My breathing is heavy.

Darkness encompasses my entire vision, but my sight has begun to adjust to the dark. A sea of red, thick liquid up to my knee, endless and vast, as I gaze into the darkness around me. There is not a single light to be found or any living soul near me.

I don't know where I am, but my entire body is in tremendous pain. I try to move my hand to rub my head and found that my movement has been restricted by shackles that tied both my wrists down to the ground underneath the lake of red liquid.

The chain connected to the shackles chinked as I try to get the shackles off my wrists and fail to do so. A blinding light shines upon me causing me to look away, but I try to look back at it, as my eyes notice a feminine figure standing in front of the light.

The woman in front of the blinding light is tall. If I could guess, she is about twenty feet tall almost the same height as the giraffes in the Zoo that I visited when I was still a child. The mysterious figure has a long, lush hair with wavy ends and a toned body with a pair of voluminous breasts from what I could see. In her hands hold a balance scale on one of them and a dagger on the other.

Even with the bright light invading my eyes and blurring my vision, I could feel her stern gaze upon me.

"Who are you?" After I asked my question, the light suddenly disappears, and my eyes are greeted with the darkness again, and the woman is nowhere to be seen.

When I lower down my sight to the vast sea of red liquid in front of me, I'm met with... myself? Me, no, I? Someone who looks like me, exactly like me is standing in front of me while glaring at me. Before I could ask him a question, the clone of me charges toward me with a sudden outburst of rage.

My hands were slow to defend as the clone punch me in the jaw causing me tremendous pain to pile upon the pain that I'm already feeling. After I let out a scream, the tip of my tongue feel one of my teeth is loose, and my tongue tastes iron in my mouth. Moving my hand up to where he punched me was a mistake as he pummels his fist against my other unprotected cheek causing my loose teeth to fall out of my jaw along with a small amount of blood.

"Wait?!"

After I scream that one word, my clone punches me on the nose, his clenched fist digs into my nose, breaking the bone inside it, and pushing the broken bone back into my skull. I take a step back and let out a scream of pain while trying to catch my breath. My clone uppercut my gut causing me to hunch forward, and forcing me to spill out the content of my stomach.

I fall to my knee, and puke every last thing my stomach had to offer onto the sea of red liquid beneath me. My body trembles after I stop puking, my shaking voice escape my lips as I say, "Help..."

I'm knee-deep in an ocean of blood.

With his hand, he grabs my hair and pulls me up to see what I have become. Afterward, he spits onto my face, then he swings his leg and hit the left side of my head, tossing me into the ocean of red color water. The water enters my mouth and flows into my taste buds, it tastes the same as my blood.

My body floats on the sea of red liquid.

"Where am... I?" Tears drip out from my eyes and flow into the sea of blood.

"Am I in hell?" I mumble to myself in fear and pain.

Before I could let out another sentence, my clone stomps his foot multiple time on my ribs and my stomach after I turn my body. He pushes me down into the water and up again as he stomps his foot against my chest repeatedly then after he satisfied, with his two feet he jumps onto my chest and breaks my ribs while forcing me to submerge deep into the ocean of blood.

Every last air I had in my lungs escaped my body in bubbles after he stomps both his feet on my chest while forcing me to stay under the water. When he finally let me back up, I try to inhale any air I could get, but my clone wasn't going to give me time to rest. He sits on top of my body and chokes me with his two hands while sinking my head into the sea of blood.

I let out a cough as a large amount of blood enter my throat and flood my lungs. My hands wail onto his face, I try to strike him with every ounce of strength I had, but it was useless, as my clone is impassive at every hit I threw at him. What I notice during my attacks was his face was solid hard like he was made out of concrete or rock.

I try to wedge my fingers in between his grip around my neck to give my throat some relive, but his grip wouldn't budge.

My breath was agonizingly painful and terribly short. Every air I try to let in cause me to gulp down more blood into my lungs while trying to breathe. I begin to suffocate and slowly losing my strength. I didn't know whether I was choking on my own blood or the sea of unknown blood surrounding me.

My sight slowly to blur, as I let go of his grip, my eyes are barely open while I slowly fall back into the darkness that I was greeted with at the beginning.

...

Once again, lights enter my eyes, I blink a few times, as I mend my blurry vision. My sight is greeted with white ceiling panel, and the glimmer of the warm sun that is pouring into the room. I felt numb, but not physically numb, even though I did feel a bit numb at my toe.

I didn't feel any emotion.

Void of fear.

Void of anger.

Void of joy.

Void of indignation.

Void of sadness.

My hearts are empty, but my mind is clear like an untouched lake without any ripple. I still feel my senses, my ears could hear the beeping noise of a machine beside me, my body still feels pain, and the softness of what I presume is a bed under me. My nose could detect a strong, chemical smell and the smell of sickness and mortality. Besides the pungent smell, I could feel the silicone, long tube in my nose and mouth along with the feeling of discomfort when having them stuck in the back of my throat.

This place, if I could guess where I am, it's the hospital.

I remember what happens, the black SUV, the upside-down dagger tattoo, and—Daisie! My hand spontaneously reaches out to the empty air above me, Why did I do that? My hand just moves on its own. Was it because of fear and worry? Yet, I still don't feel any of that.

