A/N: Welcome back to a brand-new chapter, y'all! This one is a little shorter than my usual length, but it's got some pretty good stuff in it and even ends on a slight cliffhanger. I hope you enjoy :)

Chapter 5: Note to Self

"Wake up… Come on, Nova, you can do it. Wake up. WAKE UP!"

"Dad!" I gasp upon hearing the Doctor's voice as I immediately sit up from my bed. I look around the dimly lit bedroom only to discover that I am completely alone, my bow tie-wearing father nowhere to be seen. I sigh sadly, thinking I've simply dreamt hearing his voice, or that I've imagined hearing it.

Rubbing my bleary eyes, I lay back in bed, thinking back on what I'd just seen in my dream. As I heard my father's voice whispering for me to "wake up," I remember seeing his dark silhouette looming over me with his hands on my temples exactly like he always did when he connected with people telepathically. I also remember the room looking a bit like a creepy basement rather than a comfortable bedroom, with a bright light directly above me. There was even a wire that seemed to be connected to one side of my forehead that was connected to a strange device, like something you'd typically find in a hospital, but it was too dark and blurry to make out any major details. Other than those few things, that's all I can remember.

I immediately begin trying to make sense of my strange dream. From the fact that my father seemed to be getting me to wake up, only for me to seemingly slip back under whatever affects the mechanical device that I was wired to had on me, this seemed like further proof that I am truly stuck in a Matrix-like simulation. Perhaps the Doctor—my Doctor—was trying to save me from whatever trapped me in the sim to begin with, but he was clearly failing at it, seemingly unable to wake me himself. On that note, perhaps I have to wake myself up first in order to fully escape the sim, and I have to pass some sort of test in order to do so. The only problem with this is that—assuming passing a test is what I truly have to do to wake up from this twisted nightmare—I need the Doctor's and River's help to pass it, but they seem to refuse to help me and are, instead, too busy believing me to be a secret mole for the Silence. Despite this, I remember River promising to come back for me once they resolved their marriage, but I haven't seen nor heard from her in several days. It makes me feel slightly worried for my former bio-parents' safety, thinking that something life-threatening must've happened to them, but, as I've done countless times in the last four days, I mentally tell myself that there is actually nothing wrong and that their marriage-sorting is simply taking a little longer than expected. This sort of thing often happens with most couples in a strained relationship; perfectly normal, right?

Later that day, I decide (against my better judgement) to visit Hazel at the hospital. Several days prior, on the same day we were attacked by the Sontaran, I found out that Hazel ended up having to go through emergency surgery to have her arm amputated, since no normal human ailments could heal her arm since she was attacked by something extraterrestrial. The instant I found this out, I felt immensely guilty that I no longer had my Regeneration ability, as I could've used it to heal her arm without having it be amputated. This thought makes me wonder if things would've ended up the same way in my other life, had I been born human instead of Time Lord.

Because of the surgery, Hazel wasn't allowed visitors (except for her parents) until she recovered from the surgery, and I waited anxiously until my mother told me she was finally allowed visitors outside the family today. I spent all morning calling and texting Hazel, but she hasn't replied to any of my messages, and I can't decide if she isn't responding because of her condition or that she's refusing to respond out of spite and anger, so I ultimately decide to go over to the hospital and see her in person so she'll have no choice but to talk to me. Thinking back on our fight, the outcome was absolutely ridiculous, and I wanted it resolved so things can go back to normal between us. Needless to say, it is pointless to stay mad at her forever.

Once I arrive at the hospital, I ask the front desk for a Visitors Pass to see Hazel, and they arrange the rest as I sit in the Waiting Room. Eventually, they give me a Visitors Pass sticker to stick onto my shirt, and they give me directions to the room that Hazel is assigned to. Once this is done, I immediately get into the elevator and ascend to the specific floor where her room is located.

Once I reach the floor, I walk through the pristine hallways in search of Hazel's room. At one point, I see a teenage girl walking toward me with her head down and the hood of her sweatshirt covering her face from the nose up. The first thing I notice about the girl as she approaches is her pointy chin that matches the Doctor's chin identically. That's no coincidence, is it? I immediately think to myself as the girl and I walk closer and closer to each other. Another strange thing I notice about the girl is that she is not wearing the required Visitors Pass anywhere on her clothing. Perhaps she's wearing it under her sweatshirt, I wonder. Thinking about it, I find it also strange for the girl to be wearing a heavy sweatshirt in summer weather, but I don't think much of it as I sidestep closer to the wall to give the girl extra room to pass. Plenty of people wear sweatshirts in hospitals, since they're always so cold, no matter what the time of the year, I think to myself. Again, totally normal, righ—

I am interrupted mid-thought when the girl suddenly and deliberately slams her shoulder into mine, almost knocking me off-balance.

