PHOENIX

The sound of metal crashing and blaring horns resonated intensely in her mind. Her body dropped deeper and deeper into the empty void.

Phoenix jolted upright in response to the freefall in her dream. She gagged from the sensation of a tube in her nose down to her throat. Phoenix’s body ached all over, as if someone had beaten her back with a bat a hundred times. Slowly, she laid her body back down on the bed.

Her eyes stared at the ceiling as she calmed her elevated heart rate. She took deep breaths to center herself from a pool of emotions clawing out at her chest. She felt as if she had woken up from a long dream, and as much as she tried to remember what it was about, her mind drew nothing.

The woman looked up at the charcoal-colored ceiling, its white soft light glowing around the boundaries of the room. The chandelier in the middle looked like six little lamps connected together and formed the shape of a flower. 

As her mind quieted, she detected the sound of a steady beep of the monitor to her right. Her eyes scanned the bedside of the room as if searching for something, but she didn’t know what.

Where was she?

Once her body and mind settled, the woman sluggishly pressed her back against the velvet headboard and observed the room. The room lit up from sensing her movements. In front of the bed was a huge TV that could easily be mistaken as a projector. A little further next to it was a door without a doorknob. It seemed like it was locked from the outside.  

She wasn’t familiar with this place. Even stranger, she couldn’t remember how she had sustained such a grave injury. Her memories were muddled as if trying to see through a foggy mountain.

Who… was she?

A strange realization hit her. She didn’t even remember her name.

Suddenly, she heard a click and the door opened. A man stepped into the room, his white lab coat buttoned and gray hair neatly styled. In his right arm was a clipboard. His well-polished shoes tapped steadily against the wooden floor, the sound blending in with the apparatus in the room. Once he was close enough, his gaze scanned the monitors before switching over to the woman.

“Can you hear and see me clearly?” the doctor asked, his voice low and firm. The woman nodded.

“Do you know where you are right now?” 

When she tried to speak, her throat felt so swollen that she had to swallow a few times before she could say, “no.”

The doctor wrote on his clipboard and asked, “can you tell me your full name?”

Phoenix shook her head. Another note.

“Can you describe the last thing you remember before the accident?” Again, she shook her head. 

The doctor calmly asked her more questions to check for discomfort or neurological symptoms. Aside from her memory, he said everything was fine and even said she had an abnormally fast recovery rate. After some time, he took off her feeding tube and left her alone in the room. 

Her mind wandered off to the irregularity of this situation. She was in a bedroom with hospital equipment needed for her recovery instead of a hospital. Then, there was the door. Anyone could open it from the outside, but she couldn’t. 

Earlier when her eyes wandered around the room, she noticed a glint from the smoke detector. Her instincts told her it had a secret camera, which explained how the doctor was able to check in on her almost immediately after she woke up. 

A chill crawled up her spine. 

She despised feeling like someone’s lab rat.

Minutes later, the door opened again. A man around his 20s walked in. His eyes were an unusual shade of red and he had a tattoo peeking out of his sleeve. His hand held a tray with a bowl and a bottle of water. He must be the one who had ‘helped’ her.

“I’m glad to see you awake, sleepyhead.” The man grinned as the door slammed behind him. His long legs strode towards the woman’s right. 

Her eyes focused sharply on the man’s every move, not daring to look away even one second. Her body tensed up and shuffled over to her left to get away from him as much as possible.

“Is this how you thank your savior? If I didn’t help you, you would have been dead by now, you know.”

She looked at the tray he placed on her lap, her eyebrows furrowing.  “… ”

“I just wanted to make sure you eat properly. I didn’t poison it, if that’s what you wanted to ask.”

She ignored his pointless attempt at bickering and pressed him for answers. “Who are you? Who am I and why are you keeping me here?”

He smiled and said, “I’m doing you a favor since it’s thanks to you my Family’s influence got this big.”

“Since you’re able to move your body, I’ll let you eat by yourself. When you’re finished, or if you need anything else, just wave at the camera.” He playfully waved his hand at the hidden camera she noticed earlier. Then he left.

The man’s erratic behavior was unsettling. 

She couldn’t shake off what he said about doing her a favor. He made it sound lighthearted and genuine, but she felt like it was a stab to her stomach and the more she thought about it, the more someone twisted that knife in her organs.

