Chapter 1 – Sandra
The night felt so different. The sounds, the light, even the stars weren't the same. Not that she had anything to compare with, really. It was just a feeling she had deep down inside her.
She sat there every night. At least the nights she didn't work, which were rarely. Mostly all night she sat by the window watching the night sky drifting away into the endless space. Now and then loud sirens or bright lights disturbed her, but as LA never slept, she learned to block out these annoyances. That she had learned early on.
Those nights she worked at the diner were actually her favourite nights. Not too many customers, but enough to earn her a decent amount of tips. The salary and tips were just enough for her to be able to rent a small apartment and live fairly well. She liked her life, most of the time anyway. After all, it was all she knew. Her memory went as far back as two years, back to the car accident she'd been in. It had caused her to suffer memory loss, but it wasn't anything she thought about these days. In the beginning she'd had flashbacks, tiny images from what she assumed was her past life. She kept waiting for the big Return as she called it, but so far her memory remained absent. Most of the time that was fine by her.
Sometimes late at night, however, when the diner was almost empty, or when she lay in the darkness trying to sleep, a sense of wrongness crept over her. A tiny voice deep within her kept screaming that she wasn't supposed to be here. She had somewhere else to be, another life to live. That was usually when the dreams kicked in. They were vivid dreams with astonishing details of places she didn't know and faces she didn't recognize. Two of those faces appeared more often than any other, though, and always together or close. One was the face of dark haired man, with calm features and deep dark eyes. The other was also a male, though he seemed younger than the dark one, with his clear blue eyes and dyed blonde hair. The kept whispering to her, offering their hands, yet she never understood what they were saying.
A lot of things were like that for her nowadays, glimpses of things she thought she knew, but it always slipped away in the end. It didn't matter anymore anyway. She had stopped trying to retrieve her old memories a long time ago.
Sometimes she felt guilty for not trying harder to remember. Surely she must've had friends and family before? In the beginning she had daydreamed that someone would find her who knew who she was and where she came from. But it never happened. And who was she kidding anyway? Reality was hard, she was sure of that, and you had to live in the real world. If you didn't, you might as well be dead.
So she kept on living, doing the best she knew how, and answered to the name of Sandra.
The night felt so different. The sounds, the light, even the stars weren't the same. Not that she had anything to compare with, really. It was just a feeling she had deep down inside her.
She sat there every night. At least the nights she didn't work, which were rarely. Mostly all night she sat by the window watching the night sky drifting away into the endless space. Now and then loud sirens or bright lights disturbed her, but as LA never slept, she learned to block out these annoyances. That she had learned early on.
Those nights she worked at the diner were actually her favourite nights. Not too many customers, but enough to earn her a decent amount of tips. The salary and tips were just enough for her to be able to rent a small apartment and live fairly well. She liked her life, most of the time anyway. After all, it was all she knew. Her memory went as far back as two years, back to the car accident she'd been in. It had caused her to suffer memory loss, but it wasn't anything she thought about these days. In the beginning she'd had flashbacks, tiny images from what she assumed was her past life. She kept waiting for the big Return as she called it, but so far her memory remained absent. Most of the time that was fine by her.
Sometimes late at night, however, when the diner was almost empty, or when she lay in the darkness trying to sleep, a sense of wrongness crept over her. A tiny voice deep within her kept screaming that she wasn't supposed to be here. She had somewhere else to be, another life to live. That was usually when the dreams kicked in. They were vivid dreams with astonishing details of places she didn't know and faces she didn't recognize. Two of those faces appeared more often than any other, though, and always together or close. One was the face of dark haired man, with calm features and deep dark eyes. The other was also a male, though he seemed younger than the dark one, with his clear blue eyes and dyed blonde hair. The kept whispering to her, offering their hands, yet she never understood what they were saying.
A lot of things were like that for her nowadays, glimpses of things she thought she knew, but it always slipped away in the end. It didn't matter anymore anyway. She had stopped trying to retrieve her old memories a long time ago.
Sometimes she felt guilty for not trying harder to remember. Surely she must've had friends and family before? In the beginning she had daydreamed that someone would find her who knew who she was and where she came from. But it never happened. And who was she kidding anyway? Reality was hard, she was sure of that, and you had to live in the real world. If you didn't, you might as well be dead.
So she kept on living, doing the best she knew how, and answered to the name of Sandra.