The air is thick with the purging smell of antiseptic, and medicine that irks her stomach in the worst possible manner, with undertones of the artificial fragrance contained in soaps and cleaners.
Drusilla tries to open her heavy eyes wider but it proves a herculean task. She could only manage to collect a little fraction of light and that was it, everything else looks blurry and she confuses reality with a dream.
Besides her, she could hear the beeping sound of a heart monitor, and the surface she was on felt soft and cosy, like a cushion.
Trying to program what was before her due to a hazy memory, she struggles to sit upright but her back doesn't let her move, it stings with a dreadful pain that sends her right back to bed.
"Doctor…." She hears terrified voices speak from a distance.
Her head tilts in the direction of the noise, her lips slightly open as she tries to ask questions but finds it difficult to speak and not a single word escapes.
Slowly she reaches for her face to caress her forehead when she feels something silky around her face.
Just as she's about to panic, she hears the door thrown open, a few steps accompanying it as a small group of people hurry in.
"Miss, I see you're finally awake, it's good to see you're calm. Hi, I'm Doctor Bernard and I'm here to check on your progress while the nurses administer your medication." He soothingly calms her with a professional smile plastered on his face.
At once the nurse gently inserts a syringe into her arm vein.
"Are you with me? Can you tell me your name, give me the phone number of a family member?" The doctor kindly asks.
Drusilla struggles and finally pushes her spine to sit up and stares at the doctor.
She opens her mouth to speak when a sudden thought pops in.
Flashes of past events swarm inside her head as she pauses mid sentence.
"I'm Maura by the way, Maura Neon." She hears a woman say in her head, she can picture her face with her hand stretching out towards a shadow figure.
"Maura, my name is Maura Neon." She answers with hesitation.
"Excuse me, did you say Maura?" He questions her with shock.
Holding back her panic, she finally opens her mouth. Her body trembles as she looks around.
"Where is my husband?.... Where is Neon?" She cries while grabbing the doctor's sleeve.
The doctor's eyes widen as he steps back in utter shock.
He cast his gaze onto a figure by the door side who stares at him, speechless, just as he is.
"Where's my husband, I want to see Neon right this instant." She yells.
Drusilla's screams could burst eardrums as others outside could hear them, and those in the next ward as well. The nurses fight to hold her back, ready to give her a shot that'll send her straight to dreamland when the figure by the door side stops them.
"I'm here…" He says. Walking toward her to reveal his round face.
His white hair is wet and shiny, and he has it packed backwards in a ponytail with a lock of braided hair dangling by each side, just barely sustained by the rubber band holding the hair together.
The roots of his hair look brown but upwards is white, making it difficult to tell if it is an obvious mistake or just his hair.
He has soft arched eyebrows with double-lined eyeliner with lashes that are short, thick and fully adorned with a beautiful rare specimen of red jewel eyes that captivates anyone at first sight.
His lips are naturally pointy, with shades of blood red like snow white's apple, moist and delicious to taste, and for the chef's award kiss, his face was accompanied by an ideal nose, slender and thin.
A perfect face for a man the reeks of danger and supremacy.
Each step he takes is calm, a deadly and scary aura sweeps away the room that makes the nurses stand far away, but this woman looks at him through the bandage wrapped around her face with joy.
Once he was within her reach, she grabs him, tightly wrapping her arms around his waist as she stares at the nurses in fright. "Neon?" She questions, staring at him for a couple of seconds as if waiting for confirmation.
Suddenly another memory plays in her head.
Drusilla sees the same woman sitting next to the same blurry figure as she flashes stunning pictures in phone to the shadow. "This is me and my husband, he may look stern but he's as soft as cotton candy." She says.
Finally her face lights up with the confirmation. "Neon…" She calls out to him, sobbing like a child.
"Yes...I'm here." He warmly strokes her back to calm her.
"My face, what happened to my face?" She cries like a mental patient, grabbing him with all of her might and snuggling as if she wants to mutate with him.
The Doctor observes them, his hand massaging his chin as he steps closer, causing her to tightly grab Neon more.
He stares at her like a test subject and leans in, "well, you had a serious accident miss."
"It's ma'am to you." She says, interrupting the doctor on the spot.
With a face full of confidence, she continues, "my name's Neon Maura, and I'm already married. Can't you see my husband?"
