“Who are you?”

 

I died…

That’s the end of my story. I don’t know what else to say. There is no happy ending to my story.

At least… that’s what I thought. If it weren’t for the constant beeping noise, I would've surrendered myself to my ending. 

• • •

The noise rings loudly in my ears. My face scrunches as I feel discomfort from the disturbance. That is when I start to realise the weight of my entire body. It is as if someone has put down a huge stone on every inch of my body. Even my eyelids feel the same.

I pour all my energy into trying to open my eyes. When I manage to forcefully open them, I quickly shut them back tightly as the light hurts. The only thing I manage to see in that short time frame is white.

The pain didn’t stop me from trying again but this time, I slowly lift my lids.  I can barely make out my surrounding as there is only white and a blurry black figure. The sight makes me dizzy so I close them once more.

My mind automatically starts thinking of a grim reaper. Maybe I did die and he has come to take me. I decided to face him properly and open my eyes once more.

I blink a few times as my eyes start to adjust themselves to the lights. The vague image of the blurry black figure slowly comes to life as I began to be able to differentiate colours on the figure. Slowly I see a girl with her wavy black hair falling past her shoulders and hanging above me.

She is crying and smiling at the same time. She makes sure that her tears don’t fall on me as she speaks to me. I can see her lips moving but the noisy beeping sound seems to be louder than her. I can’t focus and my mind hurts.

My annoyance shows through my facial expression. The feeling of irritation towards the beeping sounds now includes the intruding presence of this strange girl who seems to be around my age. She doesn’t seem to notice my emotions in regards to her as she continues to cry. 

I don’t even know her. My mind doesn't register the fact that she could be crying for my sake. It feels like she is just here to disturb my personal space instead.

"Lu- hic  - ke..." I can finally hear her voice after my ears adjust themselves and the beeping sound fades out into background noise.

"You're - hic - you're finally, a-awake," She wipes away her tears and I can see relief in her eyes judging from the way she looks at me. My heart thumps loudly as my mind tries to register this foreign emotion welling up inside of me.

"I'm going to - hic - call the doctor now," She turns around and I watch her walk out the room seemingly in a rush. She gives me one last glance with a soft smile hanging on her face before disappearing out the door.

The room void of her cries echoes with the beeping sound. My eyes dart around the room in search of the source until it lands on a rectangular screen. It beeps every time a line goes up and I wish that I am able to slam and destroy it.

Since I can’t move my body right now, I decide to turn my focus elsewhere. My eyes wander around the clean yet bare white room. The only colours are the flowers on the bedside table along with some get well soon balloons placed in one corner within my view.

Then my eyes fall onto my hand which has this weird tube connected to it.

I become stunned almost immediately. The only thought that runs in my mind is… 

What... the fck?!

I would flail about and probably rip it off me if it wasn’t for the fact that I am currently unable to move. Somehow, I don’t feel right being here. I’m not even sure where am I at the moment. I have begun to question whether or not I have died.

Nonetheless, I don't have time to contemplate further until a couple enters the room with weary faces. They look up to see me staring. Their eyes go wide in shock with noticeable disbelief. When the woman starts to cry her eyes out, the man quickly wakes up from his trance and pulls her into his embrace. He starts to rub her back while muttering words of gratitude that isn’t directed to anyone in particular.

They maintain their position for a while until the woman calms down and the two separate from each other. The man constantly asks the woman about her wellbeing before feeling reassured by her frequent nodding.

He finally releases her shoulders and she turns around to look at me. The moment our eyes meet, she shows me the most genuine smile I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

My heart immediately starts to thump so loudly; I can feel it in my ears.

I currently have mixed feelings when I see her smile that she directs at me. It is a mixed feeling of touched and confusion. My body seems to ease a lot after seeing her smile but my mind can’t process any information relating to this woman.

This middle-aged woman is just another stranger to me much like the girl that was in the room earlier. I can't understand how these people can react so strongly when facing the weak me.

My head starts pounding from the massive confusion when suddenly, I can feel something squeezing my hand. My eyes turn as quickly as they can to reveal the reason for that sensation. I hadn’t realised that the man had placed himself next to me and on that note, my body doesn’t seem to have the conditional reflex of gagging when someone other than Mama touches me. It’s something that I had to hold back every time I had to serve a customer.

