Juan Pov.

"M-mom... Don't joke. I'm already dying."

The idea that I could have lost years rather than months seemed too cruel. Too catastrophic to think about.

"How could that be possible?" I wondered frantically. "Wouldn't I know if years had passed? Wouldn't I feel it somehow?"

Yet even as I questioned it, part of me recognized the truth in her words. It explained the deep weakness in my body. The strange disconnection I felt from myself.

And then I heard unfamiliar voices, but familiar scents. They said in the same breath "Yes, Juan. You have been in a coma for ten years already."

The statement came from multiple sources around my bed. People I hadn't realized were in the room.

Their voices had deepened, matured, changed in ways that made them almost unrecognizable. Yet their unique scents triggered childhood memories.

My siblings, no longer children but young adults, had apparently been present for this revelation.

"We've been waiting so long for you to truly wake up," one of them added. Their voice broke with emotion. "You've been physically conscious for weeks now. But this is the first time you seem to really understand what's happening."

My mom grabbed my hand and pulled it up to my face and my hair. She guided my fingers to explore what must have been dramatic changes.

I noticed immediately that my features had become tougher, more angular than I remembered. My hair was way much longer. It extended to my shoulders in a way I'd never worn it before.

Most shocking of all, I had a light beard covering my jaw and cheeks. Something that had barely started growing when I last remembered myself.

I gasped in horror and disbelief. "Oh my god! I have been in a coma for ten years?"

My fingers continued their exploration. They mapped the face of a stranger that was somehow me. A twenty-eight-year-old man rather than the teenager I still felt myself to be.

My mom sobbed openly now. Relief was evident in her voice. "Yes, yes...thank God that you're alive now."

Her tears wet my hand as she pressed it to her cheek.

"The doctors said you might never fully regain consciousness. That we should prepare ourselves for you remaining in that twilight state forever. But I knew. I always knew you'd come back to us completely."

Her faith in me, unshaken despite a decade of waiting, struck me with painful clarity. While I had given up on myself in weeks, she had maintained hope for years.

And the unfamiliar voices were my siblings. I realized with growing wonder. The children I remembered had grown into adults during my absence from conscious life.

I gulped slowly. I felt burns down my throat already from the effort of speaking and the emotional overwhelm.

"Jennifer?" I called. I needed to connect these strange adult voices to the children in my memory.

The little girl who used to climb into my bed during thunderstorms and beg for stories would now be a young woman of seventeen.

"Yes, I'm here brother." My sister's voice came from my right side. Mature and composed but with an undercurrent of the same sweetness I remembered.

Her hand touched mine gently. Her fingers were longer and more elegant than the chubby child's hand I recalled.

"I've been reading to you every day. All your favorite books and new ones I thought you might enjoy. The doctors said you might be able to hear us even when you couldn't respond."

Her voice caught slightly. "I've missed you so much, Juan. Really talking to you, I mean."

"Ekon!" I called next. I was trying to place each family member in the room. To rebuild my mental image of them based on their voices and scents.

The mischievous seven-year-old boy who had constantly tested my patience with pranks and endless questions would now be approaching adulthood himself.

"Here, brother," he replied from the foot of the bed. His voice was deeper than I could have imagined. It carried the confidence of a young man rather than the boisterous energy of the child I remembered.

"I've been keeping your car maintained and running smooth. Take it for a spin once you're on your feet again."

His attempt at normalcy, at looking forward rather than dwelling on the lost years, touched me deeply.

"The engine purrs like a content mountain lion now. I've made some modifications you're going to love."

"Akon!" I called to the third sibling. I expected to hear the analytical, precise tones of the most serious of the triplets. Now grown into what I imagined would be a thoughtful young man.

I remembered him as the quietest of my siblings. Always observing and calculating before speaking or acting.

He didn't reply verbally. But I felt a strong arm wrap around my shoulders. He pulled me into a fierce embrace that took me by surprise.

I could feel his body shaking with suppressed emotion as he finally broke into tears against my shoulder.

"I missed you so much, brother."

The raw display of emotion from my normally reserved brother shocked me. This was not the carefully controlled child I remembered.

"I tried everything. Researched every experimental treatment. Consulted specialists from around the world. Nothing worked until Mom's... methods."

The slight hesitation before the last word raised questions I couldn't yet form.

I laughed weakly. I was genuinely surprised by the physical strength in what should have been my most scholarly sibling. I gently pushed him back.

"Akon, now I'm sure that I have been in a coma for years. You become like the hulk." I joked. I was trying to process the overwhelming reality through humor.

The skinny, intellectual child had apparently grown into a powerfully built young man during my decade of unconsciousness.

"What happened to my little bookworm brother? Did you trade your library card for a gym membership?"

He pulled me to a sitting position with ease. His strength made the movement effortless despite my weakened state.

I protested immediately. Panic rose at the sudden change in position. "What are you doing? I can't walk!"

The fear in my voice was genuine. Despite understanding I'd been unconscious for years, I still carried the vivid memory of paralysis from what felt like recent experience.

The idea of movement below my waist seemed impossible. A cruel joke at my expense.

My mom and soon my dad said loudly in unison, "No, you can now. I've been working on healing your legs for ten years."

My mother's voice carried absolute certainty. A confidence that bordered on the supernatural.

"Every day, Juan," she continued while my father's hands steadied me in the sitting position. "Using techniques the traditional doctors couldn't understand or appreciate. Your father thought I was crazy at first, but he supported me anyway."

There was something mysterious in her explanation. It suggested healing methods beyond conventional medicine.

And my dad's hand grabbed mine. His scent sent warmth and coverage to my heart just as it had when I was a child frightened by nightmares.

His voice, deeper and slightly rougher with age but still undeniably his, offered encouragement.

"Come on son. If not for yourself and us, then for your mate."

The word fell between us with the weight of significance. It raised questions I wasn't yet ready to process.

"She's waited so long, been so patient. Don't you think it's time?"

The gentle pressure in his voice suggested something momentous awaited beyond my self-imposed isolation.

I blinked rapidly. Confusion mounted with each new revelation. "Mate?"