You felt like the air got plummeted back into your lungs with the force of a anvil. Every time you took a breath it felt like a million needles were stabbing the inside of your throat lungs. You closed your mouth and your lips immediately hurt - as if they were really chapped. More than that, the inside of your mouth was covered by what felt like goo. You sat up to try and spit it out - bad idea. Several things happened at once: As soon as you tried to move, your head was spinning. You were so disoriented it wasn't until you opened your eyes that you realize you were on the floor of your backyard. This was the worse case of dizziness you ever had in your life. Your head was pounding furiously and your entire body was painfully sore. You rolled face down and used your arms and legs to push yourself off the ground when a sudden case of vomiting came over you. Not much came out - barely any liquid and no food but the gagging made your abdomen contract achingly. You pushed your fingers onto the floor, as if to steady yourself, but you weren't spinning, just everything around you. After a few minutes of painful dry-heaving, you were able to stand up but quickly moved to hold onto a wall. You were parched, nauseous, and everything hurt. You noticed the pajama pants you were wearing were stiff between your thighs - had you peed on yourself?

You walked to the restroom using the wall for support. You leaned against the sink and opened the faucet, pouring water over your dry lips and sucking some in - you felt like you'd die of thirst and you didn't drink some right away. The dry heaving returned quickly but you managed not to throw up the few gulps of water you took. You looked at yourself in the mirror and examined yourself - you had some sunburn on your face, your lips were chapped so badly the crevices looked like they may bleed if you moved your lips too much. You looked at the side of your face and noticed what looked like some dry blood on your left ear? There wasn't much, it could have just been dirt. You looked like death in general and needed a bath so you started the bathtub. You took your clothes off and noticed your pants were caked onto your legs. Yeah, you definitely had an accident. What the hell happened to you?

Once the tub was semi-full you left yourself fall into the lukewarm water. Nothing felt better than the water against your skin. Things were starting to somewhat stop spinning but you couldn't move your head too quickly or everything would feel like a fidget spinner and you be throwing up again. You leaned back on your tub and tried to remember. Had you fallen asleep outside? For how long? You washed your face, your head, and everything else slowly and meticulously. You felt disgusting. You got up on the bathtub and showered, letting the water rinse you and run through your body. You needed to go to the doctor again, this was not normal. You'd rather not go to the hospital again but you at least needed to see a doctor. You stepped out of the shower hesitantly - you were still feeling lightheaded. You reached for your phone and suddenly you remembered - Zen. You bent over and began dry heaving again. How could you forget? You had been with him for over 24 hours until you couldn't stay awake any longer. You had seen a psychic, seen him rehearse for his play, and even met Saeyoung. Saeyoung… and you told him as much as you could recall off the top of your head about Saeran and Mint Eye. Hopefully it was enough. You went and grabbed your phone and noticed it only had about 2% battery left and 23 missed calls. Most of them from your mother, about 3 of them from your boss, and a few others from a co-worker. Then you looked at the date - it was Tuesday morning. The last day you remembered was Sunday. Were you asleep for over 30 hours in your patio?

You called your mother and eased her nerves - she'd been worried you hadn't answer your phone when she called you. If she didn't live a state away she would have knocked your door down to check on you. You called your boss next- you were supposed to return to work on Monday. You apologize profusely and told him you'd been sick and you'd be going to the doctor that day. You apologized for not calling and try to explain you had been with a fever but you felt that if it wasn't for your good record with the company your boss would have fired you for a no-call no-show. At least you were able to get a few more days off but you'd have to go see a doctor, if not for feeling like crap, at least because you'd need a note.

You figured with a recent concussion a neurologist might be the way to go - perhaps there might even be an explanation for what was going on with you. Alas, you found a doctor and after some pleading with a phone operator, they agreed to squeeze you in that same day. Luckily, you had your scans from the hospital after having the concussion so at least the doctor would be able to see those. You got dressed and grabbed a yogurt which you ate very, very slowly, worried your stomach might reject it. You gagged a couple of times but the yogurt stayed put. Success. You grabbed your car keys and got into your car - but things were still spinning. Better not drive. You called an uber instead - after all, the doctors office was only 10 minutes away.

