"Thanks for the ride," I coughed. 

"Eh, no biggie," Axel shrugged. "Anyway, I'm gonna be busy for the rest of the day, so don't call me or anything"

"Did I waste part of your day?" I asked. 

"No, no, it's alright," he said with a smile. I nodded and the two of us split ways. 

I slowly opened my door and entered, scanning the hall for my father. Weird. He was always reading a book on the couch during weekends, well, not this time. 

"Olivia," I called out. "Where's my father?"

"He's in the dining room," she replied. 

In the dining room, I saw my dad sitting at the far end with a cup of coffee. My mother was not around, thankfully. I awkwardly pulled up a chair next to him.

"Good afternoon, Irene," he said. Seeing the bandage around my dad's hand, made me feel a pang of guilt.

"I'm really sorry," I mumbled, unable to find a better way to start.

"Sorry?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. 

"I said I'm really sorry," I said, louder. My dad kept his coffee on the table and then grabbed my hand. 

"Irene, I can understand why you were upset with us. But you also need to understand that there is a certain way to react to situations," he said calmly. 

"No, it's not-" I started but he cut me off. 

"The coma situation is not easy for us either. We don't know how to help you heal, help you move on" my dad said helplessly. "Just remember, your mother and I are always here for you."

"I know," I choked. "I don't know why I reacted that way. To be honest, I've never really been interested in the government anyway. It was stupid and I don't how to make up for it" 

"You don't have to," my dad soothed. "We always suspected that you weren't interested in this profession anyway" 

"So... you forgive me?" I asked to which he nodded. 

"Your mother's a little upset, but given time, she'll be fine as well"

I nodded. "In that case, I need to tell you something" 

"What is it?" 

Of all the ways I expected this conversation to end, telling my father about my little investigation was certainly not in my plans. But he would understand, at least, I hoped so. 

"I'm trying to find out how I fell into my coma," I said. 

"Pshaw!" he exclaimed. "Why would you do something like that?"

"Don't freak out," I rolled my eyes. "I just need the closure. Maybe then I'll be able to revert things to the way they were before, minus the blindness" 

"Maybe," he agreed. "But even the police weren't able to do it, and they tried for a whole year. How do you think you'll pull it off?" 

Shit. Now was the part where I should explain my visions, but it was too early for that. And part of the investigation being done is because I never want anyone to find out about them. 

"Well..." I trailed off. "I'll handle that part" 

"Well, in that case, I'll have the cops email the documents and evidence they collected when they were working on the case," my dad said. 

"Really? That'll be awesome! Thank you" I squealed. 

I had expected my father to argue about why this is a bad idea etc, etc, but never would I have thought he would end up helping me. 

Even though the cops never finished the case, the information they'd collected would certainly point me in the right direction. And they might even trigger some visions. 

"Now come, let's eat," my dad said, pushing a plate of ricotta pasta towards me.

Once I finished eating, I walked up to my room and opened my email. Sure enough, there was an email titled "Case No 453231: Irene Henderson" and over 20 documents relating to the case. 

Perfect. I opened the first file, which contained a summary of the case. It appeared that my parents had reported me missing the very morning after my sleepover. Since I was a minor with no record of running away, and also because my parents were rich (although that part wasn't mentioned), they began working on the case immediately.

It mentioned that Denise, my other friends and even Axel were all taken in for questioning. There were also audio files of all the recordings. This is amazing. Since these interviews were taken the day after I ran away, they would be more accurate and the people would remember more than they do five years later. 

I clicked on the first one titled "Denise Bardot.mp3" 

"State your name and relationship with the victim please" the man, who I assumed was the police said. 

"Victim? Have you already decided that something has happened to Irene?" Denise replied. 

"Why do you seem so indifferent by this?" the cop asked. "Are you secretly happy that Irene is out of the picture?"

"I'm not indifferent. I am worried, but I also think there's a huge chance that Irene is safe" 

"So, what was your relationship with Irene like?" 

"We were friends. Very close friends" Denise said. 

"When did you realize that Irene was missing?" 

"When we woke up, Irene was the only one who wasn't in the room. Initially, we assumed she was in the washroom, but we soon realized it wasn't the case. I asked my mother who also said she hadn't seen Irene leave. I tried calling and texting, but she didn't reply. We have a chemistry test today so we decided to come and look for her in school" 

"Your parents also didn't see her leave?" the cop asked. 

"Yes," Denise confirmed. 

"And how would you describe Irene's behaviour lately?" the cop asked. 

"Irene's behaviour hasn't been the same since her accident last year. She's more distant, barely passes her classes, and quit all her extracurriculars. We've all tried reaching out to her, but it's not always easy" 

"Does Irene face any trouble/bullying from anyone?"

"None that I know of," Denise shrugged. 

"Those are all the questions I have, is there anything else you'd like to add?" 

"No," Denise said. 

That was the end of the clip. 

The interview seemed normal enough.

The rest were interviews with Axel, my parents and other friends. Same questions with very matching answers. 

I scrolled further down the email and found a copy of the hospital report. The first few columns were general details such as name, age, and blood group. Seeing a bit further down was a section called 'Injury/Disease'. Under that, in quite hard-to-decipher handwriting was written: 'Cause of coma: undefined' and in the next line 'Heavy blood loss, suspected' 

I couldn't read the word written past 'suspected'. I zoomed in, searched up the previous words and even flipped my laptop upside down, but couldn't read it. It also didn't help that the camera quality on this photo wasn't very great. 

Feeling defeated, I closed the tab and went back to the email to check the next file. My hand was placed on my mouse and just as I clicked on the next file, I fell unconscious. 

I could see myself as a sixteen-year-old, using my voice assistant Mia to do all my Google searches and texting, since I was blind. 

"Mia, open my inbox," I said. 

"You have one new message from 'XYZ123 nerd face laughing face sleeping face. Would you like to open it" 

"Yes," 

"'Hello, Sadie. Your application has been accepted. Please install Telegram and join the given link for safer messaging.' Would you like to reply?"

"No," I said. "Mia, install Telegram on my phone" 

I woke up, a drop sweating travelling down my cheeks. I quickly wiped it off. For a few seconds, I sat there processing what I'd just seen. 

Sadie Reyes.

That was the name I'd given to the weird old lady. Could the messages be from her? I was sceptical for two reasons: one, old people aren't smart enough to use their phones and two, her vocabulary was way higher than I'd expect someone like her to have.

But I also never saw myself giving around fake names to people, so I guess anything was possible. My phone had been updated after I got out of the coma, but it was still the same sim card. I did not have Telegram on my new phone, but the other messages would still be there.

I quickly opened my phone and went to my messages, typing in XYZ123. Sure enough, a contact with that name and some random emojis showed up. I opened the messages, scrolling all the way to our first message. 

"Hi, are you from aladel.net?" to which she replies, "Yes, what do you want?".

The next day I replied "I need the link" which she sent minutes later. Unfortunately, the link was a one-time-open thing and I could no longer access it. 

Then came the messages Mia had read out in my vision. To my surprise, the woman had not put any disappearing features on the Telegram link, meaning I could still join it. I smirked, feeling proud of myself.

"Here I come."