Waking up was supposed to be the easy part. You open your eyes, stretch a bit, maybe yawn if you’re feeling ambitious, and the world is there, just as you left it. But for Saya, waking up felt like prying herself out of a dream made of glue—sticky, resistant, and altogether unpleasant. 

The first thing that registered was the sound. A steady, rhythmic *beep beep* that drilled into her skull, as relentless as a metronome. It took her a moment to identify it as a heart monitor, that telltale sign of clinical concern that usually spelled out bad news. 

The next was the smell. Antiseptic and sterile, the kind of smell that coated the back of your throat and made you feel like you should apologize for bringing germs into the room. It was the scent of hospitals, the scent of places where things are too clean to be safe.

Saya tried to move, but her limbs felt like they were made of lead. A subtle panic began to well up, bubbling under the surface like a kettle about to boil over. She knew she had to get up, had to move, had to do something, but her body was resolutely uncooperative.

So, she did the next best thing: she listened.

Two voices, male, one strident and clipped, the other softer, nervous.

“You incompetent fool! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” The first voice, sharp and furious, cut through the air like a serrated knife. “You’ve ruined everything! How many times have I told you to watch the monitor?”

“I-I’m sorry,” the second voice stammered, full of trembling apologies. “She was stable until now, I swear…”

Stable? Were they talking about her? Saya's mind latched onto the word like a lifeline. Stable meant that she had been in some kind of danger, or was still in it. The heartbeat monitor was still beeping away, annoyingly calm despite the rising tension in the room. 

“If she was stable, she wouldn’t be waking up, would she?” the first voice snapped back. There was a scuffling noise, like someone grabbing something and not being very gentle about it. “You can’t even get a dosage right! Give me that syringe, before you make things worse!”

Saya’s breath caught in her throat. Syringe? What were they planning to do to her?

For a moment, she considered just closing her eyes and pretending none of this was happening. After all, there was a comforting darkness pulling at the edges of her consciousness, whispering to her that it would be so much easier to just let go, slip back into that dream she’d been having.

Yes, that dream… 

A rush of vivid memories came flooding back. She’d been flying, soaring through the air, cutting through clouds like they were made of silk. There had been colors—bright, swirling colors that didn’t seem to exist in the real world. And she had been laughing, a sound that felt so alien now. The kind of laugh that belonged to someone else, someone happy, someone free.

But now, the remnants of that dream were unraveling, slipping through her fingers like sand. It was becoming harder to tell where the dream ended and this strange, sterile reality began. What if that dream wasn’t a dream at all? What if this—this room, these voices—was the nightmare?

“Please, I swear I gave her the right dose!” the nervous voice pleaded again, but it was no use. The other man was determined, fueled by an anger that Saya could practically feel seeping into her skin.

“Shut up and let me fix your mess!” There was a pause, a tense silence that stretched out like a taut wire ready to snap. Then, the footsteps grew louder, closer, until Saya could almost feel the presence of the man standing over her. The first voice, cold and clinical, spoke again, this time right next to her ear. “Don’t worry, my dear. You’re going to sleep for a very long time.”

That was the trigger. Whatever paralysis had gripped her before shattered in an instant, replaced by a raw, primal instinct to survive. Her eyes snapped open, wide and wild, and for the first time she saw the two men standing over her.

The one holding the syringe had a look of irritated impatience, as if Saya waking up was merely an inconvenient hiccup in his otherwise flawless plan. The other, the nurse or assistant or whatever he was, looked like he might dissolve into a puddle of nerves any moment.

“W-what are you doing?” Saya’s voice came out as a rasp, dry and cracked, but it had the desired effect. The man with the syringe froze, his eyes narrowing in a way that made Saya’s skin crawl.

“You’re awake,” he said, more to himself than to her. There was a flicker of something in his gaze—calculation, perhaps—but it was quickly masked by a smooth, professional demeanor. “You shouldn’t be.”

Saya tried to push herself up, but her muscles refused to cooperate. “Where am I?” she demanded, though the question came out weaker than she’d intended.

“You’re in a secure facility,” the man replied, the clinical tone back in his voice. “And you’re going to go back to sleep now. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and you’re still weak, my dear.”

“Still weak?” Saya repeated, her brain still sluggish, trying to piece together the fragments of her fractured thoughts. “Did I get injured?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he brought the syringe closer, and Saya’s heart lurched. 

No. She couldn’t let this happen. She had to do something, anything.

And then, in a flash, her mind seized on a plan. It was reckless, desperate, but it was the only thing she had. With every ounce of strength she could muster, Saya threw her weight to the side, yanking the tubes and wires attached to her body with a force that sent a jolt of pain through her.

The man cursed, stumbling back in surprise, the syringe slipping from his grasp and clattering to the floor. The other man—the nervous one—made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a squeak, clearly not prepared for things to go this far off-script.

The room seemed to spin, and Saya wasn’t sure if it was from the sudden movement or the remnants of whatever drugs were still in her system, but she didn’t stop. Her survival instincts were in overdrive now, pushing her beyond the pain, beyond the confusion.

“Get away from me!” she managed to shout, though it sounded more like a plea than a command.

The man with the syringe recovered quickly, his expression hardening. “You can’t get away,” he said, and there was a finality to his voice that made Saya’s stomach turn. “You don’t understand what’s at stake here.”

But Saya didn’t care about what was at stake. All she knew was that she had to get out. Get away. Find answers, find safety—anything but this.

As she tumbled out of the bed, her legs barely holding her up, the dream she had earlier flared in her mind again. That feeling of freedom, of endless possibilities—it was slipping away, being replaced by the cold, hard edges of this nightmarish reality.

Or was it the other way around? Was the dream the real world, and this just a twisted reflection?

Before she could unravel the thoughts, the men moved towards her again, and Saya’s instincts took over once more. She bolted for the door, her vision swimming, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins kept her going.

Behind her, she heard the man shout orders, heard the scuffle of feet on the floor, but she didn’t look back. She didn’t dare. 

She had to find a way out. 

She stumbled down the corridor, the sterile walls blurring around her, the light too bright, too harsh. The dream still tugged at the edges of her mind, as if calling her back to that place where everything made sense, where everything was okay. 

But Saya knew that if she stopped, if she let herself be pulled back, she might never wake up again.

And so she kept running, even as her body screamed in protest, even as her mind begged for rest. Because as long as she was awake, she had a chance.

Even if the line between dream and nightmare was beginning to blur.

What was real and what wasn‘t?

If yesterday was a dream and this was reality... it surely would've been easier to retreat back to sleep and escape into a better life.