Chapter 5
2460words
An immense, almost overwhelming joy flooded over me. I had succeeded. This time, I had truly succeeded. A perfect ending. I looked at Sarah's tear-streaked smiling face, at Lily nestled unharmed by my side, and in that moment, all the pain, all the struggles, seemed utterly worth it. A strange, choked sound—somewhere between a sob and a laugh—escaped my throat. I reached out with trembling hands, one cupping Sarah's cheek, the other clutching Lily's small head, pulling them close to me, feeling the warmth and pulse of their real, living bodies.
"It's so good…" I murmured, "It's really so good…"
"Yes, it's so good," Sarah buried her face in my palm, her tears dampening my skin. "The doctor said it's a miracle. Mike, you don't know how we've made it through this year."
"Dad, promise me you'll never fall asleep again, okay?" Lily clutched my hospital gown with her small hands, looking up at me with a tone that bordered on pleading. She was eight years old now, much taller than I remembered, but the dependence and affection in her eyes were the most familiar things to me.
"I won't sleep anymore, I promise," I assured her, my heart swelling with immense happiness.
In the days that followed, I basked in the happiness of having survived against all odds. The doctors conducted detailed examinations, and aside from muscle atrophy caused by prolonged bed rest, my body showed no permanent damage. They called it a "miracle beyond medical explanation." But I knew it wasn't a miracle. It was the prize I had snatched from the cracks of time, gambling with my life as the stake.
I was like a sponge, greedily absorbing everything from this "perfect" world. I listened to Sarah recount the events of the past year. She didn't mention much about the hardships, only briefly telling me that to cover the high costs of my intensive care, she had sold our original house and moved to a smaller apartment closer to the hospital. She worked a clerical job during the day and served as a waitress at a small restaurant in the evenings. She spoke these words calmly, but I could see the immense pressure hidden beneath her composure—from the exhaustion deep in her eyes and the roughness of her hands from constant washing.
"What about the library... my job..." I finally couldn't help but ask one evening. That place I once regarded as a sanctuary, which later became the source of my obsession.
"After you were in a coma for three months, they... you know, Mike," Sarah paused her apple-peeling, her voice struggling. "Mr. Thompson did his best. He kept your position for a long time. But... but don't worry, once you're fully recovered, we'll find a new job. Everything will be fine."
My heart sank. Losing my job, the family drowning in debt, Sarah working two jobs alone. This was the price attached to the 'perfect' ending I had wanted. Behind this happiness was another mountain I couldn't see, and Sarah, my beloved wife, had been silently carrying that mountain all by herself for an entire year.
Guilt, a new yet equally heavy guilt, began to quietly take root in my heart. I watched her as she cut the peeled apple into small pieces, picked one up with a toothpick, and brought it to my lips, her face adorned with a gentle smile, as if all the hardships and debts had nothing to do with her. I opened my mouth, chewing mechanically. The sweet juice of the apple spread in my mouth, yet it left a bitter aftertaste.
"I'm sorry, Sarah," I said in a low voice. "It's all because of me."
"What nonsense are you talking about?" She gave me a reproachful look and handed me another piece of apple. "You saved Lily. You saved our family. You're a hero, Mike. As long as you wake up, nothing else matters. Money can be earned again, jobs can be found again, but there's only one you."
Her words were like a warm flame, temporarily dispelling the gloom in my heart. Yes, what more could I ask for? They were all safe and sound by my side, and that was already the greatest blessing from the gods. As for the rest, I would spend the rest of my life making up for it. I would recover well, find a job again, I would ease Sarah's burden, and I would get this family back on track.
My body was recovering at an astonishing rate. Perhaps it was the will to survive, or perhaps it was the desire to share Sarah's burden as soon as possible. In less than two weeks, I was already able to get out of bed and slowly walk around the room with a cane. Lily became my little shadow, following me wherever I went, chattering away about her school life, her best friend Emily, and the most annoying boy in their class, Tom.
I was savoring this long-lost, ordinary happiness. Listening to my daughter's crisp voice and watching my wife's busy yet peaceful figure, I felt like the richest person in the world. Those crazy memories about time rifts and kaleidoscopes were becoming more and more distant, more and more unreal, like the bizarre remnants of a dream after recovering from a serious illness.
Until that night.
"Alright, little princess, it's time to sleep," I said, sitting by Lily's bedside and tucking her in.
"Daddy, I can't fall asleep," she said, her big eyes looking up at me. "Can you tell me a story? Just like before."
My heart was instantly filled with immense tenderness. "Of course, my little darling," I replied, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "Which story would you like to hear?"
"Hmm..." she tilted her head thoughtfully. "How about the story of the rabbit and the stars!"
"The Rabbit Under the Starry Sky." This was Lily's favorite story before I "died." A unique tale shared between father and daughter, one I could vividly tell for an hour without even needing notes. It was about a little rabbit named "Twinkle," who had a secret: every night when it was quiet, he sneaked out of his burrow, using a magical net to catch stars from the sky and hid them under his bed, so they could light up his room even during the day.
"Alright." I cleared my throat, a nostalgic smile on my face, and began telling the story in my most familiar and gentle tone.
"In a forest far, far away, there lived a little rabbit named 'Twinkle'..."
I started the story, and then... then I got stuck. What happened next? What color was the first star Twinkle caught? When he was catching stars, he met the wise old owl—what did the owl say? Those details I once knew by heart were now just a blurry, chaotic blank in my mind.
What was going on?
"'Twinkle was a little rabbit," I struggled to continue, my voice beginning to dry up, "he... he had a magical net..."
"And then, Daddy?" Lily looked at me expectantly.
Cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I couldn't remember. I couldn't recall a single word. That story I had told hundreds of times, filled with countless warm memories of Lily and me from the "past," had just vanished from my memory. My brain was like a formatted hard drive, leaving only a file name, but its contents were completely empty.
"Dad?" Lily's expression shifted from anticipation to confusion. "Why did you stop?"
"I... Dad is a bit tired today, his mind isn't working well." I floundered for an excuse, an inexplicable panic spreading like icy water from my feet to my entire body.
Lily looked at me even more confused, her little brows furrowing. Her expression showed no impatience, only pure puzzlement. "But, Dad, you've never told me anything about 'The Rabbit Under the Starry Sky'," she said softly, as if correcting a common misconception of mine.
My heart tightened suddenly.
"My favorite story has always been 'Captain Little Bear'."
With a loud crash, my worldview—the seemingly perfect world of happiness I had just built—cracked open, revealing a bottomless fissure. "Captain Little Bear"? What was that? I had never heard of that story. I looked at Lily's face, so serious and so certain, and a chill shot straight up my spine to the top of my head.
"Is… is that so?" I felt the muscles in my face twitching uncontrollably. "Daddy's been asleep for too long and got mixed up. So… do you want to hear 'Captain Little Bear'?"
"Yes!" Lily immediately perked up, completely unaware of my unease.
"Then… can you give Daddy a starting point, okay?" I said in a pleading tone. I had to know. I had to confirm something.
"Alright!" Lily cleared her throat, mimicking my usual storytelling tone, and said in a childish voice, "On the blue sea, there is a big ship called 'The Nut', and on the ship lives a brave captain, who is a little bear named Barney..."
With every word she spoke, my face turned paler. This story, these details, were completely unfamiliar to me. However, seeing Lily's matter-of-fact expression, I knew that in this world, this was the bedtime story that belonged to "us". And the story that belonged to me and the "departed" Lily, "The Rabbit Under the Starry Sky", along with the little rabbit named "Twinkle", had been completely buried.
I don't know how I ended that night. I absentmindedly accompanied Lily through the story of "Captain Little Bear," watching her fall asleep contentedly, and then, like a sleepwalker, I returned to my room. Sarah was already asleep, breathing evenly. I didn't turn on the light; I just stood in the darkness, cold all over.
Panic, an unprecedented, bone-deep panic, seized me. If the previous guilt had been a heavy shackle, then this panic was like acid dissolving my soul. I began frantically searching my mind, trying to grasp the memories of the "past," those pieces of evidence that proved "that" Lily and I had truly existed.
What was her favorite food again? Was it the strawberry ice cream sprinkled with chocolate shavings, or... or the banana waffles drizzled with maple syrup? The two answers alternated in my mind, one clear, the other blurred, and I couldn't tell which was true.
What were her little quirks when she was angry? Would she pout and hide behind the door, or stomp her feet and say, "I'll never talk to you again"? I remembered it was the former, but the latter felt more vivid, as if it happened just yesterday.
And what about the secret jokes between us father and daughter? That pact of "touching noses means signing a confidentiality agreement"... did it still exist? I tried hard to recall, but only mundane daily moments came to mind. Those truly unique, shining, and exclusively ours memories were like old photos soaked in water, their edges blurring and fading.
Gone. They were all disappearing.
My memories were being altered. Those vivid memories, which formed the foundation of my life, were being overwritten and replaced by the memories of this "new" Lily. It wasn't just the name "Lily" that I loved; I loved the specific girl with her unique habits and temperament, the girl with whom I shared countless secrets. And now, I was losing her in a way more cruel than death—I was forgetting her with my own hands.
Impossible. Something must have survived.
A thought struck me like lightning. The kaleidoscope. The medium through which I traveled through time. In the world where the Lily with a broken leg and the Sarah in the wheelchair existed, I hid it in the drawer of the study. But what about in this world? Where was it? Did it come with me?
I felt as if I had been injected with adrenaline, and immediately sprang into action. I tiptoed out of the bedroom and into the living room. The apartment didn't have a separate study, so all my books were piled in a corner of the living room. My briefcase, the one damaged in the car accident, had been cleaned by Sarah and placed on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
My heart was pounding wildly. I crouched down and with trembling hands, unzipped the briefcase. Inside were some outdated, yellowed documents and my old fountain pen that I had used for years. I reached into the innermost layer, where the first Father's Day card Lily had given me used to be kept.
My fingertips touched something familiar, cold, and cylindrical.
I pulled it out.
It was it. The crude kaleidoscope made from a cardboard tube and fragments of colored glass.
By the faint moonlight streaming through the window, I saw its current state. My breath froze in an instant.
It was not shattered, but it was close to breaking. The plastic lens, which had originally only a few tiny cracks, was now covered with a web-like pattern of fissures. The cracks spread from the center outward, nearly covering the entire surface. It seemed that with just a little more pressure, it would completely disintegrate into a pile of powder.
I lifted it up, facing the moonlight, and peered through the peephole. Inside, there were no longer the vibrant, symmetrical patterns. The colorful glass fragments seemed to have lost their luster. The scene they formed was dull, distorted, and broken. The light passed through the dense network of cracks, refracted into fragments, creating a chaotic and ugly vortex.
I stared blankly at this dilapidated, nearly destroyed miniature universe, and a cold, cruel truth finally became clear in my mind.
Every correction, every journey through time, came at a cost.
It required fuel.
And that fuel was my memories. My most precious, most genuine memories of the people I loved.
I traded all my memories of the real Lily for this false, perfect present. I erased her existence with my own hands, just to obtain a healthy but no longer "her" shell. Every crack on the kaleidoscope represented a part of the past I sacrificed, never to return.
