The last thing she remembers is the slickness that clung to her skin as a deafening crack rang out, like the sound a tree makes just as it's about to fall. She thinks she hears her name being called but her vision blurs into darkness before she can respond. In the split second before her mind ceases all thoughts, it whispers comfort to her. Inexplicably, calm washes over her and she lets her body go limp. The next second, she is drenched in panic.

The first thing she registers is the flexible tube inserted into the back of her hand as the erratic beeps of the heart monitor alert of her awakening. Her name is called by several unfamiliar voices from people she doesn't recognize but it feels like she should. She only recognizes one of them. "M-Mom?"

Teary green eyes not dissimilar from her own stare at her. Her mother smiles shakily, reaching out a hand to smooth down her hair mussed from days spent on a hospital bed. "Sakura… We've been waiting for you." Her mother says.

Sakura shifts her gaze to the others in the room. There is a man with dark brown hair cropped close to his scalp and an angular mustache with sideburns. He is familiar but at the same time not. Beside him is a pre-adolescent boy who is a stranger to her, but the way he looks at her suggests she meant more to him.

It takes her a while to identify the man. His hair may be different, but those eyes and the way he said her name tells her that he is her father. She blinks in confusion when she is suddenly engulfed in arms smaller than her own. The boy is silent as her parents gaze warmly.

"Who are you?" She asks.

The boy freezes, pulling back immediately. His eyebrows furrow as he gapes at her. "Are you serious right now?"

"I'll call the doctor," says her father, shock evident on his face as he hurries out of the room.

Her mother bursts with a steadier stream of tears. "Sakura, honey, this is your brother," her mother tells her, "Don't you remember him? Daiki, your brother?"

Daiki chokes down a sob. Sakura lifts her hand to comfort him, but he pushes off of her and runs out the door. "My brother?" Only then does she realize that although she clearly had no trouble communicating, she wasn't speaking in her language. So she does, in rapid succession: "Where am I? What happened? Why - Why can't I remember… This can't be real, it must be a genjutsu."

Mebuki looks at her daughter in devastation, swallowing harshly. "Let's wait for the doctor, dear."

Sakura brings her hands up to her face and sees soft hands. These were not her hands. This was not her mother. Her breath quickens.

Her father, Kizashi, soon comes back with a doctor. Her supposed brother lingers behind the doorway. He hides when Sakura turns to look at him. The doctor starts speaking, but the only words that resonate with her were coma and retrograde amnesia.

The rest of the day is spent with her parents attempting to reassimilate her on all that she has missed, but it did little to help her connect what memory she had to her reality. Now and then, she would get flashes of what seems like two different sets of memories.

She is released from the hospital just a week later. Her memories are foggy, and some of them seem so wrong. Daiki remains his distance from her, but the way he looks at her makes her feel guilty.

They tell her that she could take all the time she needed to rest before starting school again, but this confuses her. School? Hadn't she graduated already?

Her mind felt like two pieces of different colored clay being forced to mix together. Some parts blend together, and some heavily contrast. Sakura lays on her bed - no, not her bed, but they say it's her room so it must be her bed. But this isn't her room. Everything, even her own body (but is it really hers?) feels distorted.

Today is Sunday. Tomorrow is Monday. She had been in a comatose state for two months. She was taken to the hospital by someone who called himself Spider-Man.

Yesterday, a tall girl with curly hair visited her. Although Sakura didn't recognize her fully, her mouth opened with her realising and exclaimed, "MJ!" The girl, MJ, was surprised but pleasantly so. MJ introduced herself as Sakura's friend, and her family seemed to know her well.

MJ stayed the entire afternoon. Even though Sakura didn't really know her, MJ seemed to understand and didn't pressure her. She brought over a backlog of assignments that Sakura would have to submit by the end of the month and helped her start on some. Sakura managed to pick up fast after MJ explained certain concepts or formulas.

When MJ pulled out a black rectangular object from her pocket, Sakura peered at it curiously and asked, "What's that?"

MJ looked at her in astonishment. "It's a phone." Then a flash of pity crossed her face, but it was gone in a second. She tilted it to show her Japanese friend. "You can do a lot of things with it. You can talk to people, watch videos, listen to music, play games, read just about anything you want to learn."

