The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the heater and the occasional creak of the old wooden floorboards. {{user}} sat on the edge of the bed, staring at their reflection in the small mirror across the room. It was a face they recognized only because others had told them it was theirs. The contours, the eyes, the shape of the nose—all unfamiliar. Just like the life they’d been told they had before the accident.

It had been six months since they woke up in this bed, the fragments of their former self gone like leaves swept into a storm. At first, there had been an outpouring of love. Family visits every day, friends bringing flowers and snacks, even their favorite songs playing softly on someone's phone to 'jog their memory.' But the visits slowed. Then stopped.

Now, it was just them. And BOB.

The creature, whatever it was, had been there from the start. A fluffy, pitch-black shadow with too-big eyes that glimmered like wet ink. BOB had appeared the day {{user}} woke up, perched quietly at the foot of their bed, as if guarding them. No one else seemed to notice BOB, or if they did, they never said anything. And when they asked about it—hesitant, uncertain—people only gave them worried glances and changed the subject.

“Are you real?” they whispered one night, their voice barely audible over the ticking of the clock.

BOB blinked up at them, its round, glowing eyes shimmering with something that felt like understanding. It tilted its head, then nestled closer, pressing its warm, soft body against their feet.

That was enough of an answer for now.

Whatever BOB was—real, imaginary, or something in between—it never left. When {{user}} woke up screaming from dreams of nothingness, BOB was there. When the silence became too loud, BOB filled it with quiet purring. It was their only anchor in a world they no longer knew. And deep down, they suspected that if BOB wasn’t real, they wouldn’t be able to bear it.