[ WP ] Everybody who turns 25 learns a reality shattering secret about the world . Nobody has ever leaked this secret to somebody under 25 . Today is your 25th birthday .

*This is a dream. * 
 
 I open my eyes and I do n't know where I am. The room smells familiar but does n't look familiar. I blink once. Twice. I try to focus and figure out where I am. 
 
 It's not hard to figure out. It's a hospital room, and I've been in the hospital before. The smell is disinfectant mixed with something I can never place. The smell of sick, maybe? Or is it fear? The hospital always had plenty of both. 
 
 But why am I in the hospital room? The clock on the wall says it's 5:51 and I think it's afternoon by the way the light's coming in through the partially shaded window. I stare out the window and try to think. The clouds do n't have any answers and neither does the sun. 
 
 It is my birthday. My twenty-fifth, to be precise. The day where at some point ( no one ever told me when ) I would find out the great quarter-century secret. I thought my girlfriend would tell me, but when I woke up my girlfriend was n't next to me. I could smell bacon cooking and I figured she was making me breakfast for my birthday. The indent of her slender form was still visible on the mattress. I remember turning over to get up and help her and -- 
 
 The memory slams back into me and I take in a deep breath. There had been someone next to me, standing and watching me as I slept. It was some wrinkled old woman. I stared at her and said nothing; I was too shocked at her presence. She had leaned down, her warm, rattling breath dripping into my ears. It was funny, really, how I was n't scared. I felt like she was supposed to be there. Hell, I wanted her to be there, but then she spoke -- 
 
 *This is a dream. * 
 
 And here I am, in the hospital room. I realize that someone is talking to me. It's a nurse. I look at her and she must think I'm stupid, considering she's asking me questions and I'm just staring at her. I could n't find my voice. 
 
 She scurries out of the room and someone else comes in. It's the old woman from before. She smiles and there's tears in her eyes. 
 
 `` Oh, Allan, you're awake! You're awake!'' She barely can keep from sobbing. She runs over and wraps her thin arms around me and when I try to hug her back, it takes all the effort I can muster. 
 
 `` Where am I? Who are you?'' my voice cracks. It sounds younger than I remembered. And who is Allan? 
 
 She touches my head but I ca n't feel her fingers well. There's a bandage there. She whispers, `` It's your grandma, sweetie. Do n't worry; you do n't have to go back, okay? I'm going to take care of you.'' 
 
 `` Go back? Go back where?'' I ask. She's not my grandmother. Both of my grandmothers are dead. 
 
 `` With your dad,'' she explains calmly, `` He's the one that put you in this... this...'' She bursts into tears. `` You've been in a coma for a *month*!'' 
 
 I have n't lived with my father in seven years. I visit home every weekend, though, and my old man and I like to play cards together. Mom always makes my favorite meals on the weekend, and she's making me fat, so -- 
 
 `` Where's Angeline?'' I ask. The nurse has come back into the room and is quietly watching us. 
 
 The woman looks startled by the question. `` Who?'' 
 
 `` Angeline.'' That's my girlfriend's name. A chubby brunette with a love for astronomy and under-the-cover games. `` Angeline is my girlfriend.'' 
 
 `` I think your memory is fuzzy, dear, you did take a big blow to head,'' the woman says as gently as she can. `` You're still too young for girls, you know, but --'' 
 
 `` Too *young*? I'm twenty-five years old!'' 
 
 `` Allan, you're only fourteen.'' 
 
 `` This is n't funny! Where am I? Is this some kind of joke?'' 
 
 `` It's alright! You were just hit and --'' 
 
 `` It's not *alright*! I do n't know who Allan is, I do n't know who *you* are, and I do n't know how I got here!'' 
 
 The nurse drifts over and interjects herself between me and my sobbing `` grandmother''. Wordlessly, she holds out a hand a mirror. 
 
 `` Look, Allan, it may help,'' she says. 
 
 I take the mirror, so angry that I almost drop it, and I look in it. I do n't see my dark curly hair. I see some sandy blonde, far too long strands. I have pimples and my beard has disappeared. My nose is bigger, my cheekbones higher -- it's not me in the reflection. Yet when I open my mouth to speak, the boy in the mirror opens his mouth too. 
 
 The secret. My twenty-fifth birthday and the secret everyone shared. 
 
 *This is just a dream. * But which me is real? 
 
 
 
 
 

