2026.2|“What if a comatose patient could communicate with their loved ones through their dreams?”Almost Found, Almost Remembered

Por Gabriela Uemura Matsumoto

The room buzzed with quiet energy as I stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the strap of my dress for the third time. “Too much?” I muttered, tilting my head before instinctively reaching for my phone. I opened the group chat and typed, Does this look okay? Be honest. The reply came almost immediately—You look amazing. Stop overthinking. Hurry up, we’re waiting for you! A small smile spread across my face, the kind that only came when I felt seen. “Okay… okay,” I whispered.

I didn’t like being alone—not because I couldn’t handle it, but because I didn’t want to. Silence felt too loud, leaving too much room for thoughts I tried to avoid, so I filled my life with people, with laughter, messages, and shared moments that made everything feel lighter. My friends were everything. More than love, more than anything. They were the ones who stayed.

My gaze lingered on my reflection, but my mind drifted anyway. He had left—not suddenly, not cruelly, just inevitably. A new city, a new life, a future that no longer had space for me. And I had been ready to follow him without hesitation. But he hadn’t asked me to. The memory still lingered, softer now, but impossible to ignore.

I straightened my posture, pushing the thought away. Tonight wasn’t about him. It was about my best friend, about laughter and music and being surrounded by the people who mattered most. I grabbed my bag, took one last look in the mirror, and this time my smile felt steadier. “Okay,” I said quietly. “Let’s go.”

The streets were quieter than I expected, the city already slipping into that late-night stillness as I got into the car, offering the driver a soft greeting before settling into the back seat. The ride had barely begun when my phone rang, and I smiled as soon as I saw the name on the screen. “Hey, mom,” I said, leaning my head lightly against the window as the familiar comfort of her voice filled the space. The conversation flowed easily, like it always did, moving from my classes to whether I had been eating properly, from small complaints about the week to light laughter that made everything feel normal again. We talked about my younger brother, about my dad and how he was probably still working too much, about nothing important and everything at the same time—the kind of conversation that didn’t need to be meaningful to matter.

At some point, her voice softened. “I miss you.” I smiled, my expression gentler as I watched the passing streetlights blur outside. “I know. I miss you too.” A brief silence followed, comfortable and familiar, filled only with the low hum of the engine. Then she spoke again, “Text me when you get there, okay? And tell Brie I said happy birthday.” I smiled, ready to answer, my voice beginning to form the words—

But they never came. In the span of a second, everything shifted. The steady motion of the car broke into something violent and wrong, the screech of tires cutting through the quiet before the impact came, loud and overwhelming. My body jerked forward, my phone slipping from my hand as metal collided with something solid, the sound filling everything, leaving no space for anything else.

On the other end of the call, my mom’s voice broke through, distant at first, then rising in panic. “Lena? Lena?!” The line carried fragments of chaos—distorted noise, something breaking, the terrifying absence of a response. And then, where my voice should have been, there was nothing.

I don’t remember waking up or opening my eyes. There was no pain, no impact, no sense of time passing—just a strange awareness, like I had been placed somewhere without noticing when or how I got there. One moment there was everything, and then there was only quiet. When I realized I was moving, I was already walking along the familiar paths of my college campus. Everything looked the same—the buildings, the trees, the layout I knew by heart—but something felt off. There were no voices, no laughter, no distant conversations, just silence stretching too far, broken only by the sound of my own footsteps.

I slowed down, looking around, trying to make sense of it. It didn’t feel empty in a normal way; it felt like something had been removed, like the life had been taken out of it, leaving only the structure behind. “Hello?” I called, my voice sounding strange in the stillness. No answer came back. Still, I kept moving, as if I already knew where to go, following the path toward the small café on campus. The door was already open when I got there, which only added to the unease building in my chest, but I pushed it anyway and stepped inside.

The warmth hit me first, followed by the faint smell of coffee and the soft hum of machines that were somehow still running. It should have been comforting, but the emptiness ruined it. Every table was empty, every chair neatly in place, and there was no one behind the counter. I walked in slowly, brushing my fingers against a table as if I needed to remind myself that it was real. “Okay… this is weird,” I murmured, the words sounding too loud in a place that felt like it was holding its breath. I stood there for a moment, waiting without knowing for what, until a thought crossed my mind, sudden and sharp: I wasn’t supposed to be there.

The thought lingered, heavier than the others, as if it carried a truth I wasn’t ready to face. I pulled out a chair and sat down anyway, my eyes scanning the empty café again, as if something might make sense if I looked long enough. Everything was too still, too perfectly arranged. I rested my hands on the table, trying to ignore the unease building in my chest. Then, without warning, something changed. A cup appeared in front of me.

