“If you can hear me, respond by blinking both of your eyes.”

Everything was dark.

I could hear the sounds of inquisitive voices surrounding me. That and the sound of medical machines…I think.

A woman’s sing-songy voice repeated the question I heard moments ago, but I couldn’t give the proper response. No matter how many times I told myself to open my eyes, my brain would not comprehend the task.

So instead of trying to force it, I calmly tried to restore some type of image in my head.

I focused on the last thing I could remember.

Cars and coyotes.

That didn’t make sense.

Then a sharp pain spread from my left temple.

It was a light inkling at first, sort of like an itch under the skin, but then it flared, making my limbs convulse.

“There’s a reaction over here! Some sort of spasm!”

I heard rushing footsteps and the sound of rapid beeping.

My fingers curled around linen fabric, and my throat, surprisingly, let out an excruciated shriek.

Involuntarily my eyes shot open. They were immediately blinded by white lights hovering above me. The lights reminded me of something.

Cars and coyotes.

But none of those were related.

My eyes frantically scanned the room, landing on several people wearing powder blue doctor’s scrubs.

My body was calming from its tantrum, as was the mind-numbing pain I’d just experienced.

The people around me removed their white medical masks and smiled at and praised each other.

A woman emerged from my left side, causing two – I’m assuming they’re doctors – to side step to make room for her.

She smiled sweetly and nodded to the doctors around her. They all disbanded, but the one woman still stood smiling.

“Kim Soohyun, if you can hear me, please blink both of your eyes,” she spoke in a familiar sing-songy voice.

I did as I was told, feeling slight strain in my head as I complied.

“Very good Soohyun. You’re responding magnificently. Can you say hello?”

My mouth was dry, but I managed to utter a pathetic hello.

“Wow, you’re so strong! We might be looking at a two week recovery; the quicker the better,” the woman said chirpily.

I squinted, which caused my eyelids to ache, but it was the only response I could give the woman.

She simply cocked her head to the side and let out a small giggle. She then looked past me and waved her hand.

My head, heavy and numb, felt too burdened to see who the woman was summoning.

The clicking sound of a door echoed and apprehensive footsteps ensued.

“Come, come now, we’ll have to administer her medication soon, so we have to do this quickly,” the woman chimed.

Two familiar faces came into my line of vision.

My eyes watered and my heart leaped, but my seemingly paralyzed arms couldn’t reach out to touch them.

Their eyes were b with tears which puzzled me.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

This concern was only heightened after I saw my dad quickly wipe away a tear.

My dad never cried. Ever.

He made it a point to me that if he ever shed a tear, something had to be terribly wrong.

But I had no idea what that something could be.

Between the cars and coyotes, the flood of doctors and the crippling pain, nothing was making the slightest bit of sense. I looked up at them, taking in their phony plastered smiles.

My mother reached out and grabbed my hand, but there was barely any sensation. There was only a light tingle where her fingers were wrapped around my knuckles. The doctor woman watched, with a hint of impatience, the ordeal before her.

“Mom…dad,” I croaked.

Their eyes widened and their smiles fell as the tears came gushing from their sockets.

“She recognizes us!” My dad exclaimed, looking towards the doctor woman.

She smiled approvingly, giving my parents a head nod and a thumbs up.

“It seems our team has done an extraordinary job of restoring her memory.”

Both my parents looked at the doctor woman gratefully. The faint sensation on my hand became more prominent as my mother squeezed it.

My father stepped closer to me, patting the top of my head like he did when I was younger.

“Our Soohyun is alive,” he whispered.

The doctor woman’s smile slowly faded into a tight-lipped stare. Her hint of impatience had returned as she reached inside her white lab coat and fished out a cell phone.

“Ah yes, Mr. and Mrs. Kim. It seems as though the doctors here at Bradford’s Medical Experimental Facility have done well on their part, yes?”

The light in my parents’ brown eyes grew gray and grim.

They looked to the doctor woman and waited for her to finish.

“It seems only fair that you carry out your end of the deal.”

Mischief glinted in the doctor woman’s eyes as she read the contents on the phone in her hand.

The scene unfolding had my mind boggled, so much that I began to feel the beginnings of another spasm.

“Rest assured, you and I will inform her tomorrow after she’s had one full night’s rest outside of her coma. So you have time to prepare whatever it is you want to say until then,” the woman’s lips curled into a blood chilling grin.

My parents shot me a look that struck fear into my core.

What the hell was happening?

“Okay now, it’s time for Soohyun’s medication. Shall you lead the way?”

The doctor woman looked towards my parents, who still appeared to be slack-jawed and teary eyed. Solemnly they nodded, pulled their gaze from mine, and left my line of sight.

The doctor woman pulled a light blue syringe from her coat and flicked the tube to level the clear liquid. Her smile was wicked as she filled my arm with the medicine, but my vision became too impaired to notice anything else.

The beeps of medical machines and blinding white lights seemed distant as I slipped into slumber; as well as the sarcastic sounding “sweet dreams” the doctor woman cooed. 

♦PART TWO♦

The room was dark when my eyelids raised.

My head felt groggy and my body stiff, but I managed to do something that seemed impossible just a while earlier: wiggle my toes.

But that wasn’t all.

I could lift my hands to my face and bend my knees to my chest, granted, there were pains and pops that accompanied these movements.

My head still weighed a ton against the pillow, making it impossible to fully observe my surroundings. I did, however, manage to see a sliver of light beaming on a tray of medical instruments.

All of the names of the tools were foreign to me, aside from the scalpel, but I was sensible enough to understand that I was in a hospital of some sort.

I just couldn’t remember what for.

The only thing – aside from cars and coyotes – that my mind could recollect were the guilty expressions my parents wore when they departed. And though I can’t quite remember what that doctor woman was saying, I’m pretty sure she was the one guilting them.

But before I could start gathering the words I wanted to say to that doctor woman, a door opened, and the flick of a light switch set the entire room bright.

My heart pounded at the sudden intrusion upon the silence, and my eyes scrunched tightly to protect my irises.

“Right this way, Mr. and Mrs. Kim,” a familiar voice directed.

I opened one eye to see the doctor woman’s smiling face, as well as the somber faces my parents wore.

“Wow, our little soldier seems to have woken on her own! Soohyun, how are you feeling?” The doctor woman leaned over the bed I was lying in and placed one supple hand on my forehead.

I looked past her to my parents, seeing their faces twitch with anxiety.

I r