A full day had passed since Sol had vanished without a trace, and in that time, he had been kept under observation.
The doctors wanted to ensure that the sudden recovery he had experienced wasn't just a passing illusion.
His body had healed unnaturally quickly, his wounds closing with a speed that defied medical logic.
Even he had no answer for it.
That one day inside the hospital room had given him too much time to think.
Sol was gone.
His sister had vanished right before his eyes, leaving only a storm of confusion behind.
And in those long, sleepless hours, Ivan had begun to wonder if her words carried more weight than he first believed.
What if Father really was alive?
It sounded ridiculous when he first thought about it.
His father had been gone for years, assumed dead like everyone around them said.
Yet, in this strange place where even the rules of nature seemed to bend, Ivan wasn't so sure anymore. The more he looked around, the less familiar the world felt.
The idea sounded insane, but what part of his life wasn't insane anymore?
If not for the emotional connection he felt toward his mother and Sol, if not for the instinct that screamed they were truly his family, Ivan would have long believed they were impostors trying to play him.
And he would've run far, far away.
But he stayed.
Now, after the endless waiting, his discharge had finally been approved.
A nurse entered with a set of clothes neatly folded over her arm.
He took them with hesitation, only to pause when his eyes fell upon them.
These weren't the plain and simple clothes he was used to. No worn-out fabric, no loose stitching. Instead, the material was smooth, refined, and expensive looking.
For a moment, he wondered if they had made a mistake, if the clothes had been meant for someone else.
But the nurse smiled faintly, gesturing for him to change.
When he put them on, he couldn't ignore how different he looked.
Not like the boy who had struggled every day since his father's death, not like the boy who had grown up watching his mother struggle.
No, he looked like someone else entirely.
And that made the uneasiness inside him heavier.
His mother had told him yesterday that their Father had left money for them before he died.
She said they only just accessed it now. But deep down, something in the boy couldn't believe that explanation.
It sounded like a cover-up. It sounded like Sol had done something…something she didn't want to be found out.
Yet he didn't argue, not with his Mother.
Because when she told him, she looked happier than he'd ever seen her since Father disappeared.
Her face didn't look burdened anymore. Her shoulders didn't sag with invisible weights. For the first time in years, she looked…at peace.
And the 17 year old boy did not have the heart to take that away.
So he pulled on the new clothes, feeling strange in their weight.
The fabric hugged him differently, sharper and cleaner, nothing like how they used to. Even in the mirror, he barely recognized himself.
The boy in those clothes looked like he belonged to another life.
Just then, Luna came into his room, her smile widening as she saw Ivan standing. "You're ready," she said softly, her eyes shining. "Let's go home."
The boy nodded, though inside, worry gnawed at him.
What had Sol really done to secure this money?
What deals had she struck with that priest? And if their Father's wealth had been locked away for so long, why did it all come so suddenly, overnight, right after Sol vanished?
The questions stacked higher and higher, but the boy swallowed them down for now.
After all, right now, all he could do was follow her.
The pair of two walked down the hallways that looked almost totally different than what he knew.
The halls seemed more ancient, the walls carved, and even the basic technology he was used to seemed to be no longer visible here.
Everything was upside down.
The discharge papers were signed in seconds, as though the hospital was eager to let the boy go.
And then the final door loomed ahead.
The exit.
Ivan's mother squeezed his hand once more, her smile brighter than the translucent lights above. "Everything will be fine now," she whispered.
The boy wanted to believe her...he really did.
But the moment he stepped through those doors, the boy froze.
Because the world outside wasn't what he imagined.
It wasn't the familiar streets. It wasn't the scenery Ivan remembered.
Instead, stretching out before him was something else entirely...something vast, alien, and breathtakingly wrong.
The boy stood rooted there, his breath stuck in his throat.
'This isn't Earth.' Ivan whispered, his entire being reeling from the stimulus of all this new information bombarding him.
'Not the Earth I know...'
And in that moment, Ivan realised his life had already been rewritten the second he died...
'Yes, that had to be it.'
***