I froze. It hadn’t been there a second ago—I was sure of it. I leaned forward slightly, hesitant, my gaze locked onto it as the faint steam curled into the air. The smell reached me almost instantly. Oat milk. A hint of hazelnut. My coffee.

A strange mix of comfort and confusion settled inside me as I wrapped my fingers around the cup. It was warm. Real. Exactly the way I always ordered it. “This doesn’t make any sense…” I whispered. A soft sound broke the silence. The door.

I looked up as it opened, light slipping into the café. For a moment, everything felt suspended. Then she stepped inside, and my chest tightened before I could understand why. It took me a second to recognize her. “Mom…?” The word came out quietly. She looked exactly the same—calm, familiar, real in a way that didn’t match anything else around me. But what unsettled me most wasn’t her presence.

It was her reaction. She didn’t seem surprised. If anything, she looked relieved. “There you are,” she said softly, as if finding me here made perfect sense. I didn’t move. I just watched as she walked closer and sat across from me, her presence grounding in a way that made everything else feel even more unreal. My fingers tightened slightly around the cup as I leaned forward, my voice quieter now. “…How are you here?”

The question felt heavier once it left my mouth. My mom didn’t answer right away. She tilted her head slightly, studying me in that familiar way, like she was trying to understand what I meant without asking. “I could ask you the same thing,” she said softly, a faint, almost amused smile on her lips. I frowned, my grip tightening around the cup. “No, I mean it… this place, it’s empty. There’s no one here. And you just… walked in.”

She glanced around briefly, noticing something was off, but not enough to question it fully. “It does feel a little strange,” she admitted. “But I think I was dreaming before this. Or maybe I still am.” Her eyes returned to mine, softer now. “I just remember thinking about you.” Something in my chest tightened. “Thinking about me?” I asked quietly. She nodded. “I couldn’t sleep properly. I kept wondering if you got there safely… if you were having fun.” She paused, her expression shifting slightly. “And then I was here.”

The words settled between us, heavier than they should have been. I swallowed, my mind racing, trying to connect things that didn’t seem to fit. “…Mom,” I said carefully, “when was the last time you saw me?” She blinked, caught off guard. “What do you mean? It was just—” She stopped, uncertainty creeping into her expression. “I… I’m not sure.” Silence filled the space again, fragile this time, like something was about to break. And for the first time since I got there, a thought formed clearly in my mind. Something had gone very, very wrong.

The thought settled into me slowly, like it had been there all along, just waiting for me to notice. I stared at my mom, at the way her expression had shifted, at the uncertainty in her eyes that mirrored something growing inside my own chest. My mind felt distant, like it was trying to reach something just out of grasp, something important that refused to fully surface.

“You said…” I started, my voice quieter now, more fragile. “You were thinking about me getting there.” She nodded slowly. “To the party,” she said, as if that part was obvious. “You were on your way, right?” On my way. The words echoed in my head, and suddenly, something flickered. A streetlight passing by. The low hum of a car engine. My head resting against the window.

“I was…” I whispered, my grip tightening around the cup as my breathing shifted, shallow without me noticing. “I was in the car.” My mom didn’t say anything. She just watched me, her expression softening, like she could feel the change even if she didn’t understand it. “I was talking to you,” I continued, the memory pulling itself together piece by piece, each part sharper than the last. “You told me to text you when I got there… and to tell Brie…” My voice faltered slightly. A pause. And then—

The sound. Loud. Violent. Wrong. My body tensed instantly, my breath catching as the memory crashed into me all at once, no longer fragmented, no longer distant. The screech of tires, the force of something breaking, the feeling of everything shifting out of place in a second that never finished.

“I didn’t…” I stopped, shaking my head slightly as if that could undo it, as if that could change what I was starting to understand. “I didn’t get there.” The realization settled deeper this time, heavier, impossible to ignore. “I never arrived.” Silence filled the space between us, but it wasn’t empty anymore. It was full of something unspoken, something neither of us knew how to name. I looked up at her, my chest tightening, my voice barely above a whisper. “…Mom, I think something happened.”

The words lingered between us, heavier now that they had been said out loud. For a moment, she didn’t respond, just looked at me, her expression soft but distant, as if she was trying to understand something that didn’t quite make sense. “Something happened…” she repeated quietly, and I felt my chest tighten as I leaned forward. “I didn’t get there,” I said, my voice unsteady. “I never made it to the party. I was in the car, talking to you, and then…” The memory hit again, sharp and overwhelming. “There was a crash.”