"Hey!" I scold her immediately. What's her deal? I gave her plenty of room!

I turn to the girl, prepared to give her a piece of my mind, when she looks up at me just enough for me to see her full face, and I immediately pause in absolute shock.

It's me!

Rather, it's her! Nova! I'd recognize her face anywhere—the face I wore in my other life before I regenerated from River unintentionally stabbing me in my left heart—save for the sinister iDrive covering her right eye. She's here, and she's real!

As the girl passes, she smirks creepily at me before she continues walking in the opposite direction I came from and rounds a corner at the end of the hallway, emitting a bright blue flash shortly after. Once I wake up from the shock, I rush after the girl only to discover that she's disappeared, which I find strange, as the hallway she'd turned down leads to a dead-end with a large window that drops approximately eighty feet to the ground. As I pace the area, I ponder to myself about how it was possible for the girl to disappear with nowhere to go, but then I remember hearing a familiar electrical sound the moment she slipped around the corner, and I felt the familiar tingling sensation in the air that is left behind when a Vortex Manipulator is used to 'zap' out of the area. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if the girl really was my alleged alternate evil self, and I didn't just imagine her; admittedly, I have been thinking nonstop about her over the last few days, ever since the Doctor and River told me about her unfortunate fate.

"Are you lost, ma'am?" a woman's voice interrupts me from my thoughts.

"What?" I turn, startled to see a mid-twenty-year-old nurse having entered from the adjacent hallway.

"Are you lost?" she repeats her previous question with a frown at my seemingly odd behavior.

"I…uh…" I struggle to find the right words, still at a loss as to what (rather, who) I saw literally vanish around the corner and whether it was real. Instead of confessing what I saw—I seriously doubt she'd believe me if I told her I'd just seen (or thought I saw) my evil twin teleport off into who-knows-where in Space-Time—I sigh and say instead, "I'm looking for Hazel McAdams; she's a patient here. I'm a close friend of hers and am here to visit her. I was told she was on this floor."

"Let's see…" the nurse says as she flips through her clipboard. "Hazel McAdams… Yes, she's right here. Her room is down this hallway." She points behind her with her thumb, toward the hallway she just came from. "I can take you to her directly if you like."

"Uh, yes please," I nod, still a little unsure. "Thank you."

Luckily, the nurse doesn't ask questions as she escorts me to Hazel's room. On the way, I feel more and more nervous about how the visitation will go. Hopefully Hazel won't shout for Security once she lays eyes on me, thinking she's still reluctant to face me after her unnecessary outburst in the arcade parking lot the other day.

Once we arrive at the room, I see Hazel laying in the hospital bed, her face looking badly cut and bruised from her accident on the way home after she abandoned me. I notice that one of her arms—the one that was amputated—is covered by her blanket, seeming like she's refusing to look at it (Who can blame her?). She sits, talking with her mother, who is sitting calmly on the side of her bed. They both look abruptly up at me as I enter, seemingly not expecting me to visit at this time, or even at all.

"Sydney!" Hazel's mom frowns upon seeing me, seemingly like she's disgusted to see me here with her daughter since it's my fault that she's in this mess in the first place.

I pause, feeling slightly awkward. "Sorry…is now a bad time?" I can already feel the tension in the room rising with my very presence.

Hazel's mom shakes her head, saying, "No, I just…didn't expect you to visit." Meanwhile, Hazel remains quiet, not even acknowledging my presence, and I can't help but internally roll my eyes at this.

"Of course I came to visit," I say with a shrug and loud enough for Hazel in particular to hear. "That's what friends do, after all; do they not?" No surprise, she still refuses to look at me, and I swear I hear a small snort from her. Touché, I think back with a frown.

Clearly feeling the tension in the room escalating between us, Hazel's mom says in an awkward tone as she rises from her perch on the side of her daughter's bed, "Well, I'm going to leave you girls alone then. I'll just be outside. Good to see you're alright as well, Sydney."

"Thank you," I nod to her as she walks past me and out of the room, giving us some privacy. Once she's gone, I awkwardly enter the room and settle in one of the slightly uncomfortable lounge chairs provided for guests to use during visitations. We both remain silent for several minutes, the entire time Hazel refuses to make eye contact with me and instead stares out the window at the busy parking lot below.

Eventually, I can't take the silence any longer. I speak up calmly, saying apologetically, "I heard what happened to your arm. I'm sorry to hear that. If I had the ability to heal you, I would've; then you wouldn't have to be here." Hazel, of course, remains quiet, but I continue talking anyway, keeping a calm composure despite my growing anger.