Her mind replayed that conversation over and over again as if it was a key to unlock her other memories. Before she knew it, her mind and body were exhausted, and she drifted back to sleep.

~~

As her  awareness trickled in, Phoenix heard a melodious chirping of birds and smelled the scent of lilies permeating throughout every flow of the wind. She looked up to see Lilanna smiling at her, the fireflies wrapping around her wavy hair. She had a warm smile on her face. 

“Welcome back!”

Phoenix massaged her forehead and laid still as her memories sorted itself out. She woke up in the ‘real world’ where she had forgotten her identity. In this dream world, however, she could still remember everything. This was a dream, yet her mind had more clarity.

However, once she’s awake in the ‘real world’ again, she would likely forget what happened in this dreamscape. Was it because of her body’s condition, or was it just how this dream worked?

Lilianna patiently waited for Phoenix to sort herself out and started braiding her hair. She tapped Phoenix to turn to her side and braided one strand and tapped Phoenix again to urge her to switch to her other side so Lilianna could work on the other. 

“Do you forget what happens here when you wake up?”

"No? I remember everything that happens,” Lilianna answered. Phoenix sat up from lying on Lilianna’s lap, intending to have a serious conversation, only to be met with a chuckle.

“What?”  

“Sorry, you just look so cute haha!” Lilianna whipped up a mirror from who-knows-where and Phoenix saw two asymmetrical braids from each side of her hair, bent in weird ways with little hairs sticking out.

“... ”

“How can you laugh in this situation?”

Lilianna stopped laughing. “I’m just happy we get to talk like this.”

“And?”

“That’s it. Is it a horrible thing to want to spend time with you?” Lilianna’s voice cracked. Her eyes glistened as she stared back at Phoenix.

“What about going home? Your family’s been waiting for you for years,” Phoenix’s chest tightened. A flash of anger came over her. It was her fault Lilianna was stuck in this situation. She didn’t know how to process this emotion. She didn’t want Lilianna to accept things as they were. Phoenix wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.

“I tried everything. This is the best I could do.”

Phoenix quickly set aside her emotions to assess the situation. “Do you have an idea why you can’t leave that world?” 

Lilianna answered quickly, “I believe it’s because my soul merged with this body. It probably thinks I’m its owner and it doesn’t let me go back to my original body.”

Phoenix now understood why she looked different. 

“But I think the biggest reason is that this body is stuck in a time-loop.”

She waited for Lilianna to continue.

“I don’t know why the time-loop exists, but it repeats the same exact events every two years. Absolutely nothing changes. Even when I became aware of the repetition of events. It’s creepy.”

Phoenix followed her line of reasoning. “You’re saying you can’t leave the body because it needs you to keep the body alive and move according to the events of the time-loop.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“What happened to the original soul of that body?”

Lilianna lowered her eyes. “I don’t know, but I don’t think she can go back.”

Phoenix could only think of one solution. “You were able to extract my soul and bring it here, correct?”

“Yes, I did.”

Phoenix shifted her weight and turned to Lilianna. “Then, you can reverse-engineer the process. If you can take a soul from a body, it’s reasonable to assume you can place one back or swap two.”

Lilianna bit her lip. “It’s not that simple. I don’t want you to feel stuck in that world in my place.”

“It’s possible I won’t be bound by the same constraints as the time-loop since my soul hasn’t merged with the body.”

The fireflies dancing around Lilianna dispersed, and the chirping of the birds quieted. “It’s dangerous. We don’t know what could happen when the time-loop is broken.”

“I know.” 

The two faced off with unwavering stares.

Lilianna broke away first and glanced at the dawn in the sky. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

Phoenix had to resort to her last argument to convince this woman. She moved closer to her until their shoulders touched. 

“I have… well, my body has amnesia. I got into an accident before you pulled my soul to be here.”

Lilianna’s eyes widened as if she just had a revelation. Phoenix grabbed her hand and continued.

“Damon has me captive,” Phoenix whispered, her tone sounding in a hiss when she remembered what he said about helping his Family.

Lilianna scrunched her nose at the mention of that name. She hated him as much as Phoenix if not slightly more. Phoenix could almost see her convinced.

“I need you to help me get the fuck out of there. Please.”

The koi fish from the pond splashed and swam around in a circle. Lilianna was silent for a moment. Then, she said,

“We’ll try it for one day.”