Silence followed, but it felt unstable, like something had shifted beneath us. My mom blinked, and for the first time, her expression faltered, like a signal weakening. “I…” she started, her voice softer now, distant in a way that didn’t match how close she was. “I don’t—” She stopped, confusion replacing the calm she had before.

“Mom?” I called, a sudden urgency rising in my voice. She looked at me again, but something was wrong—not visibly, not in a way I could explain, but it felt like she was slipping away, like I was watching her from farther and farther away. “I think…” she whispered slowly. “I think I have to go.” “No—wait,” I said quickly, leaning forward, reaching for her. “Don’t go, I just—I don’t understand what’s happening.” My voice broke, fear settling in too fast, and she gave me a small, apologetic smile that made something inside me sink. “It’s okay,” she said gently. “You’re okay.” But I wasn’t. “I’m not— Mom, please—” Her hand never reached mine.

One moment she was there, warm and real, and the next, there was nothing. The chair across from me sat empty again, untouched, as if she had never been there at all. “Mom…?” I whispered, but the café stayed silent, heavier than before, filling every space she had just occupied.

I stayed there for a moment, staring at the emptiness, trying to hold on to something that had already slipped away. Then something shifted. Not loudly, not suddenly—just enough to make the air feel different.

I felt it before I saw it, a presence settling behind me, unfamiliar in a way that made my body tense. Slowly, I turned, my heartbeat picking up, and that was when I saw him. He was already there, standing a few steps away, as if he had always been part of the scene.

The difference hit immediately. Not just in his presence, but in the way it felt—heavier, less warm. My voice came out quieter this time. “Dad…?” The word felt strange in my mouth, like it didn’t belong there the same way “mom” had. He didn’t react right away, just gave a small nod, the kind he always gave when he wasn’t sure what else to do. No surprise, no urgency—just quiet acknowledgment.

“Hey,” he said simply. I searched his face for something more, some sign that he understood how wrong everything felt, but it wasn’t there. He looked at me like he always did—present, but distant. “I think something happened,” I said again, though the words felt weaker now. “You’re alright,” he replied automatically. “You just need to rest.” Rest.

The word sat heavily in my chest, offering no comfort. I wanted to explain, to make him understand, but the moment slipped too quickly. He didn’t fade the way my mom had, but something about him grew less solid with each second.

And then he was gone. The emptiness barely had time to settle before the air shifted again, softer this time. I turned, my breath catching. “Lucas…?” He stood a few steps away—and it was him, but not exactly. He looked older. Subtly, but enough to make something inside me tighten. “Lena?” he said, his voice breaking.

Before I could respond, he pulled me into a hug, tight and desperate. I froze for a second before holding him back. “You’re here,” he whispered. “I missed you.” Something in the way he said it made my chest sink. I pulled back slightly, searching his face. “What do you mean? I just saw you.” He shook his head. “No… it’s been a long time.” The words echoed, louder than they should have. A long time. I looked at him again—really looked—and suddenly it was impossible to ignore. Time had passed. More than I thought.

Before I could ask anything else, his grip loosened. His presence faded, quieter than the others, but just as painful. And then he was gone too. And then she appeared. Not softly, not slowly—just suddenly, like she had been dropped into the space. “Brie…?” She looked different. Not completely, but enough. Her hair had changed, and her expression… it hurt the most. She looked tired, like something had been weighing on her for too long. She didn’t smile. Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh my God…” she whispered. “Lena…” “Brie, what—” “I miss you,” she said, her voice breaking. She let out a shaky breath, wiping her tears. “I can’t believe I’m dreaming about you again…” Again. “I haven’t visited in so long,” she continued softly. “And now you’re just… here.” Her voice dropped. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been there more.”

I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there, trying to understand how this could be a dream for her… and something so real for me. Before I could respond, her expression shifted. Subtle at first—but I recognized it. “Wait—Brie, don’t—”. But it was already happening. She started to fade, slowly, like something slipping away piece by piece. “I miss you,” she whispered one last time. And then she was gone.

I stood there, staring at the empty space, my mind struggling to keep up. Slowly, I stepped back, my fingers brushing against the table as if I needed something solid—but there was nothing. Just silence.

I walked out of the café, my steps slower now, the campus feeling different. Not just empty—intentional. Like everything only existed when it needed to.

My mind replayed everything. My mom. My dad. Lucas. Brie. One by one. All of them familiar. All of them mine. I stopped walking. They weren’t random. They found me. The realization settled in, heavy and undeniable—and then another thought followed, sharper. Who hadn’t? My chest tightened as I scanned the empty campus, waiting. Nothing. No footsteps. No voices. No one coming. Just silence.

