The Mirrorverse

Maya

“I tell you what,” said the doctor, “Why don’t you tell us about what you’ve been doing, and then we can discuss everything?”

It was the following day. Maya had slept soundly, only to wake back into the dream. It was so real, the smells, sounds, textures. From the crisp white sheet covering her to the tubes protruding from her body, it was all so real.

They were now in a private room, and the head of the bed had been raised a little as her body had not been upright in a long time, rendering her incapable of sitting unsupported.

“Where do I start?”

“The beginning, perhaps?” he suggested tentatively.

“I was born,” stated Maya matter-of-factly, causing her father to close his eyes in despair.

“Maya!” begged her mother.

“Where is the beginning?” Maya was beginning to feel very tired. She picked a point in her life at random. “Before or after music school?”

As the others in the room shared knowing looks, Maya felt like the one who has been left out of a private joke, the billy-no-friends perched on the edge of a group.

“How about before?” requested her dad, massaging her hand.

“Me and Ellie went to the Badger-Rose High School for girls,” Maya started, checking that they all concurred.

“That’s a great place,” affirmed the Doc, “Could you include any times you might have seen a doctor, or been in hospital?”

“I had my tonsils out,” she answered, a little surprised.

“No, I mean, let’s say more a psychiatrist,” his words were slow and careful.

“No, I’ve never seen a psychiatrist.” Bewildered, she looked to each of them wearing their strained smiles.

At least mum isn’t weeping again, she thought miserably.

“Continue, please,” entreated the doctor.

“Me and Ellie both got straight A’s and went to the Royal College of Music,” she started, looking at Ellie for confirmation. She had arrived while Maya slept the day before, and by the looks of it had spent the night there along with her parents, as they were wearing the same clothes as the previous day, all rumpled up and creased and Ellie’s clothes were equally creased.

“In the final year, I met Ka, we fell in love and we now live in LA.” Talking was taking it out of her, her new body was definitely lacking in stamina.

“First I saw a shimmery thing, then I went to sleep and woke up here. I went home for a while, then I slipped in the bathroom. I saw a shimmery thing on route to the floor before waking up here. This time I was sitting on the sofa when I departed for here.” she breathed out deeply, weary in body and mind.

“Was it an idyllic life? Was it blissful?” This question from the doctor caught her by surprise.

“It was perfect.” As she spoke, her parents each squeezed a respective hand before exchanging more meaningful glances.

“Maya,” started Dad hesitantly. “Honey, you never went to the Royal College and you didn’t graduate from Badger.”

Maya was dumbfounded by her father making such an odd pronouncement. She shut her eyes, willing herself away from that place. She tried not to hear the renewed sobs from her mother, nor the doc reassuring her father that it would be okay, that she would be okay.

Her eyes flew open as something occurred to her.

“Why would I have cut my left wrist when I am left handed?” she demanded, realising what was wrong with her dream.

“Maya, you’re right handed, you always have been,” her mum said gently, turning Maya’s wrist over so she couldn’t see the angry red scar.

“What the hell, don’t you know me at all? I’m left handed, so is Ka, we have a house full of things like left handed scissors and can openers, booby traps so the visitors can’t open a tin!”

“Honey, it doesn’t matter what handed you are, we’re just glad to have you back,” her father said softly before her mother had a chance to reply.

Maya’s mother was a stern Spanish lady, dressed in a grey skirt suit and white blouse which she’d been wearing at work when the hospital had called. Her father was retired, and had been tending to the garden at the time. Dressed in Jeans and a pink polo t-shirt, Shane was a handsome man with salt and pepper hair, and utterly devoted to his small family. He was twenty years older than his wife, and so Maya’s parents could say nothing of the twenty plus year age gap between Maya and Ka.

The parents stayed by Maya’s bed for as much of the day as the doctor would allow. Her mum prattled on about people she knew, neighbours, friends, anything to fill the silence. She’d always felt that need, while Maya and her father were able to sit comfortably in silence. They hadn’t mentioned her life or anything about it since the earlier conversation. Maya just concentrated on moving her arms and legs, and wriggling her digits, willing her temporary body to do something. She could now move her head from side to side, albeit with the world swimming.

