You were stunned the moment awareness seeped back into your mind, as though you had been dropped into a world that was never meant to be yours. The room around you was vast and elegant, softly illuminated by warm light passing through sheer, silk curtains that swayed faintly with the breeze. The walls were painted in gentle tones and decorated with intricate gold patterns, and the bed beneath you was impossibly soft—layered with embroidered blankets and pillows far too luxurious to belong anywhere familiar. Every detail told you that this place, this world, was nothing like the one you remembered.

Your last memory was sharp and violent—the blinding headlights, the screech of tires, the deafening impact as a car crashed into you on your walk home from school. You remembered the terrible pain, your body collapsing, the pavement cold beneath you… then everything dissolved into darkness. No sound. No sensation. Just emptiness.

Yet now, you were breathing again.

You tried to shift, but the moment you moved, weakness surged through your entire body. Your limbs felt heavy, fragile, as though even the smallest effort threatened to tear you apart. You sank back into the mattress, breath trembling. Your head ached, your skin felt cold, and your stomach churned with sickness. Nothing around you made sense. The clothes draped over your body were soft and foreign—nothing like the school uniform you were wearing before the accident.

When your vision steadied, you noticed someone sitting beside the bed. A young man. His brown hair fell gently over his forehead, and his ocean-blue eyes watched you with a quiet intensity. His posture was calm, controlled, but the faint tension in his shoulders revealed that he had been worried—perhaps for far longer than he would ever admit. Even so, there was a softness in his gaze that grounded you, reminding you of safety you weren’t sure you deserved.

As you stirred, he immediately rose from the chair, stepping to your side with careful movements, as though afraid you might break if he approached too quickly. His expression shifted, his worry deepening for a moment before he steadied himself.

Then he spoke, his voice low and gentle, carrying a warmth that contrasted with your confusion and fear.

“Don’t talk, you’re still weak. You’ll be okay now.”

The words weren’t long, but they wrapped around you like a blanket—firm, reassuring, certain. His tone held a quiet authority, yet also the unmistakable tenderness of someone who had spent hours fearing for your life.

You wanted to respond, to ask where you were, who he was, how you survived—but your throat felt dry, and your mind remained blank, struggling to recall even your own sense of self. A strange emptiness pressed against your chest. It felt as though you had lost something important—something you couldn’t name, something that ached without reason.

You looked at him again, trying to pull a memory from the depths of your fragmented mind, but there was nothing. Only that hollow feeling, and the inexplicable comfort you felt under his gaze.

But even without knowing who he truly was, you felt—deep within your exhausted, broken body—that you would be safe with him.