The ride home felt much shorter than Nyla remembered, mostly because her thoughts remained occupied by everything that had happened since she woke up. The moment they arrived home, however, her mum immediately shifted her attention toward practical matters. Before even unpacking the hospital bags, she took out her phone and began making calls. From the living room, Nyla could hear her explaining the situation several times. She described the collapsed section of the ceiling, the shattered chandelier, and the damage left behind in the bedroom. Whether she was speaking to a repair company, the property owner, or an insurance representative, Nyla couldn't tell, but her mother's voice remained tense throughout every conversation. Each time she repeated the story, she glanced toward Nyla as though reassuring herself that her daughter was still standing there unharmed.
Eventually, curiosity pulled me upstairs. Standing in the doorway of my room, I finally saw the full extent of the damage under daylight rather than through the haze of shock. The sight immediately made my stomach tighten. Part of the ceiling had cracked open where the chandelier had fallen. Broken glass still covered sections of the floor despite some of the cleanup already being done. White dust from the plaster coated my desk, books, and nearby furniture. The chandelier itself rested awkwardly across part of the bed frame, its twisted metal structure looking much heavier than I remembered. Looking at the position of the damage, I realized something unsettling. If I had remained lying down for even a few seconds longer that morning, a large portion of the debris would have landed directly where my head had been. The thought left me staring silently at the ruined bed for several moments.
The repair workers had not even arrived yet, but one thing became immediately obvious. My room was no longer safe to use. The damaged ceiling still needed to be inspected, and there was no guarantee that additional sections wouldn't collapse. Mum quickly decided that I would be sleeping elsewhere until everything was repaired. After some discussion, she settled on the small guest room located near the end of the hallway. The room felt unfamiliar despite being inside the same house. It contained only a narrow bed, a small bedside table, and a bookshelf filled with random items that had accumulated over the years. I couldn't help feeling strange as I carried a few belongings into the room. Less than a day ago I had believed myself to be a thirty-two-year-old woman with patches of blurry memories. Now I was being told where I could sleep by a mother who, according to my memories, was no longer alive.
News of the accident seemed to spread faster than I expected. Throughout the afternoon, the house phone and Mum's mobile phone continued ringing. Relatives called one after another after hearing that part of the ceiling had collapsed. Some sounded genuinely worried. Others sounded curious. A few immediately asked to speak with me directly just to confirm that I was alright. I found myself repeating the same explanation over and over again. No, I wasn't injured. No, I didn't need surgery. No, I wasn't staying in the hospital overnight. Each conversation felt oddly surreal. Some of the voices belonged to relatives I had not thought about in years. Hearing them again felt like opening a time capsule I never expected to revisit.
If the accident had accomplished anything, it had successfully transformed Mum into a full-time security guard. For the rest of the day, I could barely move from one room to another without being asked how I was feeling. Every time I stood up, she asked whether I was dizzy. Every time I reached for something, she offered to get it for me instead. Even simple tasks such as walking downstairs for water seemed to trigger concern. At one point, I jokingly suggested that I was perfectly capable of using the bathroom by myself. Mum was not amused. The accident had clearly frightened her more than she wanted to admit, and now she seemed determined to keep me within eyesight whenever possible.
Later that evening, while Mum prepared dinner downstairs, I began sorting through items that had been removed from my damaged room. Among the boxes were old notebooks, school binders, unfinished sketches, and half-completed projects I barely remembered creating. At first I expected everything to feel familiar. Instead, I discovered something surprising. While I could clearly remember being an adult, many details from my seventeen-year-old life felt strangely distant. I recognized my handwriting, but some of the notes looked as though they had been written by a different person. Certain assignments brought back vague memories, while others felt completely unfamiliar. The realization unsettled me. I remembered blurry adulthood. I remembered years that technically had not happened yet. Yet parts of the life I was currently living felt harder to recall than events from fifteen years into the future.