The first few weeks outside the hospital passed in a blur of reunions, recovery, and rediscovering the pace of ordinary life. Ramses felt gratitude with every step, every breath, every simple action he once took for granted. Yet, amid all the noise and movement, he carried a quiet flame inside him—the memory of the still world, the frozen silence where he had been reborn.
That world no longer existed in reality. But it lived on in him, etched into his soul like a scar and a blessing at the same time. And Ramses felt that it was not enough to simply keep it to himself. The lessons he had learned there—the battles with loneliness, the transformation of discipline, the discovery of hope in the midst of despair—were not his alone.
He needed to share them.
At first, the idea frightened him. Writing about his experience meant exposing himself to disbelief, judgment, maybe even mockery. Who would believe that while his body lay in a coma, he had lived through a world where time had stopped? Who would care about the story of a man who was once lost in depression and failure?
But Ramses remembered the journal entries he had written in the hospital. They weren't just scribbles—they were a foundation. So one morning, seated at a small wooden desk in his bedroom, he opened a fresh notebook and wrote a title across the first page:
"Carrying the Freeze Within."
The words felt right. The freeze wasn't a curse anymore; it was a gift, something he could carry into the chaos of the moving world.
He began writing each day, sometimes for hours at a time. The pen moved with surprising ease, as if his hand knew what his heart needed to say. He described waking up in the frozen city, how joy had quickly turned to despair, and how solitude had almost crushed him. He confessed the darkest moments—the times when he screamed into the silence, begging for anyone to answer. He wrote about the countless push-ups and runs through empty streets, the way sweat and pain became his teachers when no one else was there.
And most importantly, he wrote about the transformation. How discipline grew in the absence of distraction. How self-reflection forced him to face truths he had avoided for years. How loneliness, when embraced instead of feared, taught him resilience and creativity.
Every page felt like stitching two worlds together: the coma world and the living world, the silence and the noise, the boy he had been and the man he was becoming.
Some days, he faltered. Doubt gnawed at him again. What if this is just nonsense? What if no one will ever read it? But then, he remembered his brother's eyes when he shared his insights in the hospital. He remembered the relief on his parents' faces when they saw his determination.
Even if no one else read it, the memoir mattered. It was his way of honoring the gift he had been given.
One evening, after a long writing session, Ramses sat with his mother in the living room. She watched him quietly as he scribbled notes on a loose page. Finally, she asked, "What are you working on, anak?"
He hesitated for a moment, then handed her the notebook. She adjusted her reading glasses and began to read. The room was silent except for the sound of her turning pages. When she finally looked up, her eyes were moist.
"Ramses," she whispered, "this… this could help people."
The weight of her words pressed against him, but not in a way that crushed him. It lifted him. For the first time, he allowed himself to believe that his story had value beyond his own healing.
From then on, Ramses approached the memoir with even greater purpose. He treated it as discipline, just as he had treated his exercises in the frozen world. Each day, he wrote a set number of words. Each week, he reviewed his progress. And slowly, a manuscript began to take shape.
But the memoir wasn't just about writing—it was about carrying the freeze within him, into his daily choices. When he woke up early to help his father with chores, he remembered the still mornings in the silent city. When he disciplined himself to do therapy exercises at home, he thought of the endless runs down motionless streets. When fear of failure crept in, he remembered the countless nights when the only voice he had to fight was his own.
The freeze was no longer a prison—it was a compass.
By the end of the month, Ramses had written over a hundred pages. He read passages aloud to his family, who listened with quiet awe. His younger siblings even began asking him questions about resilience, about discipline, about how to face challenges in school. Ramses realized that he was no longer just writing a book; he was living it, inspiring those closest to him first before the world ever saw his words.
One night, as he lay in bed, he whispered a quiet prayer of thanks. Not for the suffering, but for what the suffering had created.
The freeze had ended. But in his heart, Ramses carried it with him—its silence, its lessons, its unyielding demand that he become someone better.
And now, through the memoir, he would carry it into the lives of others too.