Under the pestering sound of a beeping machine, which seemed to be coming from a distance and was barely audible to him, Frank struggled to open his eyes but couldn't.
He also tried to move and regain the function of his body parts but they seemed to disregard his every attempt and plea but rather remained in a dormant state.
He was hysterical at first. Had he gone out of his mind?
Strange.
This state was too disturbing for him to remain calm. He was stuck in an endless loop of darkness, this deafening eerie silence. For how long, he couldn't say. Floating at some point and at others, he could feel his senses heightened. He scrambled to claw his way out of the darkness thick as the earth. Next thing he knew: he was back at work at the Precinct, having a wonderful time with his fiancée, Clara, and the daily routines of his life proceeded normally.
Yet it felt strange.
These random days rolled by for years and every time, at the end of work he returned back to the warm embrace of this strange but familiar darkness which shrouds his being within its claws. And at the start of each day he resumed the struggle all over again—fighting, screaming, cursing, scrambling and clawing his way out.
At some point he gave in to this darkness, became overwhelmed, after witnessing several years passed by. Most of them ending in failures as a result of the decision he made and actions he took. He felt defeated, his will to continue to live was sucked out of him.
In this darkness, where he could barely see his hands, he sat down lost in his thoughts for decades accompanied by the distant beeping sound, a constant reminder of his meaningless existence.
After an unknown amount of time spent in introspection, one day, he suddenly stood up with renewed vigour and determination. He clawed his way out of the darkness. The cycle started all over but this time, he lived his best life based on corrections made on past experiences.
“Nurse, he just moved. I'm sure of it.” Frank's mother, Anna, informed the nurses on duty. She urged them to quickly get any doctor available to check him out.
Frank had been confined to the hospital bed for the past six months after he and his partner were caught in a crossfire between local gangs. They called for backup and eventually when the situation was under control and arrests were made they found Frank lying on his back unconscious with his partner performing CPR on him. Barely breathing he was rushed to the hospital. It was confirmed that he had a collapsed lung from bullet wounds sustained during the gun battle which deprived his brain of oxygen for some time and he would have died if he hadn't been brought in when they did. So since then, he has been in a coma.
His eyes moved behind his eyelids and his fingers were twitching. The doctor ran in, checked the EKG machine, held up Frank's eyelid with his fingers and used the light from a medical pen light to observe his eyes. It was at this point of examination that Frank groaned and moved his hands to block the ray of light.
Anna gasped and shouted, “you are back!” She shoved the doctor aside and hugged her son tight as tears rolled down her face.
It later took Frank four months of gruesome rehabilitation to get back on his feet and to active duty again. He was back on duty with the NYPD in no time.
Some of his colleagues noticed something strange about him after he resumed work which they couldn't quite place. He wasn't that easy-going, carefree, arrogant person living off his father's high status as the Mayor anymore; he now appeared renewed, focused and had this unusual luck about him.
He got the most impossible tasks done easily without a scratch and solved crimes easily as though he was a step ahead of everyone. He even broke off his engagement to the beautiful Clara, his girlfriend, after he came out of coma.
This unusual behaviour did not escape his best friend of many years, Stella. Stella was his new partner now and they have had a stunning record thus far in their official duties.
Seated in the cafeteria, she looked into Frank's blue ocean eyes and asked, “How did you do it? We just closed a case which would have taken others years to crack and you just unravelled it in what, two weeks?! I think I have to put in a request for a change of partner soon if you still decide to keep things from me and take unreasonable decisions which always turn out to be the right one leading to the capture of criminals. We have been friends for many years and you still keep things like this from me?!”
“Erm…it's really hard for me to explain without you thinking I'm crazy, just like the whole precinct does.”
“Come on Frank, trust me. I have seen my share of crazy and you, my friend can't scare me. So out with it.”
“Alright, you know when I was in a coma…actually many people who come out of it always say they can't remember a thing that went on throughout the period, but mine was different.”
He paused and Stella urged him to continue.
“So all through, I remember everything that happened. I was stuck in a loop which felt like years only to find out when I woke up that I had just spent six months in a coma and not a hundred years. And the mysterious thing here is that all the events that happened in that state seem to be repeating themselves here like deja Vu. So the only explanation I could come up with is that instead of a loop, I think I….”
“Time travelled!” Stella completed his statement for him, her eyes wide in shock.
“Yes. And that's how we have been getting ahead of others, solving cold cases, cracking cases faster than anticipated and the reason why I broke off my engagement with Clara because in that state, I could see that she didn't really love me and was also dating Jake, the famous CNN newscaster behind my back.”
Pffft… Stella burst into laughter.
“OMG! The famous Frank fantasy story, ladies and gentlemen.” She mocked, clapping her hands.
“An..nn...d…she doesn't believe a word I just said.” Frank sighed.
“How do you expect me to believe you?” Stella said and paled when Frank uttered the same question at the same time as her. He mimicked her, like he knew the next words to come out of her mouth.
“That's bizarre. You’re scaring me,” they both said at the same time again. Stella leaned back in her chair in silence, staring at Frank.
“You see? I'm not lying,” he said. “Okay, watch that fat dude seated at the corner. He's going to order for salad and a diet coke.” And it happened exactly as he said it.
“Sooo ... the upside is, my memory of everything that went down in the coma helps me take advantage of events when they occur, also the knowledge of the skills, learnings and training I underwent in that state are still with me. But the downside is that I'm losing those memories as fast as I can remember them so I have written the ones I can remember down and I have lost many too. Let's say the coma business is a blessing but I can't really explain how. All I know is that I have been given a second chance at life. Like a super power sort of. I know I made a lot of mistakes in the past and time lost cannot be regained but I can now make a better present and future because I have seen and lived out the cause and effect of my every action.”
It took some getting used to but eventually Stella did. Frank even went a step further to ask her out for dinner and explained that he saw her in his coma state how devastated she was by his condition and the regret she felt for not telling him how she really felt about him.
Stella confessed every word was true and ever since, they became an item. Frank was later pouched by the FBI and finally got married to his best friend, Stella.