Chapter 98.

“Wait. What? Mr. Genovese, I said it was a joke.”

“I was also just joking.”

She squinted her eyes suspiciously as a seductive grin formed on her face. She entered the room, then approached the bed I was on. I found it slightly bizarre as she’d worn the same spats and spaghetti strap top I’d loaned her two weeks ago. She also appeared a bit sweaty like she’d recently been out for a jog.

“Mr. Genovese, are you sure it was just a joke?”

She leaned over the edge of the bed and positioned her face close to mine. From what I gathered, she seemed to take great pleasure in watching me squirm uncomfortably in her presence. Her scent was much more predominant compared to normal, perhaps it was because she’d worked out a bit before she got here. Rather than it being a bad smell, unexpectedly, she smelled really good instead.

“It really was just a joke. Can you please move your face away a bit?”

When I thought back to our two weeks together in the hallucination I had, my heartbeat sped up. I felt a strange attraction towards her, it was much more significant compared to before. If in reality, she was truly the same person I’d been together with inside my hallucination, I thought I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life together with her despite her strange quirks.

“Why is it I’m finding it hard to believe you right now, Mr. Genovese?”

“How would I know?”

I looked away from her face, I felt butterflies fluttering about in my stomach. Was I some high school girl who just developed her first crush? What the hell was this? 

It’s hella embarrassing. Ugh. Don’t start thinking like one too. That’s even more humiliating and mortifying. I’m not some damn virgin with no experience. Get yourself together, me. Stay cool. It was just a hallucination and not real.

“You didn’t really fall for your boss after she saved your life, did you? I guess I won’t be able to blame you if there are such circumstances. I might even find myself falling for such an amazing boss after all.”

“It’s nothing of the sort.”

“Hmm? Really?”

She climbed on top of the bed and straddled on top of me. She trapped my waist between her thighs. She bent forward and used one hand to turn my head to look her directly in the eyes. She removed the plastic piece that covered my mouth and nose and shot an inquisitive look at me.

“Can you please get off the bed? This is a hospital. It’s not the appropriate place for these sorts of things.”

“What sorts of things? What kind of things are you thinking of doing with your boss when she’s sweaty after a workout and wearing your ex-girlfriend’s clothes?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s the thing pressing against me then?”

“Medical equipment. Don’t try to slander me. I’m innocent here.”

“Oh? Is it really medical equipment like you say it is? Mind if I take a closer look at this so-called ‘medical equipment’?”

“I do mind, can you please not?”

“Then, answer truthfully, are you in love with me?”

“I’m... really not too sure.”

Jumping into a relationship too quickly wasn’t a good idea. My feelings towards her were directed towards the fictional version of her in my head. I couldn’t answer her confidently that I love ‘her’ and not the ‘her’ from my hallucination instead. For me, making a distinction between them wasn’t as simple as it sounded.

“Well, how boring, that was actually the truth this time. I thought I’d finally caught you too. So your feelings are still inconclusive, how annoying. You’re like a girl who can’t make up her mind.”

She pouted and leaned back clearly disappointed with my lackluster response.

Either way, even if it was two weeks in that hallucination, it was still too short a time period to determine if it was what people often jumped to conclusions and called love.

“Well, Mr. Genovese, how do you intend to repay me for putting me through this troublesome ordeal?”

“Shouldn’t this fall under sick leave?”

“I’m not talking about your pay this time. You’ve also taken up my time as well. I spent the last two weeks anxiously watching over you by your side while waiting for you to wake up.”

“I’m sorry for being such a problematic employee. I promise I’ll make it up to you in the future… Val.”

It was honestly quite similar to the hallucination I had. She’d stayed by my side through those two weeks just as she had back in the world inside my head. When I thought it over, I began to contemplate the order of events that transpired inside the hallucination. Perhaps, rather than calling it a hallucination of two weeks, it was actually a nightmare from the very beginning. 

In reality, I’d actually collapsed the moment I stepped outside and wasn’t aware of it. I then had what I thought was a hallucination; when really, I was already long trapped in the nightmare the instant I collapsed. When the world initially turned dark, it was because I’d passed out. When I allegedly snapped out of the so-called hallucination, I was actually just remembering the sequence of events that transpired before I entered the nightmare. Then losing my remaining senses, perhaps that was a result of drugs acting on my body.

Right! That’s it! I’ve heard of this before. Some patients are said to experience traumatizing hallucinations when heavily drugged in the ICU.

It was so convoluted and confusing I actually developed a slight headache when I tried to put together all the pieces of the puzzle. The level of twistedness was unreal, but everything made perfect sense if that was the case. When Maria administered those five drugs to me in my nightmare; it correlated to the five senses I lost. Was it just a coincidence, or was that the way my brain on a subconscious level tried to clue me in on what had happened to my body outside of the hallucination? Did that mean the car I drove through the darkness on the first day was when I was transported to the hospital inside the ambulance?

What about the fireflies? Adele? What was their significance in all this? 

Fireflies, a fragile existence who often flew too close to the sun. Then… did that mean… the reason I collapsed, was it just a result of the heavy mental burden I felt when dealing with Adele?

The more I scrutinized it, the more twists and turns were revealed in relation to the strange story that all played out in my head.

Val suddenly interrupted my train of thought, “You look pretty exhausted for someone who just woke up after two weeks spent sound asleep.”

“Do I really look that bad?”

“Yeah, you do. You kind of look like you’re carrying the world on your back.”

“I see.”

“Do you want to go out for some fresh air?”

“I do.”

“Are you able to move by yourself?”

“The doctor said my body was in perfect condition so it should be fine, I think.”

I really wanted to see the outside world. It felt like it’d been far too long since I had been able to properly look at the scenery outside.

She got off the bed, left the room, then found a nurse and explained the situation. After the nurse confirmed I was really fine, they disconnected the medical equipment hooked up to me. Val helped me stand up and carefully supported my body in case I lost my footing due to a sudden lapse in strength.

It was as the doctor said, there really didn’t seem to be anything wrong with my body after all. I had no trouble despite spending two weeks in an unconscious state.

“Shall we be off then?”

“Sure... let’s go.”

She held onto my sleeve and pulled me out of the room. I was slightly scared that I would step into another fictional world upon exiting, but it all appeared normal for once.

It wasn’t the usual normal, but something was off type of normal. Instead, it was just the plain average world I remembered with nothing out of place. The bland world was strangely reassuring and gave me peace of mind. This was how the world should always be.

All the tension in my body faded away when I took my first step outside the hospital.