After raising my own hand, my mind finally realizes that my arm is skinny to the point of my bone is visible as there were so few muscles and fat under my skin. I raise my other hand to confirm what my mind is seeing, and it was true, as my other arm look the same as the other, but with a long scar running down it and a small, long tube connected to the Cannula that is inserted into my vein.

I gently rotate my head to my right after dropping both arms back onto the comfy bed. Gazing at the woman resting her head at the edge of the bedside, her black, frizzy and unkempt hairs hide her own face, but under all that mess, I recognize who it is: Kristy Adams. A hard-working woman, married to a kind man, and a mother to one child.

That child is me.

A sudden burst of pain travel throughout my body, I try to wake my mom, but I could only let out an unintelligible moan.

"Mmmooaam."

Her head stirs after hearing my first moan then I let out another one causing my mom to raise her head. She pulls back some of her messy hair and wipes the corner of her eyes while still not realizing that I'm wide awake in front of her. I move my hand and place it on top of her, she looks at me with wide eyes.

After a few seconds, her minds slowly realize it then she yells out, "Doctors!!"

A dozen nurse and doctor can be heard rushing to my room, my mom takes hold of my hand with a relieved smile on her face, and her eyes begin to tear up with happiness. Droplets of tear slide down her cheeks, falling onto my hand and wetting my hands with her warm tears.

While the doctor and nurses check my condition, my mom never left my side and stay in the room watching over me.

*

Three months have passed.

"Hello Andre, I see that your health has been improved quite a lot and so quickly over this past few months. Yet, I still wonder, how are you?" The question was asked by a woman with a friendly and calming aura surrounding her.

That same woman is wearing black glasses and a beige cardigan, the color of pale sand. Her hairs are astonishingly neat as she tied her brown hair into a bun. In her hands hold a black leather clipboard with a single paper on it and an expensive pen. She writes down something on the paper while I take my time to answers her question, I always wonder what does she write on the paper, or did she actually write on it.

This woman that is sitting across me is the hospital paid psychiatrist; Doctor Anya Sayo.

"I have been doing the exercise that nurse ask me to do without fail, my body has significantly grown after I wake up from my coma. I used to be fat or overweight according to the doctor, but when I take a look at the mirror, there are muscles visible on my body that wasn't there before."

"Still, I wouldn't call myself a bodybuilder. What I'm trying to say is that I look healthier than before."

"Thank you for sharing, but I still haven't got my answer from you. You keep telling me about your progress. However, you fail to answer my question about, how are you?"

The clock ticks and the window shake as the breeze brush against it, "I... I still can't feel any emotion..."

I look at her, and she nods her head while keeping her eye contact with me, "My mom told me that I have been in a coma for three years, and she also tells me what happens to Daisie."

"She doesn't give me the detail because she doesn't want me to get hurt, but she told me that Daisie passed away... that's all she told me."

"You didn't press on for detail?"

"I didn't... I don't know why."

"What did you feel about the news?"

"That what's been bothering me, I don't feel anything, no anger, and no sadness. Even the time when my mother told me about my father that he ran away after a year of me being in a coma, I didn't feel angry at my father or anything."

"Am I broken, Doctor?"

"Hm, let me ask you this if you see your mother about to get hit by a car, would you push her away?"

"I would without a doubt."

"Why is that?"

"Because she is my mother?"

"And?" Her left eyebrow raised as she looks at me.

"And I don't want to see her get hurt."

"Because?" She gestures her hand for me to continue.

"I'm scared of seeing her get hurt?"

"Yes, there you go. I don't think you are a broken man, Mr. Andre."

"If I'm not broken, then what's wrong with me?"

"I think your brain is having a bit of a problem recognizing your own emotions, maybe due to brain damage from when you get hit on the head or maybe mental trauma from the terrible experience you went through."

"So how do I fix it?"

"Time and loved one... and also maybe a couple checks up every month."

She looks at her watch and back at me, "It seems that this will be our last time of meeting each other if you have any problem just call me on this number." She passes a card to me, I grab it and store it inside my pant pocket.

"Thank you, Doctor."

"Be sure to take care of yourself."

"See you again, Doctor."

"I hope we don't meet back in here." She let out a chuckle.

"Maybe in a mart or a bar somewhere. If you see me, don't be shy to say, hello."

After getting off from the sofa, I kept pulling on my collar as it kept sliding out of my shoulder. I walk out the door with an opaque glass pane on it and meet my mom on the other side. Both her hands on the push handles of the wheelchair along with a nurse standing by her side. My eyes darted at the nurse, and back at my mom, and my gaze went to the wheelchair.

"What with the wheelchair?"

"Hospital policy." My mom reply with a cheery tone.

"We don't want you to get hurt leaving the hospital, so every patient that are discharges must leave the hospital on a wheelchair." The nurse reply with a friendly smile on her face.

"Okay," I reply back then take a seat on the wheelchair.

The wheelchair moves with me on it, as my mom push it forward, the nurse walk alongside us to make sure that everything is fine. It doesn't take us long to reach the outside of the hospital. When we arrive in front of the main door, I stand up from the wheelchair and say my thanks to the nurse.

With my mom by my side, we walk toward her car, I look up at the sky during our strive and see the clear, blue, sky illuminate by the warm sun. I'm finally able to smell the fresh air again after spending a long time in the hospital, recovering from my coma.