A blinding light pressed against Ramses's eyelids.
He groaned, turning his head to the side. The air was different, warm, heavy, filled with faint scents he couldn't place. Something sharp, sterile. Not the open air of the rooftop. Not the silence of the frozen streets.
And then it hit him.
Sound.
Not just fragments. Not flickers. But a flood.
The steady beep, beep, beep of a machine. The low hum of electricity. The soft shuffle of feet across polished tiles. Voices—layered, real, alive.
For the first time in what felt like eternity, the world moved without freezing.
Ramses's heart pounded in his chest. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the blur. A ceiling stared back at him, white and sterile, dotted with harsh fluorescent lights.
He wasn't on the rooftop. He wasn't in his apartment.
He was lying in a hospital bed.
Panic surged through him. His body felt heavy, weak, like it belonged to someone else. He tried to move his arms, and they twitched sluggishly, weighed down by tubes and wires. A needle was lodged into his hand, tape holding it steady.
"No… no, no, no…" His voice cracked, barely more than a whisper.
The journal. The books. The frozen city. Gone.
The silence. The solitude. The cocoon he had grown within—shattered.
A nurse appeared suddenly at his side, eyes widening. "Doctor! He's awake!"
The words struck him like thunder. Awake.
The door burst open, more footsteps rushing in. White coats, stethoscopes, the smell of antiseptic thick in the air. One doctor leaned close, shining a light into Ramses's eyes.
"Patient is responsive. Pupils reactive. Ramses, can you hear me?"
His chest heaved. He wanted to answer, but the words jammed in his throat. The voices piled around him, questions, commands, medical jargon he couldn't follow.
It was too much. Too fast.
The silence of the frozen world had been suffocating, but this—this was drowning.
Then, through the chaos, he heard it.
"Ramses…"
His mother's voice.
His eyes darted to the side, and there she was—older, worn, tears spilling down her cheeks. She rushed to his side, grabbing his hand.
"Ramses, my son… you're back. You're back."
Her hand was warm. Real. Alive.
The tears that spilled from his eyes weren't of sorrow. They were of disbelief. He clutched her hand weakly, his lips trembling. "M-Ma?"
She broke down, pressing her forehead to his hand, sobbing. "Yes. Yes, it's me. I prayed for this moment every day."
Ramses swallowed hard, his throat aching. He wanted to tell her everything—that he hadn't been gone, that he had lived a lifetime in the silence, that he had fought, grown, changed. But all he managed was a broken whisper:
"I… I was there… I…"
The words dissolved, too small to hold the weight of what he had lived.
The doctors worked around him, checking monitors, scribbling notes, murmuring about recovery protocols. Their voices faded in and out, like static. Ramses could only focus on the flood of sensation crashing over him.
The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.
The cool air of the vent above him.
The scent of disinfectant stinging his nose.
The heat of his mother's hand against his skin.
It was overwhelming. Beautiful. Terrifying.
As the rush slowed, Ramses's mind drifted.
He thought of the frozen world—the streets, the people, the silence that had once been unbearable. He thought of the rooftop, of the journal, of the countless days spent shaping himself into someone stronger.
And he realized the truth.
That world was gone. It had shattered like glass the moment he opened his eyes.
But the man he had become there—the lessons, the strength, the resilience—remained.
The illusion may have ended. But the growth was real.
That night, when the doctors left him to rest, Ramses lay in the dim glow of the hospital room. Machines hummed softly beside him, and his mother slept in the chair at his side, still holding his hand.
For the first time, the silence didn't scare him. Because it wasn't empty anymore.
It wasn't the silence of a dead world.
It was the silence of possibility.
He closed his eyes, breathing deeply.
The frozen world had been an illusion. But it was his illusion, and it had saved him.
Now, time was moving again.
And Ramses was ready to face it.