Two months after the accident, I found myself standing at the threshold of a new chapter in my life, though it didn’t feel like much of a new beginning.

The hospital had been my world for weeks, my refuge from a life I no longer understood.

I had arrived here broken in more ways than just physically. Now, as I prepared to leave, I wasn’t sure what I was stepping into.

The morning light filtered through the window of my room, soft and gray, as if it too was hesitant about the day ahead.

The pale sun did little to chase away the lingering chill of early winter.

Outside, I could see the world moving again—cars weaving through the streets, people going about their routines.

Everything felt so normal out there.

But nothing felt normal inside of me.

My discharge papers lay on the bedside table, neatly folded and waiting to be signed.

I stared at them for what felt like an eternity, the words blurring into meaningless shapes.

This was it.

My time here was over.

The nurses had been kind, the doctors reassuring, but none of them could answer the one question that gnawed at me: What now?

Infinite through these sterile halls, and now, I was expected to just step back into my life as if nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

I had, at least a bit, changed.

I reached for the cane propped against the wall, though I hardly needed it anymore.

My legs were steady, and the limp had nearly vanished, but there was a psychological comfort in holding it.

A reminder of what I had overcome.

A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. Takahashi-san, the nurse that helped me all this time, entered with her usual warm smile.

"Ready to go home, Mori-san?"

I forced a smile in return.

"As ready as I’ll ever be."

She handed me a set of clothes, a standard tracksuit, washed and neatly folded.

I dressed slowly, each movement deliberate.

The pants were looser around my waist, the shirt hung awkwardly on my shoulders. I had lost a bit of weight—muscle, fat, something—but I still felt heavier inside, weighed down by something intangible.

The mirror in the corner reflected a face I barely recognized. Thinner, yes, but also older, more tired. The circles under my eyes were darker, the lines on my forehead deeper. Two months of recovery, and I looked like someone who had aged five years.

"You’re looking better"

Nurse Takahashi said as she handed me my discharge papers.

"You’ve come a long way."

"Thanks"

I muttered, taking the papers from her.

"I guess."

She gave me a knowing look, the kind that nurses seem to have perfected over years of dealing with people who’ve been through the wringer.

"It’s okay to feel a little uncertain about leaving. A lot of patients do."

I nodded but didn’t respond.

Uncertainty wasn’t the half of it. The truth was, I didn’t know what I felt. Relief? Anxiety? Fear? Maybe all of them at once, colliding in a tangled mess inside my chest.

Dr. Tanaka entered the room shortly after, his presence commanding in the way doctors often are—calm, confident, as if he held the answers to every question.

"Mori-san"

He said, flipping through my chart.

"You’ve made excellent progress. Your physical therapy has been going well, and your vitals look good. You’re ready to get back to your life."

I didn’t know what to say to that. My life? What life? The life I’d been living before the accident felt distant, like a memory that belonged to someone else. I had spent so much time here, within these white walls, that the outside world seemed almost foreign to me.

"Make sure to continue with the exercises we’ve prescribed"

Dr. Tanaka continued.

"You’ll still need to build up strength, and don’t push yourself too hard too soon. Take it slow."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Right"

I said, barely registering his words. My mind was somewhere else, somewhere far away from this conversation.

"I’ll schedule a follow-up appointment in a few weeks"

He added, scribbling something on a clipboard.

"But for now, you’re good to go."

Good to go. The words hung in the air like a challenge. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

Nurse Takahashi handed me a small bag with the last of my belongings.

A wallet, keys, a phone.

Relics of a life I had almost left behind. I slipped the wallet into my pocket and stared at the phone, its screen dark and unresponsive.

I hadn’t touched it in weeks, hadn’t wanted to. The outside world had felt too far away to bother with. Now, it felt like a burden I wasn’t ready to carry.

"Do you need someone to help you get home?"

Nurse Takahashi asked gently.

I shook my head.

"No. I’ll manage."

The truth was, I wasn’t sure how I would manage. My apartment was only a few blocks away, but it felt like an ocean’s distance.

I had become so accustomed to the cocoon of the hospital that the thought of returning to an empty apartment filled me with a strange kind of dread.

I thanked the nurse and doctor, exchanging the usual pleasantries, but my mind was elsewhere, drifting toward one final thing I had to do before I could leave this place for good.

I walked slowly toward the hospital reception desk, the weight of the past two months pressing down on my shoulders.

I hadn’t seen Koizumi since that day in the garden, and for some reason, I couldn’t leave without knowing where he was.

There was something about him, something that had stayed with me ever since our last conversation.

His words, his regrets—they echoed in my mind, mingling with my own.

The receptionist glanced up as I approached.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah"

I said, my voice sounding strange in my own ears.

"I’m looking for a patient. His name is Koizumi Shinohara. He was staying here a while back. I talked to him a few weeks ago."

