Ramses woke to the sound of quiet conversation. His eyelids felt heavy, but he forced them open, greeted by the dim glow of morning spilling into the hospital room. His mother sat in the chair beside him, her hands folded in her lap, exhaustion painted into the lines of her face.
When she noticed his eyes, her breath hitched. She leaned forward instantly, brushing his hair back. "You're awake again," she whispered, her voice trembling with relief.
Ramses gave her the faintest smile. His throat still felt raw, and when he tried to speak, the words came out dry and fragile. "How… long?"
The question made her pause. Her fingers tightened slightly on his hand. Her eyes glistened as though she'd been dreading this moment.
"Ma," Ramses rasped, "tell me."
She swallowed hard before answering. "You've been asleep for eight months."
The words crashed into him like a tidal wave.
Eight months.
He stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling unevenly. Eight months since the accident. Eight months of silence, of stillness, of frozen time.
His voice cracked. "Eight… months?"
His mother nodded slowly. "After the accident… they said you might never wake up. But I stayed. We all stayed. We believed you would come back to us." Her lips quivered as she tried to smile. "And you did."
Ramses closed his eyes, the weight of it pressing against him. He had lived what felt like years inside that frozen world, only to awaken and find that the real world had moved on without him.
Eight months gone. Lost.
Later, the doctor arrived, clipboard in hand, professional but gentle. He explained what Ramses already sensed in his aching body: the coma had weakened his muscles, shrunk his strength, and slowed his reflexes. Rehabilitation would be long and difficult.
"You'll need physical therapy," the doctor said. "Your muscles will feel like strangers. Even walking will be a challenge at first."
Ramses nodded faintly, though inside, frustration twisted. He had worked so hard in the silence—pushing his body, building his strength, mastering his mind. And now, here, it felt stolen from him. His arms were thin, his legs frail, his movements clumsy.
It was like waking up in someone else's body.
The doctor's voice softened. "But you're lucky, Ramses. You woke up. That's not something we see often after so long."
Lucky.
The word rang in his head. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to be given another chance. Lucky, even after losing so much time.
When the doctor left, his father stepped into the room. Ramses hadn't seen him in what felt like forever—gray had crept into his beard, his shoulders heavier with the burden of waiting. His father's eyes, usually sharp, were rimmed with red.
They didn't speak at first. His father simply approached and placed a large, calloused hand on Ramses's shoulder. That simple weight carried all the words he couldn't say.
Finally, his father muttered, voice breaking, "You scared us, son."
Ramses's throat tightened. "I… I didn't mean to."
"I know." His father exhaled, as if releasing months of held breath. "But you came back. That's what matters."
The silence between them wasn't empty. It was full—of loss, of love, of time they could never reclaim but refused to let define them.
Over the following days, Ramses began to learn the full cost of his absence.
Bills had piled up. His siblings had taken on extra work to help cover the hospital expenses. His mother had spent nearly every night by his side, sleeping in the chair, refusing to go home. His younger sister had postponed school for a semester, choosing to help care for him.
Eight months had stolen so much from all of them.
When Ramses realized this, guilt swelled in him like a storm. "All this time… you were here. For me. And I wasn't even—" He cut himself off, his voice cracking.
His mother silenced him gently with a hand on his cheek. "Don't say that. You were fighting. We knew. We felt it. You never left us."
Tears blurred his vision. He wanted to argue, to insist that the burden had been unfair, but her words pierced through the guilt. Maybe she was right. Maybe the frozen world had been his way of fighting, his mind's refusal to let go.
Maybe he hadn't been as absent as he thought.
At night, when the hospital quieted, Ramses lay awake reflecting on the strange paradox of his journey.
In the frozen world, he had been given endless time. Time to face himself, to grow, to transform. But here, in reality, eight months had slipped by like sand through fingers, stolen without warning.
It felt cruel. But it also felt… necessary.
Because without that illusion, without that cocoon of silence, he might never have woken at all.
The cost of time lost was heavy. But the reward was life.
One evening, his younger brother visited. He looked taller, older, carrying himself with a maturity Ramses hadn't expected. He stood at the edge of the bed, almost shy.
"You really came back," his brother said softly.
"I guess I did," Ramses replied, his smile weak but real.
His brother hesitated, then smirked faintly. "You owe me. I had to do your chores for almost a year."
Ramses laughed—an uneven, raspy laugh, but the first true laugh he'd had in months, maybe years. The sound startled even him. His brother grinned wider, and for a moment, the weight of lost time didn't matter.
They were together. And that was enough.
As the days passed, Ramses's fear began to settle into acceptance.
Yes, he had lost eight months. Yes, his body was frail, his life disrupted, his family exhausted. But he had also gained something unshakable—perspective.
The frozen world hadn't been meaningless. It had been preparation. The illusion might have shattered, but the man it had shaped remained.
And as Ramses looked at his family—their tired faces, their unwavering love—he knew the truth.
Time had been lost. But what he had found was greater.
Life itself.