บท 4: Who am I?

The next time I woke up, there was a pediatrician in the hospital room. He asked all sorts of questions, trying to gauge my condition. I gave him my usual thumbs-up or down signal as he checked me over.

It felt strange to be answering questions with just hand signals, but it was better than nothing.

Eventually, I managed to summon the strength to ask, "What happened to me?"

Even though my voice was very rough, I knew they could at least make out what I was saying.

The pediatrician looked at me with a mix of sympathy and concern. "Take it easy there, Graham," he said gently. "You've been in a coma for a long time. I need to make a call to someone who can better answer your questions."

It wasn't long after that a large group of people walked into the room

"You're incredibly fortunate to be alive, Graham," the doctor said solemnly. "I couldn't find any records online or offline of anyone surviving more than two direct lightning strikes. Specialists who examined you estimated that you were hit by lightning between five and twelve times. Detectors recorded fifty-seven lightning strikes within a half-mile radius of your school during the ten minutes the storm was directly overhead. fourteen of the most recent strikes occurred just feet away from where they found you."

"I was naked?" I interjected.

"Not entirely," he replied with a slight chuckle. "Paramedics mentioned you still had your belt on and part of one pant leg around your ankle. They also found one shoe's rubber sole melted onto the brick path through the park."

'So, the dream was not a dream after all. Were the Gods real too, or did I go crazy?'

The doctor looked at me, "Is the light from the windows too bright for you?"

I squinted a little and replied, "It's a bit bright, but it's not too bad."

He nodded thoughtfully. "That's to be expected. Usually, after experiencing a lightning strike, people become sensitive to light. You may need to wear sunglasses for a while until your eyes adjust."

Then, he pointed out, "You also have some lightning marks on your body. You can think of them as tattoos. Fortunately for you, they're not too pronounced, but they'll be with you for life."

The doctor decided to check my vision and ordered the interns to adjust my bed so I could look at eye chart at the foot of my bed. Someone pointed to the letters as I read them aloud.

When I was younger, I didn't have perfect vision, maybe around 17/20. But now, for some reason, I had no trouble reading the 20 or even 25/15 lines.

The doctor moved the chart further away from the bed, pointing to the smallest letters. With some difficulty, I managed to barely read them. But when he moved it even further, I could no longer read them.

The doctor's smile widened. "Graham, you now have a 30/15 eyesight. It's truly remarkable. You could say that you have become a superhuman."

I raised my eyebrows, 'Superhuman? What is this doctor on about?'

But the doctor quickly clarified, "Actually, this kind of extraordinary vision isn't unheard of in certain communities. Aborigines and other African tribes who hunted for survival often developed exceptional eyesight over the years. They needed sharp vision to track prey and find their way around."

"But for you, Graham, it seems that the lightning strike has had a similar effect. For some reason, the electrical surge seems to have made your eyesight better than what we typically see. I theorize that it could have worked like laser vision correction."

As I was now an adult the doctors than explained a few more things that they did to me, for some reason the procedures seemed really strange to me, like they were a bit more ancient than what I would expect in this day and age.

As they were about to leave, I asked. "Can I use a phone? It's really boring here."

They exchanged a glance, and the doctor explained, "You must have realised that we didn't use any electronic devices. There was a bit of problem. Somehow, your body kept acting like a supercharged battery from all the lightning strikes. It had strange effects on electrical devices, making them malfunction when near you. That's why there's no TV in the room or any electrical devices whatsoever. However, I hope that it has normalized already. We will see what we can do." He then leaned in and whispered something to one of the interns.

A while later, my mom walked in. It was the first time I had really looked at her since waking up. She appeared just as I remembered, but her clothes caught me off guard.

She was never one to splurge on clothing, yet now she wore a fancy red dress paired with black high-heeled shoes and she carried a luxurious Louis Vuitton purse. The rest of her get-up wasn't cheap second-hand either.

She sat next to my bed, gently squeezing my hand as she spoke softly. "I brought you something to eat,"

She placed a tray on the bedside table, and the aroma of warm soup and chicken fricassee filled the room. The soup was a rich golden color, with steam rising from its surface, and the chicken fricassee looked tender and delicious, with savory gravy coating each piece.

I took a spoonful of the soup and tasted its comforting warmth, feeling it soothe me from the inside out. The chicken flavors danced on my tongue, tender and flavorful, reminding me of my childhood. For a moment, I forgot about everything else as I savored each mouthful.

As I spoke with my mother about what had happened to me, everything seemed to fall into place. The events unfolded exactly as I remembered them—I had been walking through the park when lightning struck me out of nowhere.

I was a student at Harvard's art department - that checked out.

But there was something about my mother's demeanor that struck me as strange. She couldn't have changed so much in the month that I was in a coma.

Normally, she would have told me to brush it off and continue grinding, like a man should.

But instead, she seemed to spoil me, showing a level of care and concern that I hadn't experienced before. It was as if my well-being meant everything to her, as if the entire world would collapse if something happened to me.

I quickly lost my strength and fell asleep for over 12 hours before waking up to a nurse standing by my bedside, holding a needle and a tube. "Don't worry," she reassured me. "I'm just going to take a sample of your blood for testing."

I nodded, feeling too weak to protest, and looked away as she began.

Once she finished, the nurse proceeded to take my blood pressure. It was then that a girl entered the room, catching my attention.

She wasn't dressed like a nurse, so I wondered what she was doing here. She had long black hair and wore a short black skirt and a white shirt, with a black tie loosely hanging from her neck. She appeared to be around my age.

Something clicked in my brain when I saw her.

Her name was Emily, and she was someone I knew from high school.

Or did I?

Emily approached the left side of my bed and gently placed her hand on my arm. She started to lightly caress my arm as the nurse completed her task.

When the nurse left, Emily spoke to me in a gentle voice, "Hey, Gray. Your mom said you finally woke up. I don't even want to think about how much it would mess with my head if you never came out of your coma."

'Right. Wait... who was she again?'

At that moment, behind her, a man in a sharp black suit with an athletic build and dark hair entered the room, making his way toward my bed.

'Who is that?'

Emily didn't seem surprised at all; she seemed to realize who he was and looked at me with a strange expression, like she was thinking what to do at that moment.

The man addressed me directly, his tone serious. "Good. Now that Sir has woken up, we have many things to discuss. The nurses won't be coming inside for the next hour."

He then turned to Emily. "Miss, I will politely ask you to leave."

Emily's hand was still resting lightly on my arm as she leaned in to give me a warm hug. Her orange-sized breasts rested lightly on my chest. I was a bit startled but somehow I felt like it was only natural.

"I'll see you later, Gray," she said before walking out of the room.

'Wait. Wait. Wait. What is happening? Who is this man? Who's that girl?'

'Who am I?'