You got there early, filled out the paperwork, and sat in the waiting room. Your phone hadn't charged all that much but luckily you were able to sit by an outlet and you had taken your charger with you. Your popped open the Mystic Messenger app - it looked perfectly normal. There wasn't even a route open, you didn't have any missed chats, nothing. You opened the common route and it started as normal. You skipped the prologue, landing you on the first day. It was 9am. The chat available was "Jumin's lonely morning" at it looked the same as it had every time you played the common route. You saw Zen chatting nonchalantly and a knot built on your throat. You put your phone away. It was hard enough to see this… scripted version of him when you'd seen the real deal. But doubt continued to creep over you - had you really met him? Maybe it was just a hallucination from hitting your head before. Maybe you slept for so long because of that concussion…

"MC?" someone calling your name dragged you out of your looming thoughts. You grabbed your things and followed the medical assistant to a little room. In there, you spotted some hand sanitizer and used some - remembering too late you had cut your finger while slicing an apple and it would burn if it touched the hand sanitizer - except it didn't. You rubbed your hands thoroughly and looked at them- you recalled clearly cutting your finger but the cut was gone or rather, it had never been there. The medical assistant asked you some questions on your history, put the images of your recent scan on the computer screen, and left you alone to wait. You were battling the urge to go through your phone when the doctor walked in. It was an older overweight man of average height with long greyed hair who was too loud for the small room they'd put you in. He asked about your symptoms and you explained you had a concussion and you'd gone to the hospital. More recently, you'd fallen asleep on your backyard for over 30 hours. You mentioned having very vivid hyper-realistic dreams but you didn't dare mentioning you believed they were real.

The doctor seemed somewhat interested in your story but halfway through he began looking at his computer instead. You noticed he was looking at your recent CT scan so you continued to relay the story. After you were done, there was a minute of uncomfortable silence until he spoke again..

"Are you taking any drugs?" he asked, seemingly out of nowhere..

"No, I am not taking any medications." you replied mindlessly. It was hard for you to concentrate on everything he was going over.

"Any illegal drugs? Hallucinogens? Opiates?" he asked. It very nearly sounded like an accusation.

"No, I've never done any drugs" you answer, almost defensively. "I don't smoke, I rarely drink alcohol" you said.

"One of my partners in the practice is a pain management doctor so we drug screen our patients. Would you mind giving us a urine sample?"

"You don't believe me?" you ask, now almost insulted.

"Your story is interesting but considering there's nothing really wrong in your scans, my second best guess you either took something or somebody slipped you something. Just allow me to rule it out and we'll move on to other options" he said, assertively. "We'll also test for a few other things"

"...okay" you say. You had nothing to hide, honestly. Might as well prove it. A medical assistant came in and handed you a bunch of paperwork you didn't bother reading and a little cup. 5 minutes later you were back in the same room and about 10 minutes later the doctor came back in.

"Alright, so it looks like you weren't lying about not doing any drugs, however…" he starts, while looking at your chart on the computer. "One of the tests came back inconclusive so we'll have to send it over to the lab.. We'll get the results back in about a week. In the meantime, I'd like you to see a psychiatrist and I'm also going to send you for a sleep study." he says, opening the door of the room to call out for his assistant. "Get her the information for Dr. Cywnar and send her to the sleep clinic. As of now I'm thinking it may be a case of post-concussive disorder. If anything else happens, give us a call and come back in about a week so we can go over your test results"

"Okay..." you say, without having much choice. Honestly, you had thought about seeing a psychiatrist considering how much you had questioned your sanity lately. As soon as you left the neurologist office, you called the psychiatrist. They'd see you in about 5 days. The neurologist gave you a note for work and you went by the same day to give it to your boss at the office. Your coworker came over to say hi and said you looked like you hadn't slept in two days. You boss took a look at you and sent you back on your way. You told him if you woke up feeling better the next day you'd come in and he agreed. You had to admit you really appreciated how flexible they were being with you.

You went back home and tried to eat some eggs but the smell made you want to hurl so you just laid on your couch. Your entire body was still sore. You wondered if you'd have another dream if you fell asleep. You closed your eyes and thought about Zen. His luscious silvery hair, his garnet deep eyes that pierced right through you. The way he touched you and the way he kissed you. You had never experienced anything like that before. It was as if… as if he was a part of you that you had been missing your whole life. How absurd, to feel that way about a videogame character… and yet, you couldn't deny your feelings.

You woke up about an hour later still on your couch. You felt groggy, but you had had no dreams. You got up and found your cold eggs still on the table and took a bite. It went down easier. The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. That night you went to sleep on your bed and woke up the next day on your bed. You were feeling better, as if you were regaining your health. You'd been able to keep food down so you went to work. The rest of the day went back to normal, except for some difficulty concentrating on your work and a brief spell of dizziness when you got up from a chair too quickly. Other than that, things had gone back to normal.

Soon enough, your appointment for the sleep study came around and you passed with flying colors. You didn't even snore. A few days later, the psychiatrist appointment came around. You went in and told the doctor the same story you had told the neurologist. He asked about drugs and you told him the neurologist asked and tested you for it, with negative results. He asked about hallucinations and you admitted to "very vivid dreams" but that otherwise you had felt ok. You still couldn't bring yourself to tell anyone, especially a doctor, you thought you were traveling to another dimension to see your soulmate, a videogame character. He reviewed the results of the sleep study and your CT scan.

