It’s raining. Despite this, it’s warm and humid, and makes Juno feel sticky with sweat. Before waking up from her supposed coma, she underwent another brain surgery, which removed ninety nine percent of her remaining tumor. This is what the nurses say, anyway. Before leaving the hospital, she was given an MRI of the brain, and everyone acted as though she’d just come back from the dead. Maybe she had.

Juno has no idea where she is. The house she woke up in is unfamiliar and doesn’t feel like home. Still drowsy from her long sleep, Juno isn’t really sure she knows where home is. On a chair in front of a computer desk, a young woman with albinism runs her fingers down a page.

“Who are you?”

In the days immediately after waking up, Juno remembered little about herself. When she’s alone in this large, unfamiliar home, she spends most of her time thinking about her past. She remembers her siblings, and her parents. None of them have been around since she came home. The night before, she heard a very loud whispered argument from the basement living room. This morning, the atmosphere seems very tense.

The woman looks familiar, even though Juno could swear she’s never seen her before. “My name is Joke.” She has a monotone voice, and doesn’t look up when she speaks. She doesn’t ever speak unless spoken to first.

“Where am I?”

It’s hard to be certain of a lot of things. Juno remembers dying. Yet here she is, standing on a cold wooden floor, inside a house she’s never seen before. The strangest thing of all is that nobody has said anything at all about this. “You’re home. Didn’t you get enough sleep?” She’s dead, surely, in some sort of strange afterlife. Aspen used to talk about parallel universes. Up until now, Juno always thought they were laughable.

You really think you can just take a wrong turn, or go a different route, and end up in a completely different universe. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

Figures. You can believe in an imaginary man in the sky who supposedly controls everything, but you think parallel universes sound stupid.

There’s a brunette woman who looks nothing like Joke. She smiles brightly at Juno, pulling her hair up into a ponytail. She’s a woman Juno is supposed to know, but doesn’t. After four months of growth, her hair has gotten thick and dark on the top of her head. “Good morning, Juno,” says the woman; her voice doesn’t match her face. “I thought we’d go out today to celebrate your good health.”

It’s raining. Nothing makes sense - least of all, Juno’s apparent health. She survived, maybe, in some sort of alternate world, in a place she’s remembered, but has no memory of. She’s heard of out-of-body experiences. Everyone says they leave your life completely changed, and not always for the better.

“My good health?”

When Juno woke up, this woman was the first person she saw. She has very few belongings on her, aside from some clothing and a phone - but her phone has been reset, and contains nothing. There are children in the kitchen: a boy and a girl, years younger than Juno. They’re the woman’s children, probably. They both look like her. There are photos of Juno on the wall.

She doesn’t know the woman’s name. She pours a cup of coffee, speaking without looking up from the counter. “Your tumor is gone! You survived your coma with very minimal brain damage. Somebody is watching out for you.”

The kids stare at her. In her baggy pajamas, Juno feels self-conscious. Being bald made her feel empowered. There’s got to be an electric razor somewhere in the house. “Are you Verena?”

Are you scared to die? Do you think it will hurt?

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I used to be. The thought used to keep me up at night. Now I think it will be a relief. It will be just like falling asleep.

Juno’s mother had a complicated relationship with her siblings. She says little about them, but Juno remembers bits and pieces from stories she’s told. Verena is the oldest of her siblings, forced to be responsible and mature while her younger sister was doted on. Verena was always jealous, Anika said, of her family and her success. Anika is not really successful at all. She married a man far too old for her, claiming his wealth and success, pretending that this made her accomplished. Lots of people marry for money. Juno used to think her parents loved each other. Growing up means realizing that parents have secrets, too.

The youngest children listen in from where they play in the living room. Juno will never have kids.

“You’ve been through a very traumatic event. I’d expect you to have a little amnesia. The doctors said it will go away in time.” If the woman is Verena, she doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s foolish to believe this, anyway: that Juno could have been taken to the other side of the world without anyone knowing. She’s very tired, and can’t be certain her memories are trustworthy. It’s like she was told after waking up. She may misremember things for a few weeks. She may have a memory or two that never returns. “Now come on!” The woman claps her hands together, smiling at Juno, waving her daughters upstairs. “We’re going to have a girl’s day!”

It’s far too early to be this perky. Juno never finished university, and doesn’t remember the month or her age.

What do you think happens after you die?

Before their relationship became strained, Aspen used to ask her this. Both were raised the same way, but became so different. Aspen reminds Juno of their mother. Perhaps this is why the two got along so well.

I used to think you go to Heaven after you die, and spend the rest of eternity in a paradise. I’m not sure if I believe that anymore.

It’s human nature to question your existence. Until she got sick, Juno never thought about her mortality. It was always assumed that she’d be healthy and grow old, the way her grandparents did. When she was eighteen and lying in a hospital bed, her whole life flashed before her eyes.

Juno has lived in the same neighborhood all of her life. It never seemed this big or noisy. She never felt this anxious walking out the front door. The neighborhood is unfamiliar, and so are the people in it. She must have been told, as a child, not to talk to strangers. Most children are told this, but Juno has no recollection of such conversation. When the brunette woman holds open the car door for her, Juno’s feet freeze on the sidewalk.

“Am I dead?” Humanity is strange. Juno feels solid and whole, but can’t quite tell if she’s real. It’s raining. It sounds very noisy in her ears.

Joke has pale blue eyes that look transparent. Juno has seen eyes just like hers before. “No, Juno.” She should get in the car. There’s no telling where she might end up. “You’re very much alive - and you’ll be that way for a while.” She’s got a pounding headache. When it rains, it pours.

“How do you know?”

There was once a big open field, filled with nothing but grass and trees, always lit up by the sun, even in the night. It was tall, green grass, thick enough to get lost inside. Juno explored the field for hours, looking for a familiar face, but nobody else was there. Despite this, it wasn’t an eerie place, and it never got lonely. Juno wandered and wandered, and even after days, there was no evidence she’d gone anywhere different at all. There was no telling how long she wandered. It seemed like very little time, but it may have been months, or it may have been hours. One day, the sun shone brighter than it had before, and people appeared inside the field, replacing the vast, endless space. And when Juno opened her eyes, the field was no longer anywhere to be found at all.

Rain pounds on the sidewalk. The woman is speaking to her.

“How do I know you’re alive? I’m talking to you. I’m looking at you. I could even touch you if I wanted to.”

“Maybe you’re dead, too.” Joke looks outside the window. Juno wonders what she can see, and what she can hear. Juno frustrates others. This is all she’s good at. “I remember dying.” It didn’t hurt. Living was the only thing that hurt.

There’s a dog looking out the front window, its paws on the windowsill. It’s the same dog Juno saw earlier: white, with floppy ears and long legs. It seems to be Joke’s dog. Sometimes, it brings things to her.

The car door shuts; Juno won’t step inside. She doesn’t have a reason for this. Maybe it would be good to get out and get her mind off the past. Maybe this isn’t as easy as it sounds. The rain soaks through her clothes, making her cold. Home might be a hundred years away.