However, looking into the man’s eyes that are full of kindness seems to envelop me into this warm and comfortable feeling. It adds to my confusion since It’s weird having a man looking at you that way since all you've ever known for the longest time are eyes of lust and desire. There used to be only one person that looked at me like that… 

"Luke..." My eyes snap back to the woman when I hear her voice.

Luke…? 

Who is that?

"You're awake. Thank goodness. I was so worried you'd never wake up again," She instantly breaks down into her sobbing after finishing her sentences.

I keep quiet since I am still as confused as ever since I woke up. Both of them start talking and asking me questions but the most notable thing would be the fact that they are calling me “Luke”.

Who the heck is Luke? Pretty sure I’m not it. That’s not my name!

Before anything else happens, a man in a white coat enters the room with the same girl that left the room earlier. She goes directly toward the couple and greets them politely. They exchange pleasantries as well as brief comments about me.

The doctor greets the couple as well and starts asking them short questions relating to me regarding their observation since they have entered the room. He doesn’t talk to them for too long and goes straight to me afterward.

He offers me a small smile while pulling out a pen from the clipboard he has been holding since the beginning. Another stranger to deal with. I grunt in my mind.

"How are you feeling?" he asks and I know for sure I can’t answer that cause my throat hurts.

However, he doesn’t seem like he was waiting for my answer since the next thing he does is pulling out a small flashlight and aims it at me. I glare at him cause the light is hurting my eyes. I want to close my eyes but he ensures that each of my eyes would be open when he flashes it one by one.

When he lets go, my eyes tear up a little in order to combat the feeling of temporary dryness. His abrupt actions make me feel annoyed and angry.

The hell?!

What was that for?!

I can’t help but to complain and curse him in my mind. I don’t like random strangers touching my body if I can help it.

The man in the lab coat observes me for a moment before nodding to himself and writing something down on the board.

“Doctor… Is my son going to be okay?” I can see a glimmer of hope hiding away in the eyes of the man that asked the question.

The man in the lab coat or ‘doctor’ turns to face the two hopeful couple.

“He should be fine but we would need to keep him a couple more days for observation,”

The middle-aged woman immediately bursts into tears again and says to the doctor, “Oh, thank goodness… Michael, how can we ever repay you?”

Before the doctor is able to reply her, my head starts to pound because I have been trying to understand the reason that the man would refer me as his son. The pain makes me groan loudly. I don’t know when but I seem to have recovered enough strength to move as I try to shift my body and hold my head. The pain starts to feel overbearing for me and I start to feel unsettled.

I can vaguely hear the doctor telling me to take it easy as he tries to help me sit up. I don’t even notice the girl has come around my bed and is standing opposite to the doctor. The two of them cooperate in helping me.

When I finally sit up on the bed properly, I see a reflection in the mirror. There are three people reflected in it. One of them is the girl on my left and the other is a half-face of the doctor on my right. The stranger in between those two in the reflection is staring back at me.

My eyes grow wide and would fall off if they weren't attached properly to me. My mind instantly goes chaotic as it tries to comprehend the scene I see in the mirror.

I start to flail about trying to push away the two at my sides from crowding close to me. I keep telling myself to get out of this weird place. I can’t stay any longer. I don’t know what the hell is going on right now and I don’t think I want to find out.

“Luke, stop it!” there’s panic in the girl’s voice and I can hear the couple calls out to me by using that name…

Luke…

Who is he?!

The doctor goes straight into action and tries to grab my hands from flailing while doing his best to speak to me in a steady manner hoping that it might calm me down.

However, given the current state of my mind, I can’t even register the things that are happening around me. All I can think of is that name.

Luke…

Who the fck is he?!

Why are they calling me that?! Stop calling me that!

I wish I can scream at them but my voice can barely come out and my throat starts to hurt.

My head is throbbing and my ears are pounding. I need to get out of here as fast as I can. I can see several others coming inside the room through the corner of my eyes. Some have a white coat on and some are wearing this blue set of clothes. They start to push me back on the bed and holding me down.

I start to panic and my breathing is uneven. I try to struggle but their grip on me is strong enough and I no longer feel like I have the energy to move anymore. I can feel the sting on one of my hands. My eyes dart around the room before it landings on the couple who are standing together with the girl. The three of them hug each and other while the woman and the girl are crying. They both still insist on calling me 'Luke' and then, my eyes are consumed by darkness...

