Achoo!
Alfred shivered while hugging his knees.
'Damn, does this hospital have to be so cold? Maybe I should ask the nurse for a few warm blankets.'
Alfred opened his eyes while looking around. He was stunned. What did he see? Four bright red curtains, a bed so large it could swallow 6 of the previous him. Ceiling to floor glass walls. Looking even further, Alfred saw a floating giant white egg in a corner and apart from the clear glass walls and blood-red bed curtains, everything was white. As white as Christmas.
"How can this be?" He murmured.
'Am I hallucinating?'
He scanned his surroundings again.
'Eh?...'
'My vision... I can see!? Hasn't it been 3 years since that failed surgery and faulty doctors blind me?'
"James!" Alfred started calling for his best friend. After all, he just dozed off because he was a little tired; and yet something nonsensical like this is happening.
Then he was stunned again. Why does he sound like a brat?
'I must be dreaming... no, I get it! This must be the wrong person!'
Alfred closed his eyes and rolled over going back to his dreams, something he has gotten used to for the last 3 years.
'I'll wake up properly next time.'
***
After a few hours.
After waking...
The same red curtains.
The same brightly lit room.
The same large bed.
The same...
Still the same...
Even the same small body...
"What the fuck!"After hearing the outburst, Alfred's caretaker Granny Hua ran into the room.
"Young Master Alfred!"
The old woman ran into the large room as nimbly and stably as a floating leaf. It's a pity that Alfred was too busy to notice.
"Young Master Alfred, what's the matter? Are you still having those headaches?" The old woman tentatively asked while looking at him carefully. She didn't see anything amiss, but he does look pale and out of sorts.
'Young Master? Is she talking to me?'
Alfred looked around himself then stopped at the old woman. He squinted his eyes, almost looking like a little thief. She had long grey hair tied in a bun with hazel eyes and a heart-shaped face. She had wrinkles, a lot of wrinkles. But somehow even with all those wrinkles, one can still see a semblance of beauty. It's pity, that beauty has been forgotten in history.
After sizing up the old lady and his surroundings while finally taking in what the old lady said, his eyes went wide. He couldn't believe it. He doesn't dare believe it. How can he believe it? To him, it was just a random thought to escape his miserable life after reading so many web novels.
But what was his reality? Wasn't he seeing it with his own two eyes? He was speechless. To think such a thing was really possible. How many people dream of this day? Yet it was happening to him?
"Hahaha!"
Happiness, joy, sorrow, melancholy.
That one outburst of laughter expressed his resentment in his past life and his anticipation for this new one.
...
"..."
'I am finished!'
The old lady looked at the 5-year-old boy with tears welling up in her old eyes. To think that she, a timid old lady after fighting for decades on the borders, her old life would end just like this? Did she run away so many times to survive and find such an easygoing and stable job just to die here? The youngest son of Marshall John D. Gibbs went crazy while under her care. How can she survive this?
'Should I flee again? But where to?'
'Maybe it's a misunderstanding... yup definitely a misunderstanding!'
The old woman psyched herself up for a few minutes, all the while Alfred was laughing until he was out of breath.
'Good god! He is even wheezing. Won't he die like this as well? I will flee to the Rose Archipelago.'
The old woman made up her mind and turn to swiftly leave without a shred of hesitation.
***
After laughing for a good 5 minutes, Alfred looked for the old woman. Only to see her disappearing like a stream of dark light in front of his very eyes. For the third time today, he was stunned.
What did he just see? A 70 something old granny making off like a bandit. Is that even possible? How can such an old hag move like that? Where on God's green earth could something like this be possible?
'Wait, that's not the point, why does it look like she is... fleeing?'
Alfred suddenly had a thought. Remembering a Panlong novel he once read, he shouted at the old granny.
"You want to flee!?"
Smacking his lips he laughed.
'I always wanted to say that.'
***
After the old woman fled, he got up and took a tour of his room or at least, while looking around, his memory told him that it was his room. And not the hospital he was lying in on earth a few hours ago.
After checking out the floating "white egg", he realized that it was some sort of pod. Feeling the breeze on his cold and sweaty skin, he decides to ignore the pod and go find dry clothes. After all that rollercoaster of emotions, he needs a bath and fresh clothing.