Forget Me Not
Prologue
August 9 2009
My name is Will Mackay. I'm 18 years old and I live in Peterborough, a small city in Ontario. My adoptive parents pretty much home school me. We move around so much, they didn't see the point in enrolling me into high school. My best friend is Skid Pedrou, and I guess he'd be my adoptive brother too. Ursa and Joe took us both in after everything that happened seeing how neither of us had anywhere else to go. Skid's an orphan, and as for me, I don't really know what I am. In fact, I don't really know if Will is even my name. We only got that from a name off of the charred remains of my file. I have what Ursa calls retrograde amnesia. That means that I don't have any memory from before I was fifteen years old. I don't know my name, where I come from or how I ended up where I did.
The part that really bites though is that even though I might be able to get some of my memory back with proper therapy or medication, I can't. You see, if I went to a therapist, they would be sure to ask me at some point what my first memories are, and I cant answer that. It's not that I can't remember anything; to be perfectly honest my first memories will forever be burned into my mind and nightmares. The problem lies within the fact that if I were to share some of the experiences I've lived through, my therapist would contact someone, either the authorities or the nut house. Either way, that therapist would then be shuffled off the mortal coil. Not that my story is lethal to listen to or anything, its just that's what happened to Skids Aunt.
When her nephew had returned to her, and she had found out what had happened, she had gone to the police. The next day she was dead. She had fallen down a flight of stairs onto a bunch of bullets. From that point on the rest of us knew to keep our mouths shut and Ursa made room for one more in her home. Sure we wont be getting retribution for what happened, but at this point, most of us are just happy to be alive and free.
There are about 30 of us in total, most went their own way, made their own life and tried to forget, but we all watch for each other. We're in contact constantly so that no one will go missing; no one will be lost to the dark again. Joe says we're survivors, but the others say its like surviving Auschwitz. Part of you never really leaves it. A part lives on in your nightmares, in the flinch at an unexpected touch, in every scar that mars our bodies.
Some didn't really survive though. I look at them and feel grateful for that air vent. For the person on the other side of it, whispering encouragement and promises of a better world. If not for that, I'm sure I would have ended up like April. No one has seen her in a month. We know she wasn't taken. She just couldn't escape that place, not in her head. That's where her scars are. Ty says that she couldn't escape, so she just disappeared, faded away into nothing.
It hurts when one of us is lost. All of us are pretty much all we have, and in a way I know I'm lucky. These people are my family; made blood by the blood we spilt in our bid for freedom. And I know they have my back, no matter what. But at night, when the house is quiet, and sleep is far away, I think of my real family. The ones I was born to. Are they out there? Are they looking for me? Are they different like me?
We tried looking of course. We'd searched for a missing report of a 15-year-old male with my description but the problem is that we really didn't know where to look. Pavlinka had been taken from her home in the Chezc Republic, Tabitha from Texas, Isaac from Tuscany. From my accent we can guess North America, but that's still a whole continent. So far, no luck.
So the only option left is to try and remember. A name, a face, something that could link me to my past. That's what this Journal is for. Amma thinks that it will be great therapy and that writing down what I do remember might help clear the cobwebs and maybe create a breakthrough in my memory. We'll see. It can't hurt; well… other than my pride when Skid finds out I'm keeping a diary. It's only a matter of time. I hope this is worth it.
WM
I warn all readers now, nothing is what it seems!
Please let me know what you think of the beggining!