Somehow, I think she didn't

"I opened my eyes. At first I was catching my breath. All I saw were white. Nothing else. Then I saw the curtain. The table. The window. The metal railings. The soft bed I'm on. The soft pillow my head rested. The fluid on an upside down bottle. The long plastic cord from the bottle connected to my hand. The plastic device wrapped around my finger. The buzzing monitor beside me. All of it were all too surreal. I don't understand anything.

"I don't know who I was then," the firefly paused and looked at the moon. He basked in it for a while and continued. "If I do smoke, maybe I'd look awesome right now."

The fairy princess smiled. She doesn't like smoking. Yet maybe if the firefly were to do it. Mayhaps her outlook of it would change.

"I couldn't recall what happened. I was alive. That's all there was. But I've got this sinking feeling in me. Perhaps it was the odd dream that I had."

"So you lived?" the fairy princess asked.

"I sat up from the bed. I guess, by then I was too quick. Suddenly my vision swirled. My head ached. I wanted to vomit. I was nauseous. The buzzing monitor beside me alarmed. I don't know what was going on. I wanted to get out, was all that I was thinking. I slipped out of bed. The floor felt like dagger. The cold hue pierce through my sole. It'll warm up sooner or later. I need to get out of here, were the thoughts racing in my mind.

"Suddenly the cords linking my hands to the upside down bottle tagged at me. It wasn't letting me go. The pierced needle hurt a lot. But I need to get out. So I took it out. Then the device wrapped around my finger. I removed it and threw it away. None may shackle me, I thought. I don't know why but it felt like that."

"You felt heroic at that moment?" the fairy princess asked.

"No, I felt pathetic," the firefly said.

"So you felt heroic at that moment. So what happened next?"

The firefly sighed.

"And so you can tell if I lie, fairy princess. Looking back, I looked like an idiot. I looked like a pathetic piece of trash trying hard at doing something I don't even know what I was doing-"

"All heroes does that. A point in their life that they don't even know what there were doing and when they look back. They feel a bit shame and sometimes just like what you said, looked pathetic. But all heroes are like that," the fairy princess said. She smiled. "So what happened next?"

The firefly smiled. The fairy princess understood him.

"I got up." the firefly said. "And I fell down. I fell down on my knees. All that heroism I felt were just empty. I was weak to begin with. I wasn't strong. I wasn't strong enough to stand up right. But I did manage to get back up. I grabbed the railing of my bed and slowly got up. It was a hurdle. At least, that's what I felt. But somehow I managed to got up. I don't know why but I took the rod the upside bottle was hanging and used it as a cane. I must stand up, I must get out."

"You shouldn't have removed the IV drip if you're either way going to take it with you," the fairy princess.

"I didn't know what it was for," the firefly confessed. "But even so, I managed. With the aid of the rod, I was able to get to the door and open it. The hallway was more lit and bright than the room I was in. There were not much soul floating around and those who are wearing in either green or white just smiled at me. I did not know why but I felt like they were all wearing masks. The smiles they put weren't real. I thought I was in prison at that time. But even still, I must get out.

"I walked around wearing nothing more but the long sleeve shirt and sleeping pants. I don't know what was happening but when I thought I finally regain much of my strength I left the upside down bottle and got out of the building," the firefly said.

"So you escaped?"

"Yes. The cold night air was more pleasant than the atmosphere inside that place. The moon looking down at me was more than welcoming that the bed I had in the infirmary. The clouds and the stars are all silently watching me. Everything outside felt more I'm in the right place, rather than inside that prison."

"But it wasn't a prison," the fairy princess said. "It's a hospital."

"I know. I just didn't know at that moment," the firefly stopped speaking. He felt embarrassed of his story.

"You still felt heroic, right?" the fairy princess asked. But the firefly didn't respond. "Hey? Hey? Are you mad, firefly prince? Hey? I want to listen more to your story. Hey! Firefly prince!"

The firefly was too embarrassed to speak more. He blatantly ignored the fairy princess. The fairy princess suddenly hurled her fist to the firefly's stomach.

"Firefly prince!" the fairy princess angrily said. "Continue your story!"

The firefly was taken by surprised. He wasn't aware the fairy princess can do such act and he wasn't expecting her to be that strong. He coughed. He wanted to get out. Just crawl himself away. But he made a mistake of glancing at the eyes of the fairy princess. Him trying to put an act was in vain. The fairy princess knows him too well.

The firefly got up and bowed to the fairy princess.

"My apology, to you fairy princess," the firefly said. "But I felt like you are making fun of me. And so I concluded to just end it there. You know I hate it when people think of what I do as jest. And here we are talking a bit of my past-"

"You're thinking lowly of me, firefly prince?" the fairy princess's eyes suddenly turned red. "How dare you!"

"Alright, alright, I'll continue the story," the firefly said as he pleaded for his life and tried his best to calm the fairy princess.

"What happened next!" the fairy princess ordered. The firefly smiled.

"Would you mind telling me what happened next, fairy princess?" the firefly asked with a smirk.

"Don't get over yourself, firefly!" the fairy princess angrily said as she readied her fist but immediately the firefly appeared behind her. As she instinctively hurled her fist, she immediately stopped. She saw a different firefly standing next to her. His eye have somehow changed. He wasn't mad or being boastful. He was smiling.

"I was just merely asking you what you expected me to have done next, my dear fairy. But if you do insist, I'll continue on. Though I doubt you'd find the next act to be as fascinating and as interesting as when I told you she lied to me."

The fairy princess was stepped back. The firefly in front of her. He was different than earlier.

"I apologize if my playful side is always showing. It's just how I am. But if need be, I can be different. Or rather I will be different," the firefly said. "So where were we. Oh! That's right, when I left the hospital. All said was the truth. I never knew it was a hospital until I regained my memory. I'm ashamed to say this but that time of me forgetting things was just brief.

"I walked through the park of the hospital and out of its gate. I don't know where I was back then and so even though I wanted to run. I just walked. My barefoot was killing me then. My soles were hurting as I take a step forward. All I thought was just getting away as far as possible. I don't even know where I was going. And I don't even know how I came to be a human.

"I walked and walked. As I've said earlier, all the sky and world are my witnesses. I don't remember anything at all. I just wanted to escape. I was exhausted. My breathing became heavier. There was a point when I wanted to stop but I just have to. And so I walked on.

"I only stopped when I cam across a bridge. It wasn't a big bridge that crosses many cars, people and dreams to different place. But just a small bridge overlooking the sky, the ocean and a far off horizon. I don't know how but she was there. Standing in the middle of the bridge. Looking at the sky, the ocean and the far off horizon. She was there. She wore that same suit she had when we boarded her airplane. She had the same smile. The only smile knew then that was real.

"Yet, I could see through her. I could literally see right through her. That's what was different from her. It seemed that she was fading. I approached her as she was looking at the distant. When I got closed, she turned and looked at me. She said, 'I kept my promise.' And that was that."

"So you saw a ghost?" the fairy princess asked.

"I saw her." the firefly said as he suddenly collapsed.

"That was when you regained your memory, right? A short-lived amnesia. But it somehow made a different personality in you."

"You could say that," the firefly said. "Even though she lied. Somehow, I think she didn't."