Chapter Text
Some might be familiar with the weird feeling Niragi experienced regularly since he was a child. The feeling you get after waking up from a dream world your brain spent hours creating, for your enjoyment, or worse, to torture you. You wake up, the feelings you had during your dream still affecting your body, you close your eyes in hope to reach the place you just left minutes ago, and experience the events of the night all over again, yet you are unable to break through, your mind is foggy, and in the end, you are left with the feeling you lived a whole other life, in a place that was yours a moment ago, but will never be yours again, in a place you will never remember. This is how it was for Niragi. The moment he woke up, it was all gone, leaving him craving to know, craving to be able to recall it. No matter how many dreams he had, and how hard he tried, he had no memories of what happened, what he did, or what he experienced and after years of failing, he didn't even bother working his brain anymore for traces of his dreams.
Therefore it wasn't a surprise to him, when he woke up in the hospital bed for the first time, that he felt he forgot a months' worth of events, just like he did every single night. Normal right? It was always like this, him waking up with a blurry mind and overwhelming feelings. It should have been normal, yet he couldn't help but think its different this time. Even if it felt familiar, the state his mind was in, he couldn't shake the feeling that whatever his brain deleted this time, was far more important than any other dream he’s ever had in his life. Soon he got more signs, that it wasn't like any other morning after a long night of sleep. He soon was overcome with many emotions, fear, pain, sadness, love, happiness, betrayal, madness, and anger. He never felt this many at once, maybe a few after some wilder dreams, but never this many. His mind was racing so was his heart. He found himself gasping for air. It was too much to handle at once. He knew he had to calm down. He needed to calm down. He sat up, grabbed the side of the bed, as he took many deep breaths. In and out, in and out. It probably took him minutes but his breathing slowly came back to normal. His heart was still pounding in his chest, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. His mind calmed down a bit too, enough so he could think more clearly. He took this as an opportunity to observe the situation he was in. In the real world as is. The dream world can wait a bit. Looking down at his body he saw a half of it was bandaged up. Under those, there were wounds he didn't recall getting. ‘Just what the hell happened to me?’ he thought while he gazed around the room he was in. The room was painted green. ‘The color of peace? As if you get any peace in a hospital’. Continuing his observation he noticed there were a few paintings in the room, one large plant in the corner, a door that lead to a bathroom, and another bed next to his. It was clearly used by someone but the owner was nowhere to be seen. ‘Great so I have to deal with some dumbass too’. His eyes wandered to the nightstands of his roommate. There was a book on it, a plastic cup, and some cookies. ‘Nothing too interesting’. His gaze returned to his body. He was in really bad shape. There was constant pain that was getting stronger and stronger. If there's a God he hated him, he thought as he lowered himself back to his original position. He closed his eyes, canceling out the pain, so he can focus on thinking. He had many questions, more and more with every passing minute. He wasn't sure if he will ever find the answers for all but was determined to try.
He was still deep in thought when someone approached him. He didn't bother to look who it was, eyes still closed as he laid in his bed. He faintly heard the person call his name, but he ignored it. He had far more important things to do. Soon there was a hand on his shoulder gently shaking him while calling his name again.
“Mr. Niragi” he opened his eyes slowly and looked at the hand that was now simply holding his shoulder before moving his eyes to the body that it was attached. A tall figure stood before him, a man, possibly in his late thirties, dressed in all white, his stethoscope hanging lazily around his neck. ‘A doctor’ Niragi stated in his mind. The doctor was patiently waiting for something. Probably for him to answer.
“Yes?” his voice was raspy, it felt weird talking. Like he didn't do it for months. A smile appeared on the doctor's face.
“Welcome back to the real world, Mr. Niragi.” he said, still smiling “How are you feeling?”
‘How am I feeling? Bad.’ his whole body was aching, and his head felt like it was about to burst. Till now he tried to ignore it, so he can focus on his task but now that his mind had nothing else to work on, the pain became more noticeable again.
“Been better” he curtly said. He wasn't one to complain. Not to strangers, not to his family. His pride was too big, he wasn't that weak boy anymore.
“How bad is the pain on a scale from 1 to 10?” the doctor asked, but he got no answer from Niragi “We can higher the dose if it's needed”
Niragi wanted to say no need, he can handle it. But his mouth moved faster “Yes”
“I will talk to the nurses.” said the doctor “I will take my leave, will come back later and we will talk over everything”
“Thank Y-” he started to say but sudden coughing stopped him from doing so.
“And I will prescribe something to ease the coughing.” he said before leaving with a short ‘Good bye’. Niragi stayed awake for a few more minutes after that, before his eyes slowly closed again. And he was back to dreaming again.