"I'd like you to see an Endocrinologist." Dr. Cywnar (the psychologist) said.

"Huh?" you asked, confused.

"It may be a hormonal imbalance. If you can't get in to see them quickly, perhaps an appointment with your OBGYN just to get started, they should be able to check your hormone level to see if that can be the problem."

You walked out of that office starting to feel exasperated. You called the endocrinologist and sure enough, his next appointment for a new patient was not until 3 weeks. You called your OBGYN and she'd be able to see you in just another week. You made appointments with both and went back home. Every night before going to bed you'd fall asleep thinking of Zen, hoping that your dreams would take you back to him. But alas, every morning you continued to wake up in your bed and no inter-dimensional travel or any vivid dreams had taken place.

Your OBGYN appointment came in and you showed up on time. Routinely, you always had to give a urine sample for a pregnancy test prior to seeing the OBGYN. It was just standard procedure. A few minutes later, your OBGYN, Dr. Hun came in. After some basic greeting, you told her the story with the concussion and the prolonged sleeping. She agreed to test some of your hormone levels but advised you to keep your endocrinologist appointment. A medical assistant came in later and announced that your urine pregnancy test had come back invalid - she'd need another urine sample or some blood work. Since they were going to test for your hormone levels, they'd just test for that too. You agreed and your blood was drawn in the office. She asked if you had any sexual partners and you got away with answering "Only in my dreams". The doctor laughed but only a sad smile graced your face.

You went home exhausted after work that day. You had been able to get food down and things were starting to settle. It had been almost two weeks since you'd had any dreams about Zen and honestly, you were really starting to feel that it had been nothing more than a dream. Even google searches for sleeping for that long only talked about people in a medically induced coma or the record holder for most days without any sleep. Of all the doctors you had seen so far, they all had little answers for you and other than waiting for those hormone tests, you didn't have much else to do but wait. Well, there was one test you could do at home. You drove to the pharmacy and stared and the home pregnancy tests. You weren't even late for your period yet… but you hadn't use protection. And the test at the OBGYN had been invalid. Just for some peace of mind, you decided to get it and tried at home.

No later than 10 minutes, you were waiting for the results of the test. You'd never tested yourself for this before and despite being… almost sure it would be negative, your heart was beating fast. You hadn't bat an eye when they tested you at the doctor's office but… invalid? Now you just needed to know. When the minute was over, you looked at the results.

Negative. You breathed a sigh of relief. Of course it was negative. You can't get pregnant from having sex in your dreams. But if it had been positive… then it would have been proof that Zen was real. That he wasn't just a dream. You started to laugh at the irony of it. You didn't want to have a baby but if it had meant that there was even a chance that Zen had been real… you would have figured something out. You missed him. Your heart ached for him. Your body screamed for his touch. Your soul cried out for him… and before you realized what was going on, you felt tears landing on the test strip you were still holding.

He's not real. It was all just a dream after all. You told yourself. You need to keep it together better. It just seemed that your mood kept getting worse and worse. You felt sad all the time and despite the horrible feeling you experienced after waking up from seeing him, you'd do it all over again. You went to bed upset that night, feeling anguish building in your chest. You'd never meet anyone like him, it would have almost been better to never had met him at all, no one could ever compare to him. No, that wasn't true. You were glad you had met him. It had been the most amazing experience of your life so far. After struggling to relax your thoughts for what seemed like half the night, you fell asleep.

The next day nothing much had changed. You woke up and headed to work. Almost at lunch time you got a call from your OBGYN asking you to come in the next day to go over your test results so you set up an appointment. The rest of the day was uneventful. That night you went to sleep again hoping to see him again, even if it wasn't a vivid dream. Your wishes just weren't coming true.

The next morning you woke up more refreshed than previous days. It seems you were getting back into your normal routine. You were able to keep food down and you hadn't experienced any dizziness for the past few days. You went to your OBGYN appointment and followed the normal routine - urine pregnancy test, wait in the room for the doctor. Except this time, the assistant asked you to take your clothes off and put on a robe. You didn't think much of it and complied. About 10 minutes later, your doctor came in.

"Okay so, let me review a few things with you" she started "I had marked here you said no current sexual partners?"

"That's right"

"Within the last month?" she verified

"No"

"You know, I won't judge. You don't have to lie to me" she said, putting her clipboard over her lap and looking mildly annoyed.

"I'm not lying" you insist. You really didn't want to explain to your OBGYN that you had been sexually active in another dimension.

"Well, either you are lying or you cannot remember" the doctor said "because your bloodwork results show a very early pregnancy"