They pushed Sakura's assignments aside ("I'll come back and help you tomorrow," said MJ.) and nibbled on the snacks Mebuki offered them as MJ answered all of Sakura's questions.

Speaking of…

Sakura takes out her phone, which her mother had given to her earlier, and peers at all of the tiny icons. Tapping on what MJ said was called Google, she types "amnesia."

Retrograde amnesia pops up, as well as dissociative amnesia. She clicks on the latter.

Dissociative amnesia is a type of dissociative disorder that involves inability to recall important personal information that would not typically be lost with ordinary forgetting. However, the memories might resurface on their own or after being triggered by something in the person's surroundings.

She clicks on a few articles. One of them mentions false memories, so she inputs this in the search engine as well. She reads about a man who lived a life while comatose. He had a wife, children, a job, and everything was perfect. Then, he wakes up.

Sakura is hit suddenly of more memories from a different life. In it, she has pink hair and glowing hands that can cause earthquakes and heal broken bones. In it, she has friends that can jump on trees and summon talking animals. In it, she has parents who can fight multiple people at the same time, but no brother. No MJ. No Spider-Man. No Avengers. No aliens.

A scream escapes from her throat. Her phone clutters to the floor.

How can these memories be fake when it feels so real? She stares at her hands. Her soft, uncalloused hands. She clenches them into fists and slams it on her desk, but it barely flinches.

"Sakura?" An uncertain voice calls from behind her closed door. It's Daiki. "Are you alright?"

She wipes at her eyes aggressively. "I'm fine."

Daiki is silent for a moment. "Okay. I'm just across the hall if you need me," he says quietly.

"Thank you," Sakura whispers.

She waits for his footsteps to disappear before she attempts to call on the energy she saw in her memories. But nothing happens. Memories of another life, of days spent with MJ and two other boys their age, poring over books and quizzing each other, of movie marathons and sleepovers, of brown eyes and shy smiles.

She lets these memories pass by, but the last one lingers. Her mind whispers the name Peter to her.

Before she could stop herself, her hand dials a number. Sakura holds her breath. She nearly throws the phone across the room when she hears a hesitant voice say, "Hello?"

"H-Hello," she says. "Is this Peter? MJ… said you're one of my friends."

He is silent for a moment. "Yeah, it's me. How are you?"

"I'm fine. I don't remember much, honestly… but the doctor said there's a chance I'll regain all of my memories back."

"That's, that's great," Peter says, relief coating his words. "Sorry I didn't visit you."

"It's alright, really. I don't think I would've recognized you anyway," she says.

"Oh." His voice drops. "Um, why did you call me?"

Sakura scratches at her brow. "I don't know. Muscle memory, I guess. Just wanted to talk to someone."

"Oh," he says again. "So when are you coming back to school?"

"Tomorrow. I've already started working on some of my assignments, and I passed my time at the hospital by catching up on subjects. I'm trying my best but," her voice cracks, "it's kinda overwhelming."

"Don't rush yourself, Sak." He whispers gently. "You just got out of a coma, your body's still recovering."

"I think it did plenty of recovering during those two months."

"Still, Rome wasn't built in a day. You're progressing, which is great, I mean," he says, "I didn't expect you to call me, but here you are."

Her face reddens. "What do you mean?"

She could almost hear him smile. "We used to call each other and just talk whenever one of us couldn't sleep," Peter tells her. Images of countless nights pass through her thoughts.

"Really?" She asks. "Were we best friends?"

"We are," he says.

A stab of pain slices at her mind as she glances at her feet. "You used to buy me random socks."

"Yeah. Did MJ tell you that?"

"No." The corners of her mouth rise. "I remembered. Just now."

His voice is soft, but happy. "That's great. It means you'll recover in no time. Just believe in yourself. If you believe it, it can."

She gasps, dropping her phone as her head is assaulted with images of a blond-haired boy with whisker marks on his cheek and bright blue eyes. A masked man with one eye covered and silver hair that defies gravity. A boy with dark dark eyes that turn into blood red.

"Sakura?" Peter's voice filters through the speaker of her phone.

Sakura picks it up and tells him, breathing heavily, "I gotta go."

"Wait -"

"See you tomorrow." She hangs up.

Last week, she woke up from a coma. But before she did, she lived a different life. A life of perseverance, camaraderie, death, and life.

She is Sakura Haruno, kunoichi of Konohagakure.