"Eyes wide open." The ethereal echo bounced around my surroundings, coming from somewhere far away yet nearby. The familiar tone of Nolan's masculine accent rattled around inside my head, yet blackness enveloped me in its icy embrace. I searched the darkness, struggling to see something, anything, that could act as my anchor.

Finally, blinding light stung my vision as my eyes snapped open to the recognizable hospital room. I now lay in the exact hospital bed I had seen in the astral plane and confusion hit me just as hard as the intense brightness. My senses adjusted to vivid florescent lights, the surrounding display of posters on stands and flowers in decorative vases, and that abrasive mechanical beeping next to me.

I turned my head to view the numbers on the vital machine, unaware of what any of the numerals meant. But I took note that this time the beeping was steady and robust unlike before, but it still rattled in my ears. Trying to get my bearings, I took in my surroundings, studying the dozens of fan-made prints, cards, and containers of flowers that crowded the unoccupied spaces of the small space.

The art and drawings varied in quality on the oversized get-well cards signed by many of the young women that called me their role model, inspiration, and aspired to be just like me. Some of their art drawn in pencil detailed majestic scenes of Nolan and his handsome bedroom eyes, holding me in his oversized, angelic-like wings. They had captioned other artistic renderings in the hashtag #RhelanNoMore, and even fewer mentioned Nolan at all.

The pain in my skull demanded my attention, and I reached up to examine the bandage wrapped around my head and questioned how long my body had been lying here since witnessing it from the other side.

I recalled first being frightened of the phantom that strangely looked like me, being in her body while navigating through the rehashing of the horrific experience of being brutality attacked by the man I loved. Just the thought of the diamond shaped glass trophy was enough to relive the horrifying moments over and over again in my head.

And worst of all, I had been forced to experience that very moment repeatedly from both perspectives, as a victim and a phantom witness. Both viewpoints would forever wound me far beyond the physical.

The last memory of my ghostly body nearly fading into nothingness hit me when the monitor's beeping reminded me of the warning of time quickly passing. The sudden fear of disappearing into nonexistence flooded my mind, and I lifted my hands to examine them, too. Counting each of my fingers repeatedly, I thanked the heavens they were no longer transparent and I was back in my physical body.

Even while lying in bed, the weight of my body sinking into the mattress brought on a physical, weighty sensation I had to become used to. I tried to lift my upper half from the mattress, hoping to sit forward and get a better look at the condition of my body, but decided against it after a sharp pain shot through my torso. Exhaustion washed over me at the thought of any exertion. I continued to lie in bed and scanned the room with my eyes instead, recognizing the elongated crystal vase with long-stemmed red roses extending from the top of it.

For a minute, my heart skipped at the thought of the giver of the roses. A memory from long ago of Nolan walking through the door of our home with two dozen of those same roses nearly made me jump out of my skin at the thought of him being alive and invading the privacy of my room. But just as the memory faded, so did the anxiety that ran through me, especially when I realized Nolan was now gone forever.

He would never walk into my room or my life again, considering what I had to do to escape with mine. Flashes of the hefty trophy coming down on his head, similar to what he'd done to mine, flickered in my mind. The frightened look on his face just as he put his hand up to stop me. That look in his eyes would forever replay in my nightmares but would be endurable over reliving the brutality of what he'd done to me.

The handsome man of my life.

The attractive man of my fantasies.

The man of my dreams.

My eyes never left the roses. One of the rose heads had a few of the petals picked off the way I remembered Jos was about to do during the vision. She had really visited. For a second, all my memories blended with one another, and I wasn't sure if the recollections were mine as myself or the ghost, but I was sure they weren't part of my imagination. I felt how real those visions were and knew, as a phantom, I had truly visited my body in the hospital.

Would anyone else believe me? Probably not, but either way I wanted proof.

I continued taking in the sights, looking for anything out of place, when a small, folded piece of white paper at the foot of my bed caught my eye. I wouldn't have even thought to look if it wasn't for the memory of her visiting, which was the proof I needed.

The torn sliver of paper barely hung onto the edge of the sheet and one wrong move would send it cascading to the floor.

Despite the pain, I pushed myself up in bed, taking a brief pause to orient myself and allow some of my aching to ease. The soreness wasn't only in my torso and around my head, as I had mistakenly thought, it was throughout my entire body. My ribs, hips, and knees throbbed especially along my left side.

I pushed through the pain and reached down toward the paper. My fingernail grazed the edge, and I held my breath to push myself a millimeter more and pluck the piece of paper from the sheet with the tips of my fingers.

I lay back slowly, inhaling steadily, noting the machine and the uneven beeping it produced. When I finally relaxed in a manageable position, I unfolded the scrap and the words hit me in the gut.

Mention her fans missing her. Tell her I miss her, and Nolan misses her, too. Bring up the car accident. Don't forget this line: "This world is so fucked. But don't worry, I'm sure Nolan's looking down at you, giving you the strength to pull through and fully recover."

