Floating in this dark unexplainable void, I feel scared. I am this nothingness without any form or any significance in this darkness. It’s eerily quiet, and I can’t hear anything but my own thought speaking loudly in my head. To think that I’ll die without seeing my lifework flying in the air is hitting me like a truck.

I can’t speak, I can’t move anything. It just feels empty, but not the comfortable emptiness. It’s when your thought begins to manifest into reality, making a strange Lovecraftian image out of nowhere. A tunnel made of flesh flashed right in front of my eyes, then it disappears again.

Then, strings of white spider webs appeared in front of me. Without any hand, I can’t move it, but then, it disappears again. My brain is playing dirty tricks on me, and it’s pretty disturbing. Then, some part of my life flashes right after my eyes.

My father gave me my first rifle when I finished elementary. People would look at him funny back then, as irresponsible, or anything. Looking at my small body holding that .22 LR AR-15 with a 20” barrel, I feel that it’s way milder than anything that I’ve ever shot. He really gave the way for me to love military hardware.

Then, my vision shifts a few years. My first military rifle, the M4 Carbine is in my hands, just after I finished basic training and I was standing in the middle of an air force base while patrolling the perimeter. Then, it all blacked out. Now what? Will I be stuck in here for eternity?

Then, a whisper enters my ear, “Wake up, hey, wake up.” It is followed by slaps on both of my cheeks. Goddamn it, stop it, yes, I’ll try to wake up now. I try opening my eyes, then I somehow end up in this room with a white ceiling.

‘How long have I been in this hospital?’ I mutter the word slowly and softly out of my dry mouth. I still feel the pain in my chest, probably from my broken ribs, but at least, I can move my legs and arms now. “How’s the X-55 prototype, did it fly?”

It’s a bummer that I missed the launch. I try to sit down on the hospital bed, but I am still weak to do so. I nod to the right, noticing that there is nothing attached to my hand. I nod to the left, noticing a person standing right next to me.

“Mom, sister is talking nonsense again.”

I look at the young person, probably as old as an elementary school student or early junior high student. She has a very bright face, fair brown hair with a pair of wolf ears on her head. Wait a minute, wolf ears? I look at the girl in confusion and squinted my eyes. Do I even have a sister?

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I look over my stomach. I am wearing light blue pajamas. However, I notice a little stain of blood on it. And why my body is so small? Seriously, how long have I been sleeping? Or am I this high from passing out from being hit by a truck? Painfully, I try to sit down on the bed.

I pinch myself on the cheek. It hurts.

“Helen, let me help,” she then suddenly pinches my right in my bandaged stomach.

“AAAWWW! What in the bloody hell was that for? You bloody muppet!” Suddenly, my whole voice returns back and I shout at her. The pain radiates from my lower abdomen. The pinch is small, but the pain is like being stabbed with a knife. The pinch feels as if someone just put a knife slowly put it in my stomach. And who the hell is Helen?

My alleged sister then goes into a shocked state. She stands there motionless before crying. How do I calm her down? I never have a sister and this alleged sister of mine starts to cry. Should I wait until her mother comes to calm her down? With lots of pain, I step my feet out of the bed.

“Wait, my left leg is here?” I look at my left leg. It’s supposed to be gone and replaced with a prosthetic one. I get a beating and live leg here. I swing the left leg right and left, this is a real leg. How is it possible?

Suddenly, someone enters my bedroom. This time, it was a woman, with two pairs of wolf ears on her head. Wait a minute, who is this woman? And why is she bigger than me? I become a little bit scared of her stature. And why does she have a pair of wolf ears?

“Helen, I am happy that you’re awake, but could you not shout at your sister like that?”

“Sorry, mom?” I give a doubting tone to my mother or is she really my mother? I then grab my own head. There are two bulges on my head, I press it up and down, and it feels really soft. I push it up and down, and I feel all dizzy and wobbly. It feels like this is the sensitive part of my body.

“Helen, why are you touching your wolf ears like that?” My mother asks me.

“Ears?” I then put my hands on where my ears should be. There are my ears, though, my regular ears. An anatomically correct position of my ear, to be exact. However, this unexplainable wolf ears, how to explain it? It feels like a part of my head.

Is this my bedroom? It has two beds, a wardrobe, a carpet in the middle of it, and a single mirror. I walk to the mirror and to my surprise, I immediately hold my own face. How? Just how did I turn into a small little child like this? There were a pair of wolf ears on my head, covered in white fur and my hair is white. There is also a halo in light white color on top of my head.

My head begins to spin around, and I eventually fall to the ground.