Nick woke up with a start, gasping for breath. Thank fucking god it was only a dream, I didn’t just get splattered all over the road by that car. “I’m alive!” he murmured.

“Well of course you are silly, it was only a concussion” a strangely familiar female voice said “although you did have us scared for a moment”

“Where am I?” Nick asked, propping himself up on the pillows and looking around groggily. His eyes settled on the person whom the voice had belonged to and he gasped in shock “Mandy?”

Nick groaned and fell back against the pillows. He knew all that time travelling nonsense had to have been a figment of his imagination. Probably something he took that gave him one hell of a trip.

It’s Mandy from 2020 and she’s looking good too…well she would wouldn’t she? She’s not got me dragging her down anymore. Hey wait, is that a ring on her finger? She never told me she got remarried! As if it’s any of my business though. She’s free to do as she pleases. Still…would’ve been nice to know. I just hope he treats her and the kids right. Fuck…the kids! I can see them again. Oh god, I hope she didn’t bring them here, I don’t want them to see me here like this…I don’t even know what the fuck happened. Gah!

“You’re at the hospital Nick. Are you feeling alright?” she asked worriedly, running her hand across his face lovingly, an action which completely escaped Nick.

“Great” he replied sarcastically and swung his legs out of the bed

It had all been a dream. A vivid, amazing, weird and wonderful dream. He knew it was too good to be true. Time travel wasn’t possible, wishful thinking didn’t really work. More than likely he’d had a drunken or drug induced accident and that’s how he’d ended up here. He looked around the hospital room, but nothing was familiar. He did notice that the room was more upmarket than he could afford, a hell of a lot more upmarket. If he was here in this nice private room in the hospital, then who the hell was going to pay the bill?

“Erm…Mandy? Who’s paying for this?” Nick held up his arms and looked around the room. Across from the bed was a huge flat screen TV mounted on the wall, built in furniture and even a dressing table gave the hospital room more of a hotel room feel. There had to be some kind of mistake. They didn’t let people like him into places like this.

“Nick, I think we can safely say that our insurance will cover it” she replied and smiled.

“Our insurance? Look, thanks for the offer but I’m not some charity case. I’ll just get my shit together and be out of here” Nick looked around for his clothes, wanting to get out of there as fast as he possibly could. He wasn’t going to accept charity from his ex-wife’s new husband, especially when he’d never even met the guy.

“Nick, what are you talking about? I think you might’ve hit your head harder than the doctor thought. You’re not making any sense. Wait here, I’ll go and see if I can find him” Mandy said and was out of the room before Nick could protest.

Nick threw open the wardrobe door and put on the shirt and jeans which someone had hung up in there, then shoved his feet into the shoes which were also neatly placed inside the wardrobe. He ran into the bathroom, figuring it would be better to take care of business first, rather than trying to do a runner from the place when he needed to pee. It was after washing his hands and splashing cold water over his face that he finally looked into the mirror. He gasped yet again, for the sight before him was not what he was expecting to see.

“What…the…fuck” he mumbled to himself as he peeked a little closer.

He was older than the last time he’d looked in the mirror, but he didn’t look anything like the forty year old fat guy he’d expected to see. He actually didn’t look bad at all! His short hair was starting to grey at the sides, and Nick ran his fingers through it in disbelief. Hadn’t he had long, straggly, dirty looking hair before the hallucination? The broken veins on his cheeks were also gone, as well as the dark shadows circling his eyes. He looked like a slightly older version of the man he’d been in his dreams, or whatever the hell it was that had taken him back in time.

Then another thought occurred to him. What if he really had been killed by that car and he was dead? What if this was actually the waiting room to the afterlife…if the afterlife actually existed? None of it made sense and Nick’s head began to throb.

“Snap out of it Carter, you’re probably just dreaming” he said and slapped himself across the face, hard. Ow, that fucking hurt! Dreams aren’t supposed to hurt.

Before he had a chance to do anything else, Mandy returned with a doctor presumably, and Nick had lost his opportunity to flee.

“He’s acting strange; do you think it’s more than just concussion Dr Adams?” Mandy asked the doctor.

“Mrs Carter, he was checked over thoroughly when he was brought in…” Dr Adams began.

“Mrs Carter?” Nick looked confused. “But we’re divorced…have been for a few years. She left me because I’m an asshole!”

“I did not!” Mandy protested and then turned to the doctor “See, I told you he’s acting weird!”

The doctor then went on to explain that head injuries often produced temporary side effects and that’s why Nick was being kept in overnight for observation purposes.

“Are you sure that CT scan is right?” Mandy queried.

“Mrs Carter, I can assure you that our equipment is one hundred percent fully functioning. The CT scan didn’t show anything” Dr Adams explained. “I’m sure your husband will be fine by the morning”. With that, he walked out of the room and left Nick and Mandy alone.

“I don’t know what’s going on in your head Nickolas Carter, but if this is one of your pranks, then it’s not funny!” Mandy folded her arms across her chest and glared at Nick.