The receptionist furrowed her brow, typing something into her computer.

"Koizumi Shinohara"

She repeated quietly, her fingers clicking against the keys. After a few moments, she looked back at me, her expression softening with a kind of pity that made my stomach twist.

"I’m sorry"

She said.

"But there’s no one by that name currently admitted here."

I frowned.

"That can’t be right. I spoke with him just a few weeks ago. He was sitting in the garden."

She hesitated, then glanced back at the screen.

"The only record we have of a Koizumi Shinohara is... well, it’s from about twelve years ago. He was a long-term patient here, but he passed away. I’m sorry."

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Passed away? Twelve years ago? That didn’t make any sense. I had talked to him, heard his voice, seen the way he moved, slow and deliberate, like someone who had lived too long and seen too much.

"No, that’s not possible"

I stammered.

"I saw him. We had conversations. He told me his name. He said he had regrets... about his life..."

The receptionist gave me that same look of sympathy, the one reserved for people who were grieving or confused.

"I’m really sorry"

She said again.

"But the only Koizumi Shinohara we have on record passed away in 2011."

My mind was reeling. I didn’t know what to say. How could I have talked to someone who wasn’t there? Who had been gone for more than decade? My hands gripped the edge of the counter, the world tilting slightly beneath me.

I stood there for a moment longer, numb and disoriented.

Then, without another word, I turned and walked out of the hospital, my feet moving on autopilot.

The air outside was cold, biting against my skin as I stepped into the world I had been avoiding for so long.

The streets were busy with people going about their lives, oblivious to the storm of confusion swirling inside me. I walked in a daze, not really seeing where I was going, my mind replaying the receptionist’s words over and over again.

Koizumi Shinohara had died ten years ago. So who had I been talking to? Had I imagined it all? Was it some kind of hallucination brought on by the trauma of the accident?

My apartment was as I had left it—cramped, messy, a reflection of the life I had been living before everything changed.

I dropped onto the couch, my body feeling heavy, my mind racing with thoughts I couldn’t make sense of.

The hospital had been a strange kind of sanctuary, a place where time stood still and the outside world couldn’t reach me.

But now, sitting in the silence of my apartment, I felt the weight of reality pressing down on me again. I had survived the accident, but what did that mean? What was I supposed to do now?

I reached for my phone, its dark screen reflecting my hollow expression.

I unlocked the screen, blinking against the sudden flood of messages and missed calls. Most of them were from many acquaintances, mostly people I had barely spoken to in the past few years.

But one message stood out, a name I hadn’t seen in a long time.

Aiko.

To be clear, Aiko Mori.

My little sister.

My breath caught in my throat as I stared at her name.

She was my favourite person. Didn't care how much I hated the world back then, but she, she was the only one who was always there for me. She was there too, when everything fell apart.

From that day on we never spoke again, especially she had started to hate me and we wrote to each other once or twice a year, for the holidays so to speak.

But here she was, reaching out to me after all this time.

I hesitated for a moment, my thumb hovering over the screen. Then, without thinking too much about it, I opened the message.

"Ehy you, I heard about the accident. Is everything allright?"

The words were simple, but they hit me harder than I expected. Even behind her contemptuous words I could sense her concern.

Me.

Her older brother.

I told her the worst things and she still worries about me!?

How disgusting am I?

I feel sick just thinking about that day.

It happened more or less six or seven years ago.

At that time I was already a recluse and spent my days inside my room playing video games and watching unlikely TV series.

For a long time my parents had tried to get me out by having old school friends or psychologists come to the house, people who could help me. The only person who was allowed to see me was my sister.

Every now and then we played together, she always lost but every day she came back with a smile ready to challenge me again.

Only now do I realize that she did it for me.

To not leave me alone.

One day in particular I sent my parents away for the umpteenth time and my father, furious took my mother, they both left the house to look for someone who could help me.

They didn't come back.

On the way they had an accident that cost them their life.

Thinking back on it makes me vomit.

The last words I said to them were: Go away, you are and will remain useless.

The day after the funeral was planned; I arrived drunk and started cursing those present, my deceased parents and even my sister.

From that day on, everything went from bad to worse.

I typed out a quick response, my fingers shaking slightly as I pressed send.

"Yeah, I’m okay. Just got out of the hospital today. Thanks for checking in. How you doing?"

I set the phone down, my heart still racing from the sudden rush of emotion. I didn’t know what would come of it—whether we would actually reconnect or if this was just a fleeting moment of concern—but it felt like something. A small crack in the wall I had built around myself.

As I sat there, the silence of the apartment pressing in on me, I realized that I never been alone. Not completely. There were people out there who i still cared about, and she, the one who hadn’t forgotten Keisuke Mori.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough to keep going.

With that thought, I closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion of the day pull me into a deep, dreamless sleep.