Epilogue I

Two weeks later...

Cole

I sat in the darkness that was only punctured by a low fluorescent lamp on the other side of the sofa on which I was sitting. The heavy silence surrounding me felt suffocating, the kind where every breath stabs in the lungs. And as I struggled to breathe, the world around me seemed to be peacefully sleeping. Along with the woman on the hospital bed.

I wrenched my gaze from her sleeping form and looked up at the ceiling. I was on the eighth floor of the hospital that was considered to be the best and yet they couldn’t wake her up. Like the rest of the world she was sleeping too, but unlike the rest of the world she has been sleeping for a long time now. Coma. The first letter word with a power that put the one person’s life on hold, affected others who were close to them, while the whole world around moves at their regular pace like nothing happened.

She hasn’t woken up since the last time I left her— six years ago, except she did fifteen days ago and as fate ha