I try to lift my head but it's heavy, too heavy. Something's not right. I try to lift my hand up to feel my forehead, maybe I have a fever, but I instantly regret it. A shooting pain fires up my arm stopping me from moving it any further. I try my other hand, this one hurts too but I'm not restricted by the pain. I lift it up to my head but it doesn't feel right. A sticky, thick substance pulls on the hand as I run it across my brow and under my neck. The mess is everywhere. I try to open my eyes to see what's left on my hand, or better yet what's left of my hand. Only one eye supplies me with the vision I need to try to understand what's happened. The other one wont even open… what's wrong with me?

Red, or what once was red but has now dried in clumps across my hands is the only thing I register when my vision comes to. This can only mean one thing, blood, and I immediately lament my decision to wake up. I feel sick, not just from the pain but from the unknown, what's happened to me? Where am I? Wait, better yet, who am I? My name. It's something I've known my whole life… it defines me. So why can't I remember it? I feel like it's on the tip of my tongue, I try to move my lips to form it but all I discover is that there's blood there too. There's blood everywhere, but how and why is it here?

I use my one good eye and one good hand to try and assess my situation a bit better. I give my self a quick look over and discover a few things. Firstly that I don't have the use of my right eye or my left hand and that my knee is sticking out almost to the bone. There is dried blood almost everywhere, even around me on the floor but the worst is my head and abdomen, they still have fresh blood. Secondly that I'm in some sort of alleyway, around the corner I hear what seems to be a lot of people, cars maybe but definitely people. People who I need to get to if I'm ever going to get the help I desperately need. I can currently prop my self up into a sitting position without being in too much pain. This gives me a better view of myself, whoever I am, and my surroundings, so I can try to get out.

I allow myself what seems about 20 or so minutes to panic. I freak out, I question everything, I rack my brain for any memories but none of them are helpful. None of them tell me who I am, where I am, or how I got here. I cry, I sob, I struggle to breathe and then I stop. I'm quiet. I don't dare to move anymore, I've already caused enough damage to my already brutally disfigured body. I try screaming but my throat is so parched that all I manage to do I spit up more blood before I feel light headed and close my eyes once more.

It's dark now; I still hear voices and city life though so I have hope. I can't loose hope; it's the only thing I have left. I've counted 174 stars when I hear it, a soft buzzing sound coming from a few meters away. A small light flashes through a soft layer of black fabric. It's a phone in a bag. My phone and my bag. Something is mine besides the pain and the blood. Something is mine that could help me. Something is mine, which is too far away for me to reach. It's disgusting how close I can get to reaching the bag, but it's hopeless and now I'm hopeless.

I don't remember falling asleep but when I wake up it's light again and the only thing that's changed is that I hurt, if possible, more than yesterday. The blood from my head and stomach has nearly stopped but I'm thirstier than I've ever been before and the spare skin around my knee has begun to dry up making it more unbearable. I spend most of the morning, or what I think is the morning trying to think of how long it may have been between the time I became like this and the first time I woke up. After a few hours I come up with 3 days. I think it's been 3 days since I last had water, since I last felt what it was like to not be in pain and 3 days since I last knew my name.

I doze of a few times during the day. Unconsciousness has become my friend. It's much nicer than facing the hard decisions and pains of reality. Right now I think I'd like to stay unconscious forever.

It's dusk by the time I am fully aware and I'm scared for the sun to set and for it to go dark again. Because night means that there's less hope of me being found.

Four days. Four days and I still don't know my own name, who I am, where I come from, and how I got in this state. Four days since I last ate or drank water. And one day since I lost hope. One thing's changed though; today I've made up my mind to move. To move away from this damn spot that I've been sitting in, basking in my own blood for about four days. The pain can't get any worse than it already is… can it?

When I asked that hypothetical question, I didn't believe it could come true. Sadly the universe seems to have something against me and I am now lying in even more blood than before and my knee bone is now completely lodged out of my leg. But I moved, I achieved something and I'm under cover. I found the shelter of an old box across the alleyway and am now grateful that something has finally gone my way because it has begun to rain.

My throat is burning less and the rain has washed away some of the blood and cleaned my multiple abrasions, something I couldn't do before. My bag is now in my lap. It was however as unhelpful as my right eye was on the first day. It's given me nothing. The phone is dead and the taunting buzzing from the other night way merely a low battery warning. I only have that and a small wallet with $20 dollars and a frozen yogurt card in it. I still have no name. I try to sleep with the hopes that tomorrow will bring me closer to rounding the corner of the alleyway and being found.

Day five and I'm closer, so much closer but today has been hard and I let unconsciousness fold over me as I mull over my achievements of the day. I am now a little way down the brick wall attached to the corner blocking me from the other side. Voices are now more distinct and I know why no one has come down the alley yet. It was the scene of a murder four years back and no one has dared to venture down it since. What the hell could I have been thinking? I also discovered that I have blonde hair, quite long and straight when there isn't blood streaked through it. It's late afternoon from what I can tell from the voices and I give myself into sleeping once more.

