He woke up alone, white light blinding as it reflected off of the white walls and white floors surrounding him and a white, white bed. He blinked his eyes a few times, before firmly squeezing them together as if he tried hard enough he’d be able to juice their contents onto the sterile sheet wrapped around him. Eventually the world evened, spread shapes morphed into clean cut lines with surgical precision. Taking in his bearings, he noted the white hospital bed and the rocking chair in the corner of the room. He had no recollection of how he got here or even where he was, definitely not heaven if the pain in his side had anything to say about it. Digging through his mind he retrieved fragments, a bomb going off in the distance, screams echoing through the battleground as the entire world fell into a distortion of colors shaking together at the seams. He flinched, falling back against his bed with a clank, eyes burning with the memories that painted themselves over them.
His side screamed at him again, and his mind splattered red onto his cognitive thinking, leaving only a heavy thud from his heart and a panic in his stomach. Perhaps it would go away if he got out of this bed and was able to explore a bit more and figure out if there was even anyone else there. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel as though his ground was ripped from underneath him. It only made sense for him to at least try, anything better than remaining stagnant and rotting in this bed. He rolled his neck slowly, feeling the vertebras crack in their placements before flexing his toes to test their durability and deciding it was safe to go.
Shakily he pushed himself up by his forearms, shoulders straining against the white shoulders of his tee shirt, and wondered how long he had been gone, muscles seemingly atrophied and deteriorating, as they shook beneath his weight. Noting this, he swung his legs off the bed and pressed them lightly to the floor, using the hospital bed’s arm as support. His muscles groaned as he pushed down harder on his feet, steadying himself as he tested his abilities to stand alone.
For a moment, he teetered, body swaying as though it had forgotten how to stand by itself some time ago, before settling on a center of balance place slightly forward, forcing him to hunch in on himself. He stood still for a moment, glancing behind him at the culprit, the seemingly permanent curve of the hospital bed. The bed stared back unimpressed and he groaned, shuffling forward slowly as not to disrupt his balance or pace, deciding against straightening up in fear of hurting his wounds.
He slowly made his way across the small room, feet iced against the linoleum, before he reached the large wooden door, pressing his hand shakily against it. He wasn’t quite sure what he was afraid of, having never been fearless, but his entire body protested, chills running down his spine. He pushed his other hand loosely through his hair, now shaggy from having time to grow out of its clean cut he previously kept. Slowly, with uncertainty and anticipation, he pushed the handle and gently prodded the door to open on its axis to reveal where it lead.
The next world hit him like a cartoon anvil, smashing into his chest and knocking the breath into him and out of him in quick succession. Everything was splashed with colour and excitement, bright yellows and red racing down the hallway, loud voices echoing down the space. It was something out of a science fiction film, unfamiliar sounds ringing through the air and landing blows onto his body with their weight.
He staggered out blindly and rested his hand against the wall to stabilize himself, eyes darting across the room like a kitten to a field mouse as the world rushed past. Suddenly, something in the orbit of his vision stopped, a lithe red blob coming close to him as he clutched the side of his door frame, ready to fling himself back through it to escape whatever hell this was. The figure was decidedly human and he smiled, hoping to ask what was happening, before she lifted and tilted her head to look at her and revealed an expanse of nothingness across her face.
He flinched backwards and slammed his head against the concrete wall, mind racing backward to the bed at a mile a minute.
“Sir, why did you leave your bed?” it said in a mutilated voice, sounding as though it was melting and pouring into his ears.
“Where am I?” he whispered, more so to himself than otherwise, eyes traveling down the flat expanse of the things face, almost two dimensional. Just as the fear began throttling inside his chest, the beings hand reached for him and in an instant he dodged, ducking underneath her arm and running towards somewhere.
As he ran he realized that every being in here was definitely not human, faces nothing but an expanse of skin, no person to be found in their features or their existence.
“Oh! Hello!” Another chimed, small and lilted like a child in the most familiar way, grinning up at him as he skidded to a stop against the rough skin of his feet. Its arms spread wide and leaned for him and he stepped back, a sickness pooling in his throat. What was this familiar unfamiliar thing and why did it want him of all people? What type of sick twisted nightmare was this?
A taller monster came to stand behind the small one, giving off the semblance of a grin and continuing to give off the key distinct feeling of something else that made his eyes and throat burn of tears and bile. The room felt filled with ice, skin tingling and burning as though he had been dropped into a new form of torture. None of them had faces, none of them had souls, so what were they and why were they here?
Both bored holes into his eyes with their lack of, as though they were expecting something, something he almost wanted to give them. He couldn’t though, he was sure of it. Making a spilt second decision he turned and shut himself into the room beside him, pressing his back against the door and heaving, entire body shaking and burning as it convulsed against whatever was happening here.
Blinking around he found himself in a bathroom this time, a single sink with a mirror placed above it and a toilet in the corner. He staggered forward, unsure whether to go relieve his stomach into the toilet or cry against the sink. His legs drifted themselves towards the sink and he bowed his head against the porcelain, hands trembling as he brought them up to turn the knob on the faucet and splash water on his face. The water bit at his skin with its temperature, cold and slapping against his pores, but it left him solid, feeling prepared to fight off whatever hell demons waited him beyond the door.
He leaned back, braced against the sink, and looked into the mirror, a scream ripping out of his chest.
“Who are you?” he asked the other person, who asked it back in an almost immediate succession. The other person in the mirror was the first face the young man had seen all day, but despite being a reflection, it wasn’t him. He reached his hand up shakily, pushing his hand through his dark curled hair, as the other man pushed it through his thin, grey own, and hand dragging down his face as the hand of the other pushed down the malleable skin through its wrinkles.
He lifted a shaky hand as the reflected man did the same, old reaching older as their hands met flesh to flesh, but they didn’t. The press was cold and smooth of glass, and the fear on each man’s face echoed between the two as the entire world seemed to quake and shatter around him.
He spun and clutched at his hair, almost pulling it out in patches at his fear, feeling a million things at once but none of them understanding.  The entire world appeared to be spinning and screaming a collapsing around him as he stood in the aftermath, nothing seeming or seemingly ever going to be okay again. But how could it be?
A knock at the door.
He pressed his eyes tightly together and reached his hand out blindly with eyes locked, pressing against the bronze of the door handle, wrenching it open, ready to face whatever new hell he would face at the next turn of this nightmare.
Forcing open his eyes he braced for the worst and saw anything but.
Her.
Her. With her loose pin curls wrapping around her face, bright red lips placed in that warm genuine way that always made him believe in something more than the world of destruction he had become a part of.
He clasped her tightly in his arms and felt the world drop around him, the warmth of her body against his all that mattered as she whispered affirmations into his hairline with light presses of her lips. He thought he had lost her. Thought he had lost everything. She was all that mattered to him. More than anything else she was his only anchor.
He glanced up in the mirror and saw the old man from before grasping on to a familiar woman, same eyes and same smile though worn with age. He nodded at the man, who immediately nodded in return before turning back to their woman.
She was home.

Dementia affects 47.5 million people and 7.7 million new cases occur every year.