The lost Time
The room was silent, save for the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor. As his eyelids fluttered open, the harsh white light of the hospital room felt like needle pricks. Lauren blinked slowly, his breath hitching as if his lungs were relearning how to function.
" Lauren....?"
With great effort, Lauren turned his head. Sitting by the bedside was a woman with swollen, tear-streaked eyes. Monica. His younger sister, whom he last remembered as a ten-year-old, now looked completely different, her features sharpened by maturity.
"Moni... ca?" Lauren’s voice was raspy.
Monica sobbed, reaching out to clutch Lauren’s hand. "I’m here. Oh God, Lauren... I thought you’d never wake up."
Lauren paused, struggling to process his last memory: the accident. He remembered the glare of headlights, the deafening screech of brakes, and then... darkness.
"How long?" Lauren asked suddenly, his eyes widening as he caught his reflection in the room’s mirror—his face was still young, yet he felt something deeply unsettled. "How long was I asleep, Mon?"
Monica bowed her head, her shoulders shaking violently. "Twenty years, Lauren."
Twenty years. The words struck him like a hammer to the chest. Lauren gasped, his lungs tightening. "Twenty years? Then... Mom? Dad? Where are they? Why are you the only one here?"
Lauren gripped the hospital sheets with trembling hands. "Call them, Mon! I need to see Mom!"
Monica wept silently, holding her brother's hand tightly. "Mom... Mom passed away, Lauren. Ten years ago. And Dad... Dad followed a year later."
The world seemed to stop spinning. Lauren couldn’t find his voice. He felt like a sailor who had lost his compass in the middle of an ocean.
That evening, after exhausting medical examinations, Lauren insisted on going out. He ended up in the hospital garden, sitting silently on a long wooden bench beneath the shade of a large tree.
He stared at his hands. His skin was still young, smooth, untouched by the scars of time thanks to the age-stasis that kept him at eighteen. But his heart felt ancient. He was a stranger in his own body.
"Excuse me, is this seat taken?"
Lauren jolted. He looked up to see a man standing before him. He looked to be around his age, with a gentle face and an incredibly calm aura. Lucas.
Lucas sat down, placing his water bottle to the side. He let out a long sigh, staring up at the orange evening sky. "Hospitals have a way of making people feel so alone, don't they? Are you waiting for someone, too?"
Lauren watched Lucas from the corner of his eye. There was something about the way Lucas spoke so casually that made him feel a little calmer amidst the storm in his mind.
"No," Lauren answered softly, his eyes returning to the horizon—to a world he no longer recognized. "I'm not waiting for anyone. They’re all gone."
Lucas turned, looking at Lauren with a confused yet sympathetic expression. "Whoa, that’s a heavy answer. Take it easy, the world isn't going anywhere."
The world has already run too far away from me, Lauren thought bitterly.
"I’m Lucas," he said, extending a hand, completely unaware that the young person before him was actually a thirty-eight-year-old man whose soul was currently shattered.
Lauren stared at the hand, then shook it tentatively. "Lauren."
