Camilo stared at the floating screen above him. It was still there, right in front of his face. A thin blue light was hanging in the air, showing lines of text that he could read but didn't really understand.
He blinked twice. Nothing changed.
He rubbed his eyes, then opened them again. Still there.
He let out a long breath. "Am I… dreaming?"
The door made a clicking sound and opened. A woman in a white doctor's coat walked in. She was holding a clipboard. Her eyes looked tired, the way doctors look when they've been working all night without sleep.
She looked up at him, stopped moving for a second, and then said with a small smile, "Wow. That was fast."
Camilo looked confused. "Huh?"
"I thought you'd be knocked out for a lot longer," she said as she walked closer to his bed.
He tried to sit up.
"Whoa, no, no, no. Don't move yet, you—" She stopped talking mid-sentence. Her eyes went really wide.
Camilo was already sitting up straight. No pain showing on his face. No sign that he was dizzy or hurt.
She blinked once, then blinked again. "…O-kay then."
She put the clipboard down on the small table next to his bed and checked the monitor showing his vital signs.
Heart rate — normal.
Oxygen levels — normal.
Everything looked perfect.
"How do you feel, Camilo?" she asked him.
He thought about it for a second, then shrugged his shoulders. "I feel fine, actually."
"Fine?" she said back to him, like she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You hit your head really bad out there, you know. Most people wouldn't even be awake right now, and definitely not sitting up like nothing happened."
He gave her a small smile. "I guess I'm not like most people then."
She made a quiet humming sound, still looking confused at the numbers showing on the monitor.
Camilo looked around the hospital room. White walls everywhere. A small TV hanging in the corner. He could hear distant beeping sounds and the sound of carts rolling down the hallway outside. The room smelled like rubbing alcohol and lemon cleaning spray. He didn't like hospitals much. They were too quiet. Everything felt fake and cold.
After a few seconds passed, he asked her, "How long have I been out?"
She looked down at her notes. "Three weeks."
Camilo's eyebrows went way up. "Three weeks?"
She nodded her head. "Yeah. According to what the report says, you shouldn't even be awake for another two or three months, Camilo."
He leaned back against the pillow, trying to wrap his head around that information. Three whole weeks just gone, just like that.
"Damn," he said under his breath. "I missed a lot of stuff, huh?"
The doctor looked away from the monitor but didn't say anything back.
He looked right at her and asked, completely serious, "What place is the team at on the table right now?"
She stared at him for a second, then a smile came across her face. "Already thinking about football again, are we?"
He smiled back at her. "What can I say? I've got my priorities straight."
She shook her head a little and checked his IV tube. "Well, your vital signs are incredible. Honestly, this shouldn't even be possible with the injury you had. But… with numbers looking this good, you might actually get discharged and go home by noon today."
Camilo's eyes widened. "Really? That soon?"
"It's strange..." she said, smiling again. "...but yes. You must have the gods of football watching over you or something."
Camilo went quiet for a moment. His eyes looked up for just a second, remembering what he saw when he was knocked out — that glowing stadium, all those legendary players standing there, the things they told him.
He gave a small, tired smile. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Or something."
She picked up her clipboard from the table, wrote down a few more notes, then said, "Just rest here for a bit. I'll go sign all your discharge papers and get everything ready for you to leave."
He nodded at her, watching as she walked to the door and left the room. The door closed quietly behind her.
For a moment, the room felt way too big. Way too quiet. Just him sitting there with that glowing screen still floating in the air.
He looked at it again. Still there. Still just waiting.
"System?" he said, but quietly.
No answer came back.
He slowly lifted his hand up toward the screen. His fingers went straight through the blue light, like he was touching fog or smoke. He waved his hand through it again—there was nothing solid there, but the screen didn't disappear either.
Camilo frowned. "That's weird."
He leaned back on the hospital bed, just staring at the screen. The soft beeping and humming of the medical machines filled up the silence around him. He could still see faint letters blinking on and off on the blue panel.
[System Initializing…]
[Synchronization: ...75% → 80%...]
He blinked at it again. "Okay," he whispered to himself. "This definitely isn't a dream."
He let out a long breath, closed his eyes, and let his head sink down into the pillow. Everything still felt weird and off. His body didn't hurt anywhere. His mind didn't feel heavy or cloudy. It felt like he'd only slept for one day, not three whole weeks.
"Three weeks," he said out loud again, shaking his head at the idea. Then he let out a small laugh. "Gods of football, huh?"
The light from the screen kept flickering across his face, reflecting in his eyes. Outside his room, he could hear the sound of distant voices echoing down the hospital hallway.
He took one last look at the glowing screen before he started drifting off to sleep again. The blue letters blinked one more time.
[System Ready.]
[User: Camilo Mendez]
---
To be continued...