This wasn't the life she chose. Clawing through the dark abyss in her mind only to find the haunting remnants of her pasts floating through as the only sign of a life she had terrified her. Where had the good times gone? A little girl wasn't supposed to be dragged away by a man and have everything taken away from her. A little girl wasn't supposed to forget.
Jane sat on the cold tile of her new bathroom, head in hands, eyes fixated on the floor beneath her. She'd been in that position for hours. The flashes had come back earlier that day. She saw the man. It was dark and there were other children. They lay on their backs, hunched over and terrified, staring at the newly arrived girl. She never saw the man's face. But she wanted to.
She wanted to remember.
She had to.
She couldn't continue living her life and going through the motions of a normal human being without knowing anything of herself.
But what could she do? She had nothing. She had no way of knowing how to access these random flashes of memories.
She was empty.
Numb.
Jane lifted herself up off the floor and walked over to the sink. Turning the faucet on, she ran her finger under the cold water, cupped it in her hands and leaned forward, splashing her face. The remaining drops of water rested on her face. She stepped back and lifted her head to find a haunted face looking back at her. It took her a few moments to remember that it was hers.
The broken face she saw was of her reflection.
She balled her hand into a fist and screamed, smashing at the glass. She screamed for her lost memories, for the children, for the future she could've had. She screamed, and screamed, and screamed. Shards of glass flew to the ground. Her throat felt hoarse and she stopped. Her hand fell to her side.
She didn't feel the pain.
Couldn't.
She looked at her bloody hand; saw the fragments of glass poking out of her skin. Jane tilted her head to one side and closed her hand, forming a fist and opened it again, flexing her fingers. Her eyes then focused on the shards of glass that lay on the floor surrounding her.
Pieces of glass.
Broken.
Just like she was.
And she laughed.