At first, I tried to ignore it. Told myself it didn’t mean anything, that they would show up eventually. But they didn’t. My mind went back again—every face, every moment. My mom. My dad. Lucas. Brie. But not them. My chest tightened. It wasn’t just one person missing. It was all of them. The ones I had built my world around. The ones I had trusted more than anything. And they weren’t here.

I let out a slow breath, my eyes searching the empty space, as if I had somehow missed them. But nothing changed. A thought crossed my mind then, quiet but impossible to ignore. What if they don’t come? The idea settled into my chest, heavy and cold. And for the first time since I got there, the silence didn’t just feel empty. It felt like an answer.

I kept walking, not really sure where I was going, my thoughts still tangled in everything that had just happened. The silence followed me, heavier now, pressing in with every step—until suddenly, I ran into someone.

The impact was small, but enough to make me stumble. “I’m sorry—” I started automatically, looking up—. And then I froze. “…Caleb?” For a second, nothing else existed. Not the campus, not the silence, not the emptiness. Just him, standing right in front of me like he had always been there. He didn’t look surprised. If anything, he looked relieved. “Hi, Lena.”

My chest tightened, something shifting instantly, something deeper than anything I had felt since I got there. “How are you—” I stopped, shaking my head slightly. “No… that’s not even the question anymore.” I let out a quiet breath, my voice softer now. “Why are you here?”

He studied me for a moment, like he was making sure I was real, like I might disappear if he didn’t. “I could ask you the same thing,” he said, but there was no confusion in his voice—just something steadier, something certain.

“This place…” I gestured around us. “It’s not normal. People show up, and then they just—” I stopped, my throat tightening slightly. “They disappear.”

“I know,” he said quietly. That made me pause. “You know?” I repeated, frowning slightly. He nodded. “I’ve been here before.” The words settled differently than anything else I had heard. “…What do you mean?”

His gaze softened. “Not here exactly,” he said, glancing around briefly, “but with you. Like this.” He hesitated for a second before continuing. “Since the accident.” My breath caught. “The accident…” I whispered. He nodded again, slower this time. “You’ve been in the hospital for a while.” A while. “How long?” I asked, my voice barely steady. “…Almost a year.”

The words hit harder than anything else. A year. Everything inside me stilled. My brother—older. Brie—changed. The time I couldn’t understand. It all made sense now. “You… you knew?” I asked, my voice quieter. “I found out a few days after it happened,” he said. “I came back as soon as I could.” Back. “For me?” I asked, before I could stop myself. His expression didn’t change. “Yeah,” he said simply. “For you.”

Something in my chest tightened, not painfully this time, but in a way I couldn’t quite name. “I thought…” I hesitated, my voice faltering. “I thought the people who mattered would be here. That they would find me.” I let out a small, shaky breath. “But they didn’t.” He didn’t respond right away. He just looked at me, really looked at me, in a way that made it impossible to look away. “Some people don’t know how to show up,” he said finally. “Not when it matters.”

The words weren’t harsh. They weren’t judgmental. They were honest. “They care,” he continued softly. “They just… don’t always know how to stay.” My eyes dropped for a moment, the weight of everything settling differently now—not gone, but shifting. “And you do?” I asked quietly. He didn’t hesitate. “I came back, didn’t I?”

I looked up at him again, something inside me breaking—not in a painful way this time, but in a way that made space for something else. For the first time since I got there, the silence didn’t feel empty. “Why?” I asked, my voice softer now.

He took a small step closer. “Because you didn’t get to choose,” he said. “But you still can.” The words settled deep, deeper than anything else had. “You’re still here, Lena,” he continued. “Which means this isn’t over.” I swallowed, my chest tightening again—but differently now. Not from fear. From something closer to hope. “I don’t know if I can,” I admitted. “You can,” he said gently. “You just have to decide to.” A quiet pause settled between us, but this time it didn’t feel heavy. It felt… steady.

When I looked at him again, something inside me had shifted. The emptiness was still there. But it didn’t feel like an ending anymore. “…Okay,” I said softly. And for the first time since everything began— I meant it.

I stood there for a moment after he was gone, the silence settling around me once again—but it didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t empty anymore. Not completely.

My mind replayed everything, but this time it didn’t feel overwhelming. The pieces that once felt disconnected were starting to make sense, fitting together in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to see before. My mom. My dad. Lucas. Brie. And then Caleb.

Not all of them had stayed. Not all of them had known how to. But they had been there. In their own ways. I let out a slow breath, my eyes drifting across the campus one more time, but I wasn’t searching anymore. Not for answers. Not for people.

