Light stabbed at my eyelids before I even dared to open them. Beeping filled the air, steady and mechanical, each tone slicing through a silence I didn't understand. My chest rose and fell on its own, shallow, foreign. My arms felt heavy, pinned by a weight that wasn't there. The sharp scent of antiseptic burned in my nose.
I blinked, once, twice, until the blur began to clear. A ceiling of sterile white. Tubes tethering me to machines that blinked and hummed. A thin sheet over my legs.
A voice broke the air."He's awake!"
I tried to speak, but only a rasp clawed up my throat. A nurse hurried to my side, sliding an arm behind my shoulders, pressing a cool glass of water into my trembling hands. The glass slipped against my fingers—I could barely hold it. My muscles felt paper-thin, like they'd forgotten how to belong to me.
"Leo." A man's voice. I turned and saw a doctor standing close, his eyes soft with relief but edged with worry. "How are you feeling?"
My lips parted to answer, but movement in the window caught me. My reflection. The face staring back at me wasn't mine. Or rather, it was—but older, sharper, a stranger carved from my skin.
"Wh… what happened to me?" My voice cracked.
The doctor's glance flicked toward the nurse. A silent exchange passed between them. He drew in a long breath, bracing himself."Leo… this may be hard to accept. You've been asleep for twelve years."
The words fell like a stone in my chest.
Twelve years.
No. Impossible. A sick joke. My heart stumbled, pounding too fast, too hard. I clutched the sheets, trying to breathe. I was five. I was waiting for Grandpa to take me to the park. How could twelve years have disappeared?
Fragments clawed back at me—Grandpa, lifeless in his bed. My mother's scream. The sharp ache of loss. And then… nothing. A blank that stretched all the way to now.
The nurse's voice pulled me back."Your family is here. They've been waiting a long time. Do you want to see them?"
I nodded before I could think, my throat still dry, my mind reeling.
The door opened.
Faces poured in—familiar, yet wrong. My mother, hair streaked with silver, eyes wet and trembling. My father, his once-dark hair bleached white, lines carved deep around his tired eyes. And a girl I didn't know.
"Leo!" My mother rushed forward, folding me into her arms, her tears warm against my skin. She smelled faintly of lavender, just as she used to—but older, softer, tinged with something fragile.
"I can't believe you're awake, son." My father's voice cracked like brittle wood. His eyes burned with relief, like a man who had found something precious he thought gone forever.
I wanted to answer, to reassure them, but my gaze snagged on the girl. She hovered at the edge of the bed, awkward and trembling, her face blotched with tears.
And then I saw it—familiarity threaded through her features. The curve of her nose. The way her eyes tilted when she cried. My chest tightened.
"Yuki?" The name tumbled out, barely a whisper.
Her face broke into a smile through her tears. "Yes… it's me. Your sister."
She had been a baby in my arms. Now she was nearly grown. Years had stolen her childhood—and I hadn't seen a moment of it.
My family surrounded me, their joy overflowing, but inside I was drowning. Twelve years. The world had gone on without me, racing forward while I lay frozen in the dark.
And now I had to find out if there was still a place for me in it.