The other person I saw in the mirror looks nothing like me and it should have been my reflection there.

What the hell is going on?!

I laugh bitterly in the darkness of my mind knowing that no one will answer.

At least that is what I thought until I can see a light glimmering on my right.

I stare at it for a moment before deciding to walk to it. Nothing really scares me at this point. I’m too tired of this confused feeling.

Plus, I probably already died so to hell with it. Whatever happened earlier is just another weird nightmare that I probably have to face before I proceed to the afterlife.

I walk for a while as the light turns brighter but oddly it doesn’t hurt my eyes. When I got closer, I can see that the light is surrounding an empty door frame that seems to be inviting me in.

There is a mixed feeling of fear and anticipation. I am afraid that if I enter it, I might be back at the garbage home of mine. No. It’s not even a home. It was just a shelter.

Despite that, the light seems to be emitting a warm and cozy feeling. It might be something I created in my mind but it does feel like it insists that I walk through the threshold.

The doubt and curiosity inside me are fighting each other. In the end, I decided that nothing else can harm me now. I’m just a shell of a boy that lives in a broken shelter.

It’s not like a demon would jump out and murder me. This world within this darkness is probably my imagination. The next thing I know, I might even wake up and see my dirty room. So fck it. Who cares right now. I might not have this realistic dream again.

When I walk into the door frame that has no door, I seem to have entered a dirty bathroom. Even in my dreams, I can’t seem to escape that dirty stinking space that I call the bathroom.

I turn around and all I see is darkness. I decided that staying within this cramped smelly bathroom beats sitting in the dark contemplating life.

Looking back into my bathroom, I notice one additional item above the brown stained sink.

A mirror.

I rarely had the opportunity to see myself in the mirror. Usually a vague reflection through various items. I take another look around the room and finally admit that it is the same exact bathroom in the shelter I lived but someone has added a mirror to it.

Maybe I did.

It is my dream and I should be able to control my own dream…

Right?

I walk slowly to the mirror and a feeling of anticipation starts to build up. I’m quivering unknowingly and I can’t find the courage to look up. I stare at the brown stain on my sink that reminds me how dirty the bathroom is and the walls don't even have tiles.

I take a deep breath and lookup.

Instantly, I become startled and take a step back.

That’s not me…

I search within me the courage to look back into the mirror and sure enough, a stranger’s face is reflected from it. I seem to know this face somewhere. I keep staring until I start to remember the face on the hospital’s mirror. It’s the same face.

The boy within the mirror’s reflection stares back at me. I start to take in his features while cursing his good looks.

The fck… He’s such a pretty boy.

He has a clean cut with his hair neatly shaved on one side. He has droopy eyes with deep eye bags. He also has nicely arched eyebrows that match his wide forehead. He has this long straight nose which I'm pretty sure the polar opposite of mine. He also has thin wide lips.

And those seductive blue eyes that can easily make a living in my job.

However, he has a downside too. His skin appears sickly pale and his cheeks appear hollow highlighting his bones. It’s an appearance that some might find off-putting but some perverts would probably love him regardless.

My eyes finally stray away from him and onto his background. It seems that he is inside a clean and luxurious bathroom that has beautifully designed tiles everywhere.

Sht. He has good looks and better life than me.

That’s not fair. Why must life fck with me?

I can feel my anger boiling up within me. I have to turn away and take a deep breath to calm myself down.

When I regain my composure I seem to realise that the bathroom I’m in has changed. It’s the exact same bathroom I saw behind that boy. I turn around and it seems even the sink has turned into a rich man’s sink. There’s space to put items and also… no more fkin brown stain!

I look up to the mirror with confusion in my mind. The reflection is doing the same thing. I bob my head left and right to see if it moves accordingly. I am slightly startled by the fact it follows my gesture.

Then I facepalm myself over my stupidity.

It’s a mirror, you dumfuk.

After that… I become petrified momentarily with my face still buried in my palm. I look up slowly as my brain starts to work again.

Doesn’t this mean… this boy is me…

My mouth slightly gapes open as I stare blankly.

I blink my eyes a couple of times but can’t seem to find the logical reasoning behind this.

Oh, wait.

It’s a dream. Dumbass. I roll my eyes at myself.

But then again, why would I dream about being this boy?

No, to be exact…

Who are you?!