For the first time, I was looking at it for what it was. A place between something. Between staying… and leaving. My chest tightened slightly as the thought settled in. This wasn’t where I was meant to be. Not really.

I closed my eyes for a moment, letting that sink in, letting everything I had felt, everything I had understood, settle somewhere deeper inside me. The fear was still there—but it wasn’t the only thing anymore. There was something else now. Something quieter. Stronger.

“I’m still here,” I whispered. The words felt different when I said them out loud, more real, more solid. I thought about my mom’s voice. My dad’s quiet presence. Lucas’s arms wrapped around me. Brie’s tears. And Caleb. The way he had looked at me like I was still there. Like I hadn’t been lost. A breath caught in my throat as something shifted inside me, not suddenly, not dramatically—but enough. Enough to matter. “I didn’t get to choose what happened,” I said softly, my voice steadier now. “But I can choose this.”

The silence didn’t respond. But it didn’t need to. I opened my eyes. And for the first time since I had gotten there— I wasn’t waiting anymore. “I want to wake up.”

The moment the words left me, something shifted—not around me, but inside me. The campus didn’t disappear all at once; it began to dissolve slowly, like something fading at the edges, the buildings losing shape, the silence breaking into distant sounds I couldn’t quite recognize. For a second, I felt suspended between two places, neither fully there nor fully gone, until everything gave way at once and I was pulled into darkness—but not the same emptiness as before. This darkness felt closer, heavier, real.

The first thing I noticed was the weight. It pressed against my body in a way that felt unfamiliar, like I was returning to something I had forgotten how to hold. Then came the sound—voices, distant at first, blurred together in a way that made it impossible to understand what they were saying, but enough to make my chest tighten. And then came the light. My eyes opened slowly, the brightness forcing me to blink as everything came back in fragments—shapes, colors, movement—until the blur settled into something I recognized. Faces. “Lena?”

My mom’s voice broke as soon as it reached me, and suddenly she was there, closer than anything else, her hand wrapped tightly around mine as if she was afraid I might disappear again if she let go. My dad stood beside her, quieter, but present in a way that felt different, like he was fully there for the first time in a long time. Lucas was there too, standing just behind them, and for a second, my breath caught—not because I didn’t recognize him, but because I did. He looked older, just like I had seen before, just like I had already known without understanding how. “You’re awake,” he said, his voice breaking before he could stop it, and I could see the tears in his eyes even though he tried to hide them. I was.

The realization didn’t come all at once—it settled slowly, quietly, but it stayed. I was there. I had made it back. Time moved differently after that. I didn’t know how long it had been when the room grew quieter, when the voices softened and the moment settled into something more still, more real. That was when I noticed her.

Brie stood by the door at first, hesitant, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to come closer, her hand resting lightly against the frame as if she needed something to hold on to. When our eyes met, something shifted between us—recognition, relief, and something heavier, something unspoken. She took a small step forward, then another, her expression softening in a way I hadn’t seen before. “Hey…” she said quietly.

I smiled back, small but real, and even without words, something between us settled—not completely, not perfectly, but enough. And then, just as the moment seemed to still, I felt it again. That same subtle shift. I didn’t notice him at first. He stood a little further back than the others, quiet in a way that didn’t demand attention, like he was choosing not to interrupt something that didn’t belong to him. But when my eyes finally found him, something inside me reacted before I could understand why. It wasn’t recognition—not fully, not in the way it should have been—but it was something. A feeling. Like I should know him. Like I almost did.

He didn’t move closer right away. He just stood there for a second, watching me in that same steady way that made something in my chest tighten without explanation. And then, slowly, carefully, he smiled. “Hi, Lena.” There was something in the way he said it—soft, familiar, like it carried something I couldn’t quite reach. I frowned slightly, searching his face, waiting for something to click, for a memory to surface, for anything that would make sense of the way I felt. But nothing came. “…Do I know you?” I asked, my voice quieter than I expected, uncertain in a way that didn’t match the feeling in my chest. For a brief second, something shifted in his expression—so small I almost missed it. And then it was gone, replaced by something softer, something that didn’t quite hide what had been there before. “It’s okay,” he said gently. But the way he said it— didn’t sound like it was.

Equipe e produção editorial

Professoras orientadoras Profa. Dra. Ana Lúcia Trevisan e Profa. Dra. Elaine Prado

Editores Henrique Silva Santos e João Vítor Tortosa Rodrigues Alves

Revisão Pietra Tonti Topfstedt e Luana Walczak