"Look," I sigh in slight annoyance, "I get you're still pissed at me from the attack, but I came here wanting to apologize. I know I was reckless and stupid for dragging you into all of that, and I'm sorry, I really am. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be in this mess." I sigh again, halfheartedly talking to myself this time, "That's what happens when one associates themselves with my family. Call it 'a family curse,' I guess. It's something I get from my dad. Well, my real dad…whom I may never see again now, nor my real mother. She promised she'd come back for me, but I haven't heard from either of them in days. By now, I would've thought they've sorted out their marriage… But I guess that hasn't happened yet, and perhaps it never will, after what's happened to their daughter. After what's happened to me…" At this point, I think about telling Hazel about my brief encounter with Nova in the hallway just minutes ago, but I ultimately decide against it, knowing how fed-up Hazel is of hearing all of my crazy, made-up stories. If only she knew how far from 'made-up' my stories actually are… Not that she cares about any of that anymore, and she probably never will.

At this point, Hazel's silence is really starting to get on my nerves. I groan at her, feeling a sudden surge of anger flood my chest. "Please talk to me, Haze. It's pointless to continue hating each other like this. If you'd just stuck around and given me a chance to prove myself, we wouldn't be in this situation. You wouldn't be in this situation! Everything I said about my dream is real! If you'd stuck around, you'd see I wasn't crazy; you would've seen proof that everything is real! Rather than you being here, my dad could've healed you much more easily if you'd trusted him to heal you. If you'd trusted me!"

"Are you done?" Hazel snaps at me, finally turning to me, speaking for the first time since I arrived.

"What?" I frown back at her.

"Are you done talking so I can finally relieve myself of this constant earache?" she says in an annoyed tone before shaking her head and saying, "Actually, let me rephrase. Will you ever be done living in your freakazoid fantasy? This is exactly why I can't hang out with you anymore! You've gone completely psychotic in the head!"

"Haze, I haven't!" I insist. "Everything I'm saying is true! If you'd just listen to me! If you'd just give me a chance!"

"No!" she snaps at me again. "I said I was done! I'm surprised you're not, but you really should be! As I said, I'm not hanging out with you again until you get the help you clearly need!"

"Actually I do need help," I decide to point out, "but it's not the kind of help you're thinking." Clearly she thinks I've finally cracked and should be sent to an insane asylum, which doesn't surprise me one bit. Of course, anyone who's part of a simulated reality would think that about anyone who's not part of a simulated reality.

"Let me guess," she says in a condescending tone, "you took the blue pill by mistake, when you really should've taken the red pill; so now you're stuck in Wonderland seemingly indefinitely, not knowing how to climb back out of the 'rabbit hole' to return to the real world."

I pause, thinking of a batter way to explain my situation, but I ultimately end up failing, so I sigh and say in defeat, "Actually, that's pretty accurate."

Hazel groans this time. "Oh my god, Syd, you are so pigheaded! I was being sarcastic! It's a movie series! It's Science Fiction! It's not real!"

At this point, I have had enough of her. There is clearly no other way to convince her that my stories are true, so there is absolutely no point in continuing to try further. "Of course you'd think that!" I sigh, my anger reaching its peak. "Anyone who's part of a simulated reality would think that! That's how sims are programmed! In which case, there's no point in continuing to talk to you about this! You wouldn't understand anyway, coz you're part of the sim!"

"Then maybe you should leave and never come back!" she snaps at me.

"Maybe I should!" I snap back. "This isn't my world anyway! You're not my Hazel! My Hazel would believe me, but you never will!"

"Fine!" she shrugs, seemingly preferring that I disappear from this world so she doesn't have to deal with me ever again. In all honesty, I feel the same way about her now.

"Fine!" I retaliate for the final time before I stomp out of the room, pushing past Hazel's mom and ignoring her protests as I leave the hospital.

Once I reach my car in the parking lot, I immediately rip off my Visitors Pass sticker, crumple it in my fist and throw it across the lot out of anger. Before I get into my car, I take out my phone, planning to delete anything and everything that connects with Hazel (photos, phone number, etc.). Once I take out my phone, I see something else fall out of the same pocket. I pick it up and discover it to be a small piece of paper that had been sneakily slipped into my pocket at some point on the way to or during the visitation. Curiously, I unfold the paper and see latitude and longitude coordinates written on it, as well as a small note that says "Come after dark." Instantly feeling like I recognize the coordinates, I plug them into my GPS app on my phone, and I recognize the location as the abandoned factory that is within biking distance from my house where teens from my school often visit for urban exploration, ghost hunts, or for other underage and illegal purposes.

However, there is one major detail about the note that I find the most disturbing:

The handwriting is mine. Rather, it's Nova's.

A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!

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