I stared at the woman in front of me.
The doctor angel.
She was still supposed to have a melodious voice. Something gentle. Something layered, like harmony itself speaking through a human mouth.
Instead, she sounded exactly like a doctor.
"Are you Olivia Moon?"
That was it.
No choir. No echo. No divine tone.
I smiled anyway.
"Yes," I said politely. "My name is Olivia Moon."
The woman nodded, like that was the most normal answer in the world.
Just then, another woman walked into the room. She was wearing a nurse's uniform and carrying a clipboard. The doctor turned toward her immediately and gestured for her to come closer.
They stepped a little away from my bed.
And started whispering.
Which would have been fine—except for one small problem.
I could hear everything they were saying.
Very clearly.
The doctor spoke first. "Hey, sorry, I was just transferred here, so I'm still a bit lost. But didn't you say she fell into the river at her school?"
"Yes," the nurse replied.
"Then why is she talking like she's in the afterlife?" the doctor asked. "Are you sure she isn't… mentally unstable?"
The nurse glanced at me.
Then back at the doctor.
"She just drowned," she said. "I think the lack of oxygen caused some psychological issues. She woke up once before this but fainted near the hallway door."
Drowned.
The word landed hard.
Something inside me shifted.
The room felt different all of a sudden. Heavier. Sharper.
My fingers twitched.
I could feel them.
That was new.
My senses began to return slowly, like someone was turning switches back on one by one. My skin tingled. The bed beneath me felt solid. The air felt cool against my face.
My mind, which had been floating somewhere strange and unreal, snapped back into place.
I wasn't dead.
I wasn't in Heaven.
I was in a hospital.
And whatever had been suppressing my body—whatever had dulled my nerves—was wearing off.
Pain followed immediately.
Not sharp. Not unbearable.
Just real.
I swallowed and focused on the two women in front of me.
And then—
I saw too much.
Their skin faded away.
Not violently. Not suddenly. Just… clearly.
I could see muscles moving beneath flesh. Blood flowing through veins. The branching lines of their nervous systems reacting to movement and sound.
And beneath all of that—
Bones.
Skeletons.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
My vision widened without my permission. The walls became transparent. Floors stacked themselves in my awareness.
Sixth floor.
I knew it instantly.
Ten floors above me.
Five below.
The hospital's structure unfolded in my mind like a map. Corridors. Staircases. Elevators. VIP rooms.
This one.
I was in a VIP room.
The information didn't overwhelm me. It simply existed, like knowledge I had always had but never accessed.
The sensation was strange.
And thrilling.
And terrifying.
Wait.
If I wasn't in Heaven… then what did that mean?
Was I reborn?
That only happened in comics. In novels. In stories people read to escape reality.
Out of everyone in the world, why would it happen to me?
Unless—
My thoughts spiraled quickly, faster than normal. Ideas stacked on top of each other before I could finish one.
Was this a simulation?
Some scientists believed life was a repeating loop. That when you died, you simply restarted, unaware it had happened before.
If that was true… then did life ever end?
The questions piled up until my head started to hurt.
I forced myself to focus.
The doctor and nurse were still talking, but I tuned them out as my attention drifted.
That's when I noticed something familiar near the wall.
A phone.
My phone.
The old one.
The one I used when my mom was still with me.
My heart skipped.
"Mom…" I whispered.
Was she alive?
The thought hit me so hard that I pushed myself upright without thinking.
The movement caught their attention immediately.
"Hey!" the nurse said sharply. "You shouldn't be getting up like that. Your body is still weak."
I ignored her and pointed toward the wall. "My phone."
The nurse followed my gaze, hesitated, then picked it up and handed it to me.
I took it quickly and tried to turn it on.
Nothing.
The screen flickered once and went dark.
It was wet.
That's when the nurse's words came back to me.
She fell into the river.
Memories surged forward.
Clear now.
This was the moment my life changed.
My mother couldn't afford my medical bills. She had tried everything. Loans. Relatives. Even selling her own belongings.
In the end, she called my father.
He agreed to pay.
On one condition.
Full custody.
My mother had no choice.
After that, I barely saw her. I spent my life trying to belong to the Sinclair family. Trying to earn approval that never came.
The one person who truly loved me—
I lost her.
My chest tightened painfully.
Just then, the door opened again.
A woman walked in.
She looked tired. Dark circles beneath her eyes. Her clothes were simple, worn. But when she saw me—
She smiled.
My breath caught.
She looked like me.
Just older.
Tears burned my eyes as my vision blurred.
Before I could stop myself, the word tore out of my throat.
"Mom."
The room went silent.
And in that silence, everything felt real again.