CHAPTER 2 THE WORLD AFTER MANY YEARS

Graham slowly opened his eyes. The light was soft but strange. For a long moment, he did not move. His head felt heavy, and his heart was beating fast. He looked around, confused and weak. A voice said gently, “Don’t be afraid. You are safe.” He turned his head and saw a young woman standing near his bed. She was smiling kindly.

Graham tried to speak, but his voice was dry. “How long… have I slept?” he asked slowly. The woman looked at another man in the room, an older scientist with white hair. The man came closer and said softly, “You have been sleeping for more than two hundred years.”

Graham’s eyes widened. “Two hundred years?” he whispered. He could not believe it. He tried to sit up, but his body was weak. The man helped him. “You were kept safe all this time,” the scientist explained. “Your story became famous. People called you The Sleeper.”

Graham tried to understand. His mind was full of questions. “Where is my friend Burton? Where is my family?” he asked. The woman looked down sadly. “They are all gone. It has been a very long time.” Graham’s eyes filled with tears. He closed them and said in a low voice, “Then I have no one.”

For a while, the room was silent. The woman said gently, “You are not alone now. The world has changed, but there are still kind people.” She gave him water to drink. Graham felt better and looked at her again. “What is your name?” he asked. “My name is Mara,” she said with a small smile. “I have been studying your story for years. It is an honor to see you awake.”

Over the next few days, Graham began to walk again. Mara and the scientist told him about the new world. People now lived with machines that could do almost everything. Cars flew in the sky, voices came from small screens, and people could talk across oceans. Graham listened carefully but said nothing. He felt amazed and lost at the same time.

One morning, he looked out from the window and said, “Everything is new, but people still look the same. They walk fast, their faces full of worry. Have they really changed?” Mara said quietly, “Some things never change. People still dream, work, and hope. Only the world around them is different.”

Graham nodded slowly. “When I slept, I wanted peace. But maybe peace is not in time. Maybe it is inside the heart.” Mara smiled at his words. “You speak like an old poet,” she said. Graham laughed softly for the first time in many years.

As the days passed, more people came to see him. Some took pictures. Some asked questions. Graham felt strange to be looked at like a symbol. “Why do they come?” he asked Mara. “Because you are a part of history,” she said. “You are the man who slept while the world changed.”

But at night, when he was alone, Graham often thought about his old life. He remembered Burton’s face, his home, his childhood. He whispered, “All gone… all gone.” Sometimes tears came, but he tried to stay strong. “If I have been given a new life,” he thought, “then maybe I must do something good with it.”

One evening, Mara said, “People are waiting to meet you. You will speak to the world tomorrow.” Graham was quiet. “What can I say to them?” he asked. “Just speak from your heart,” Mara replied. “Tell them what you see and what you feel.”

That night, Graham could not sleep. He walked slowly near his bed and looked at his hands. They were strong again. “Two hundred years,” he whispered. “I lost everything, but maybe this is a chance to begin again.”

He did not know what tomorrow would bring. But for the first time in his new life, Graham felt a small spark of hope inside his heart — a hope that maybe he was awake not just to see the future, but to change it.