a plan forming in the midst of chaos. I could get to that house, and from there, I could find Tabby.
As the nurse finishes up and checks some readings on a monitor, I let the reality sink in. I'm not stuck here. I'm not without options. The journey will be grueling, and the pain, once the medicine wears off, will be immense. But the thought of Tabby alone, waiting, expecting me to find her, fuels a newfound determination.
I'll walk again. I'll fly back to England. I'll make a new plan. And I'll find Tabby. No matter what it takes.
And, as it just so happens, it is close to where I died last but in a town over, hopefully Tabby decided to go to Paris. But I can only hope...