Beyond Reality - night at the museum - Ahkmenrah x OC

Miracle - A Long-due Update

Hey y'all, it's the author. So... 10k views huh? This honestly a fever dream to me and really damn ironic in retrospect considering how I wrote this fic back in 5th grade and it's turned out to be the most popular piece of writing I've made my entire life. 

I'm currently in grade 11, and laughing my absolute ass off rereading this monstrosity of a story, because let's be honest... the hell was I smoking??? Anyways, I thought I'd do anything but the right thing and finish this hell of a cliffhanger off six years too late and pray that this fanfic won't haunt the rest of my writing career. I simultaneously hate and love you all, and please get therapy. God knows I need it. 

Oh, also. I suppose this is the end of my debut as "Sky", considering that I've realized that I'm transmasc. I won't tell you my actual name because that's so cursed but yeah, use that information how you will. 

Alright. Let's finish this hell. 

One last time, 
Sky. 

________________________________________________________________________________

There's something they don't tell you about the hospital. Everyone waxes poetic about the stench of death or the hourglass IV drips, sure. It's always routine to talk about the tangible things. About how mom's fingers clung to the cold metal bars; about how Leo from next door brought dying orchids; about how the skylight flickered in time with the monitor as some guy a bed over gave up. It's always easy to talk about the tangible things. 

But if you believe in God, you must then also believe in the devil. 

You must believe in the way time is at a stand-still in the periods between breathes and eyelid flickers; you must believe in the way existence itself becomes liminal in nature when the third-fourth-fifth trolleys come wheeling past; you must believe in the way for a few seconds each hour you begin to question if it is you that has already died. You must believe in these inexplicable, inexplainable, ineffable mini-psychoses that occur at the hospital. And you must believe them with enough fervor for two because God knows that the victims of it will never quite be able to. Inexplicable, inexplainable, ineffable, intangible. And you must believe. 

But nobody does. And perhaps that's why so many of us will be shocked when we wake up in Hell. 

There's the distinct sound of somebody's boots— maybe mine but I couldn't tell you the color of my own nails from here— tapping against sheet vinyl. I'm sitting cross-legged on some waiting chair watching my heart beat in every orifice and wondering if either one of us will make it out of here alive. 

To love is to lose. 

Living in New York City teaches you that. It teaches you that loneliness is one of the untaught seasons of the year and that it is a lover's right of passage. Even when you are buried deep in the burrows of your apartment, ribs collapsing violently inwards from the absence of heart, throwing up intestines like reverse psychology— you must lose more before the dawn. There is no God without the Devil. There is no love without loss. 

But I am not ready to lose. 

I was not ready to lose when wax lions tried to devour my skull. I was not ready to lose when my brother-in-law plunged a sword through my gut. I was not ready to lose when an ancient goddess declared war on my life. I ran. I fought. I won. I took this fever dream of a past year and carved my right to live into it.  New. York. Fucking. Style. No plan. No warning. Pure audacity. 

And I am sure as hell not about to lose now. 

Neither of us are. 

***

It's hours later that any of us receive any news. 

A doctor steps out from the double doors, spots of blood still painted along the edge of his shoes. His eyes are sunken and we all pray to god that's not foreshadowing.

He looks up and our breaths hitch. I stood up some few seconds ago but can't seem to remember if I was ever even sitting now. 

And then he smiles.

***

I am a river before I even enter, dehydrated and sleep-deprived out of my mind but somehow still functioning enough to flood from the eyes. 

Shaky breath. Cold steel. Muscle movement. Click and swing. 

And there, as if sugarcoated in comedic irony, is the silliest-looking boy you'll ever see in your life. Wide-smiled and wild-haired as if impervious to the drought of the hospital, hooked to monitors and an IV drip acting like backing instrumentals. 

I blink and I'm next to the bed now, afraid that he may just shatter into a fine mist if I touch him. It doesn't matter if this is a hallucination. I need it. 

But unlike hallucinations, he stays. 

I breathe.

"No more surprises?"

He chuckles softly. "That's not a very realistic wish."

I snort a little. "Oh, come on. When has anything we've ever done been realistic? I'm not even convinced half of any of this is reality."

He thinks for a moment. 

"Alright then. Snow," A hand slides across the bedsheets, gently finding its place over mine, "No surprises."

"You promise?"

"Beyond reality."