Maya found that physio was nice, getting all her limbs stretched and moved, and the back massage was wonderful. Then she got an injection of something that started to make her feel dopey and she didn’t like it one bit.

“Why the woozy? Thought you wanted me awake?” she muttered, lowering her brow.

“It’s for your own good sweetie, it will make everything okay again,” soothed mum.

“What, it’ll take me back to Ka?” It seemed she could still manage sarcasm with the woozy.

The reply was sweetly put. “You know that’s not possible.”

After another night of being poked at regular intervals, Maya was alone with the doctor, discussing what they each thought was reality.

“I know, I just don’t get how I’m here, or why. I just wanna go home but I don’t seem to be waking up. I dreamed this scar on my wrist, I don’t get how I didn’t go to College, that means I didn’t meet Ka, which means that you’re saying my whole life has been a lie.”

“Not a lie, no. It was real to you, and that is all that matters when looking at the past,” the doctor continued in his carefully measured manner. “Now we have to move on to the future. You have had an injection of an antipsychotic, the one you were on before your suicide attempt. Do you remember anything before that?”

She shook her head as best she could, thinking that technically, she didn’t remember that either. He went on;

“You were fourteen when you started seeing those shimmery free-floating shapes that you described yesterday.”

Maya laughed a mirthless laugh, following it with an ironic grin.

“You had that in your world didn’t you?” the doctor murmured softly.

She blinked once in confirmation, not feeling like speaking.

“You claimed they pulled you into other worlds where there were monsters. You see the scars on your arms?” Maya hadn’t noticed them somehow.

“You said they were caused by the monsters, they tortured you, but in reality they were self-inflicted.” The dream about the ogres flashed into her mind. What is the old man called? “You were a very troubled young lady, convinced that these worlds were real, and ultimately you decided you could no longer live that way and attempted to take your own life, placing you into this coma. This is why you have had antipsychotics, because we believe that with the right therapy and medication, we can take away your demons, and leave you able to live a normal life.”

Maya didn’t know what to say, what he wanted her to say. He was trying to convince her that she had made up her entire life since she was fourteen.

“Is this the man you believe to be your boyfriend?” he showed her an inkjet printout of Ka, and her eyes lit up.

“Yes, that’s him, where is he?” Maya was excited, needing to be with her Ka.

“He’s an actor who lives in America. You have never met him.”

“He has a birthmark on his arse shaped like half a heart. How do I know that if I’ve never met him?” she demanded, realising the flaw in her argument.

“That cannot be proven either way,” he said softly. “This man is double your age, a multimillionaire who lives 10,000 miles away. It’s all a fantasy.”

Maya’s breathing rate sped up, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before.

“Let’s call him then. Get me a phone, and we’ll call him. I know his number.” she glared at the doctor, determined to get her way.

“Okay, fine. What is the number?” he asked flippantly as he produced his mobile from his trouser pocket.

Super-charged with excitement Maya told him the familiar number, only to receive the ‘number not recognised’ message. Incensed, she made him try again, unable to understand why the number didn’t work.

“So you see,” he said gently, putting his phone back in his pocket. “You have created a blissful idyll with a film star whose name and face you must have picked up from the media. It is a far superior world than the realms of torment you previously created, which you appear to have eliminated from your memories.

“What you perceived as reality was really your mind’s way of dealing with a past you couldn’t handle. You know that this here is real, you know I am sat in front of you. Together we can fight this and bring you back from being trapped in a world controlled by your imagination, which we both know isn’t real.”

His words stayed with Maya forever. The words that shattered her world apart. Home was beginning to feel more like a dream, and the hospital was becoming her reality. It was possible that what he was saying was true, and the theory was sneaking into her consciousness. That feeling, when your stomach sinks and your chest contracts, and you know that nothing will ever be the same again? It overtook her, overwhelming her senses and putting every part of her soul into intense agony. She didn’t want it to be true, it couldn’t be. Could it? She thought back to her perfect life, it really was too perfect. What kind of a random girl has a movie star fall in love with her? She had always wondered how that wonderful man loved her like she loved him. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was a complete stranger that she had obsessed over. She tried her hardest to hang on to the shred of hope that it was all a dream, only it was dissipating fast.