I looked up from the note to meet the lens of a security camera affixed to the ceiling in the room's corner, watching, and possibly recording, everything. There was no doubt Joselyn would have made a brilliant actress, if only she didn't keep scripts and pointers on her person to fall from her pocket, get misplaced, and end up in the wrong hands. I tucked the paper in my fist, clinging to it for the evidence I needed to make sure Joselyn wouldn't get away with her part in my predicament.

The white board on the wall across from me displayed the room's number, my assigned doctor, and today's date. I nearly gasped at the number of days that had passed.

I needed answers. Where was Jos? Would Mom return to visit again? What did the public know and what would come of it?

Thankfully, before I could relax completely, the door to my room opened and a handsome older man wearing a grey button-down shirt and dress pants marched in, immediately followed by two nurses in matching light green medical scrubs. My eyes quickly connected with the couple of uniformed police officers that trailed behind them.

The short, dark-skinned policewoman had the energy of a leader. She moved past the tall fair skinned police officer and made her way to the front of the pack, standing to the side of the bed and apart from the others.

I expected her to speak first, but the well-dressed man with a clean-shaven warm smile began. "Good evening. How are you feeling?" I shook my head, cutting my eye back to the policewoman, and he continued. "I'm Dr. Shaw. Joining me is a couple of nurses, and this is the county's police officers who'd like to speak with you."

"Hello, ma'am," the policewoman finally spoke, forcing a smile through the concern that appeared in her dipped eyebrows.

The doctor cleared his throat, taking center stage. "I'd like to conduct a simple assessment before you two continue if you don't mind. Can you tell me your name?" He paused, awaiting my answer, and all eyes were on me.

"Rhea Patel."

"Good." He nodded. "Do you know where you're at?" I pointed to the whiteboard that contained that information. "Good, good. Do you know why you're here?"

"He attacked me." My eyes went to the policewoman to judge her reaction, but movement at the open door caught my attention. The head that peeked through the narrow gap filled me with a sense of ease, as it was the only person I'd recognized. "Dr. Desiree?"

Her thin lips curved into a smile and waved by twiddling her fingers, a mixture of sadness and relief in her glossy eyes. "Glad to see you."

I shook my head in confusion. "Why are you here?"

"Your assistant reached out to me to inform me of the accident and request I send your medical records here for the doctors treating you. I wanted to check in as your primary and as a friend."

"Ms. Patel?" The policewoman cut in. "Being that you're a high-risk patient and an internet sensation, they have stationed us outside of your room door, hoping to speak with you for a while. See, we've been trying to piece together what happen that resulted in you being hospitalized. What can you recall about how you sustained your injuries?"

"Nolan attacked me." I glanced around at all the unresponsive eyes. "Nolan Hudson, my boyfriend-manager."

"So, you know that your lover, uh, Nolan, is no longer with us?"

"I know. He's dead." Surprisingly, my lips quivered as the words left my lips. The reality of his death, and the fact that I caused it, hit me harder upon speaking it aloud.

"There wasn't a break-in at the studio?" the other officer asked. "An attempted robbery for valuables, your UpTube trophy?"

How did they come up with that scenario?

"No." I shook my head. "Nolan used that trophy to attack me. And then I used it to defend myself."

The unease in the room quickly escalated as the officer pulled out a notepad and the others glanced at each other in surprise.

"Your assistant, Joselyn Murphy," the policewoman continued. "In her report, she states she believes someone had stolen her keycard and entered the studio to steal valuables. Your lover possibly tried to stop the robbery and lost his life, leaving you to be attacked by the intruder. After following the intruder out of the building, they hit you with their vehicle as you tried to escape." She paused, an unnerving silence. "So, you're telling me that's not what happened?"

"No." I glanced at Desiree, searching for a sense of familiarity to help ease my anxiety. "No one took my lover from me during some heroic act. He tried to kill me, so I removed him from my life by taking his."

She nodded, as if the pieces were finally coming together. "And what about your assistant?"

"She showed up after he died, but instead of getting help for me, she wanted me to die, too." I threw the wad of paper back where I found it at my feet, grunting from the pain in my side. I nodded to the scrap, encouraging the officer to pick it up. "That's Jos's handwriting. I'm sure you can check the camera recordings to see when she dropped this."

I almost ignored the creative posters acting as a barricade, keeping me inside this small, lonely space. I finally understood the story they were telling. Much of the art showed that public speculation was exactly what the officers were questioning. Many believed a crazed UpTube fan had assaulted me and Nolan and left Nolan dead, and when I ran to get away, they hit me with their car before fleeing the scene.

What they didn't know was all that was a lie orchestrated by Joselyn to protect her. She probably didn't expect me to awaken and tell the world the truth.

I wondered how my young female fans would take knowing that my fairytale life was that of the dark and grim kind. No matter how much I gave to him or loved him, my Prince Charming turned out to be The Big Bad Wolf in disguise. And I could never change that about him, no matter how many chances I had.

Wealth, fame, and heroism made the perfect fairytale ending. Surely my fans wouldn't want Rhea's demise to be any other way.

~~~

Continue on to the final chapter ...