With a nod, the doctor chuckles.
"Okay ma'am, you were involved in an accident that caused you to fall into a coma for six months, besides that, I'm afraid your face was badly damaged by it, it's a good thing, Mr Neon, I mean your husband found you on time, otherwise, you would have been dead." He says with a smile.
Neon, however, still in the woman's arms glares at him, as if to warn him to tread with caution.
Nervous, the doctor laughs. "We'll leave you two alone for now. By the way, sir, I'd like to see you in my office later, when your wife is calm." He chuckles.
The nurse tails behind the doctor as he leaves, meanwhile, Neon stays back to comfort his wife.
As soon as she calms down and drifts into slumber, Neon carefully releases her hand from around his waist as he calmly walks to the doctor's office.
"Bernard, what is going on?" Neon, in the utmost confusion, asks as he barges in unannounced and takes his seat.
"Calm down Neon. I know you're confused just as I am, but what we have is a rare case," Bernard says while looking through her reports.
"The only logical explanation to this is dissociative amnesia disorder." He explains.
"Amnesia?" Neon questions, listening attentively.
"Yes. If you recall, the lady was badly injured when you brought her in, and she had a fracture on her skull, meaning she had been hit in a coherent manner that might have caused a problem or two which triggered the amnesia." He says.
"Apart from that, she also had water in her lungs, if she had stayed any longer than when you found her, she would have died. It's a miracle she survived all of that. But most importantly,"
Bernard leans closer to Neon's side, reducing his voice as he whispers.
"This is a clear case of attempted murder."
Neon sighs as he gets up, straightening his shirt and dusting off the invisible dirt.
"Which is why I brought her here, as my friend and a doctor, I hope you don't leak this information just yet." He says.
"Yes but are you sure you want to do this, if you pursue this plan, you're clearly taking advantage of a patient." Bernard asks.
"When she gets her memories back, I'm sure she'll thank me, you have no idea what she's been through and what I saw before saving her." Neon responds.
"Alright then, I won't stop you. Just don't drag me into this."
"I won't." Neon says as he walks towards the door, but a couple of inches away, he stops in his tracks and says while staring at the door. "But there's one thing I don't understand, Bernard.
Isn't dissociative amnesia supposed to completely wipe away the memory?"
"Yes. Although, in some rare cases, people can claim false identities of the last thing they remember or a special memory. Things like these are triggered by events like war, trauma, abuse, stuff like that." Bernard says.
"But then, if she was to conjure a memory, wouldn't it be based on some memories already built up? As far as I'm concerned, I've never met that woman." Bernard said.
"I've been wondering the same thing, that's why I used the word Miss on her." Bernard answers.
"I also had the impression that you already knew her, which was why you saved her and brought her to me."
"I've never seen her in my entire life, and not just that, she also knows that woman," Neon says.
The room falls into a silence heavier than a graveyard. Bernard rises from his seat as he walks to the door and stands beside Neon.
"As much as I have many questions on my mind, I think the one with the answers is your new wife.
Or it could be that she's seen you on TV, you're pretty famous after all, and she might have been one of your fangirls, and there's another possibility, the possibility of her knowing your wife." He laughs heavily.
"Quit the nonsense, how long does this last?" Neon's eyes dig holes into him glaring, causing Bernard to shrink as he chokes on his laugh.
He clears his throat quickly and reverts to his professionalism. "I'm afraid I don't know, she could recover today, or tomorrow or never, you'd never know."
Suddenly, Neon begins to laugh loudly. His laugh echoes causing chills to whoever hears the sound of his laughter. "But I suppose the situation is good." He says with a sinister grin.
"Is it?"
"She thinks she's my wife, then there's no use in telling her otherwise, so we'll allow her to believe exactly that."
Bernard's eyes furrowed as he stared at Neon, he did not like the direction of the conversation and yet he wanted to know, "what do you intend to do with her?"
With two steps, Neon turns around, coming face to face with Bernard. "Can her face be fixed? can it go back to what it used to be?" He asks with a devilish grin.
"I doubt, you saw what condition she was in when you brought her in didn't you?"
"Perfect." He says, "that's just what I wanted to hear.
Since she thinks she's my wife then let's just have her be Mrs Neon, shall we?"