A scream… not a girly one, it doesn't belong to a woman, a young man maybe but I doubt that I've ever heard the voice before. This scream is my hope though; this scream is my savior. Footsteps louder than I've heard in days and soft strong hands clasp over mine and a string of profanities escapes the stranger's mouth as they lay me down. I'm still semi unconscious and my lack of nourishment and loss of blood has finally derived me of my ability to function. I can't let them known that I'm okay. I'm trapped in my body unable to help them as they fluster over me, what's left of me.

I feel my head being supported and a soft material, possibly a jumper, which is placed under it and I feel their breath on my face as they lean in to check if I'm breathing. I don't even know if I am. Their hands feel desperately for a pulse and I hear a sigh of relief as one is found however this is quickly followed by a frantic intake of air, as my pulse is lost and so is my awareness of what's going on around me.

Lips, soft and strong, and, like the hands of the stranger, they make me feel safe. They give me hope. The stranger's lips press onto mine blowing air into my lungs, the lips steal away from mine and the boy's shaking hands press on my chest willing my heart to beat and my blood to pump. As he presses down my rib feels broken, like my knee, but I'll take that seemingly small ounce of pain over eternal unconsciousness any day.

I try to open my eyes, I attempt to move my lips to form words but I haven't spoken in days and the words aren't coming. Soon another voice joins that of the first stranger, a middle-aged woman with a deep comforting voice. Her hand clasps mine and it triggers a soft memory but it's too distant for me to understand. When my heart feels steady the boy checks my pulse and asks the woman for approval to stop the CPR. He does and they pause for a minute to assess my injuries, much like I did on the first day. The woman starts to cry when she lifts up my shirt to see the source of the bleeding in my abdomen. I never thought to look there and I suppose it's best I didn't as her sobbing and the boys swearing before hastily covering it back up solidify my horrific thoughts of the source of my pain.

They are quiet for a while, they called for an ambulance but from what I've heard we could be waiting a while. A half dead girl in an alleyway is obviously not their top priority. And I don't blame them; I'm seen as a lost cause. The woman talks to me in a soothing voice although I can't answer her and I don't believe she expects me to either. In the time spent waiting in the alley I've learnt that the boys name is Liam and the woman's in Carla. They're never met before but have joined together to try and save me. I am in London and they think I'm about seventeen but I don't even know the answer to that. Liam found me first, he had tripped over his shoelaces at the mouth of the alleyway and dropped his phone, which stumbled out of his hands and further down the alley. It stopped at my feet. His scream of horror attracted Carla who immediately came to help and they have been hesitant to leave my side since for fear of my heart stopping again. I'm glad they haven't left me, I'm scared of what will happen to me if I'm left alone again.

I slip in and out of a sleep like state once more and only catch snippets of my saviors' conversations. I am surprised when I wake up once that another voice has joined us, not just one though but many, too many. It's so loud but Liam holds my hand and Carla supports my head as I am lifted onto a soft stretcher. I hear an irritating clicking coming from all around me and the sound is familiar but I can't place it. I am prodded and flipped and moved and pinched by unfamiliar hands. I try to scream at them to stop but a mask has been placed over my mouth and the gas is to calm me down because I thrashed around before and caused too much damage to my already wounded knee. Liam and Carla stayed with me though, I heard a slight altercation go on about whether they could ride in the ambulance with me but Liam seemed to have some leverage over the paramedics and they were allowed to stay with me holding my hand the whole way. A few bumps and elevator rides later and Liam and Carla's hands were pulled from my own and I was rushed into a surgical room, I heard someone call it ER 6. Six I think, ER Six for the six days I was left on my own. But from there I was prodded once more. Once more needle to send me into unconsciousness, a state I was becoming far too familiar with.

I struggled, I strained and I fought against the anesthesia. I take back what I said in the alley. I don't want to stay like this I want to wake up. I want them to stop. Every time I think I can wake up another surge goes through my bloodstream and I am cut off from reality. I squirm, I fight, and I refuse but wait…

Too late…

I'm already asleep.

I ache, my head hurts, a throbbing in my hand and knee but I'm awake. Finally I'm awake. A soft pillow supports my head and warm blankets are tucked around me. One of the first things I register are voices, 5 to be exact. Liam 's is among them but the other four are I can't quite place, Slightly familiar though but I probably have been hearing them a lot while I've been unconscious. The second thing I notice is a strange weight on my feet. Warm and slightly boney, it's a person sitting on my feet, I wiggle my toes a little but there's no movement so I let it be as I'm still too drowsy to open my eyes. I'm still thirsty, not as much as before but I try to lick my lips to moisten them. I only manage to produce a slight movement of my lips. That small movement however is still registered by one of my strangers.

"She moved her lips again!" that voice I could place as Liam 's but a chorus of unfamiliar ones followed his positive remark.

"Mate we know, she does it like every half hour."

"Yeah and she wiggled her toes before but she's still not waking up."

A slight pause and then yet another unfamiliar voice tells me what I really want to know, how long it's been. "Look Liam, she's been under anesthesia for three weeks and yeah her small movements are becoming more frequent but you can't expect her to suddenly open her eyes and start talking to you every time she wiggles her toes! Give her time and she'll come around trust me…"

The voices agree with the last stranger and they fall back into a comfortable silence as I fight back the drugs and try to do what Liam has been waiting three weeks for me to do... I open my eyes.