Casey Gant is missing time, time in all directions - hours, pieces, infinite to him astray. It's not like the before and after is all that different, really; at least he can't locate in memory any reason why they should be. He remembers being popular, and smart, and exceedingly motivated. He remembers his mother and father have been, and are, even now, proud of all he's become. He remembers he was born to carry out a legacy – to inherit the publishing company his grandmother built into an empire as big as Rome. But as he drives in the apple-blossom sunshine, the heat licking its way across his perfect tawny skin, he can't shake the feeling there's an explicit period of his life he's lost.
This is how it goes. At night, when he shuts his eyes, he dreams in full brutality: hands cuffed, shackled down, metal cutting into flesh; trying to relieve the crushing weight balanced solely on his chest, lungs buckling in anticipation of one fresh draught of air. He tries to breathe, but it borders on impossible. Something hot and wet is stretched tight across his face. He's ordered to count backwards and struggles to control the panic clawing at his chest, but it's incessant, won't let up, forces him to gasp. The dark wetness suffocates when he inhales, each draw bringing in pieces of cloth, gagging and choking on the fiber. His fingernails scrape against resistance; metal under his hands, smooth and cold and shrieking in protest when he scrambles hooked fingers over the surface.
"Stop," a harsh and distant voice orders him. But he doesn't want to stop. He wants to fight for this. This is his survival. He squints hot tears into the material; he tries to breathe again, tries to calm the smoldering disease spreading like a contagion through his veins. He can't though; can't break free of the fear that bites every time he jerks against the bonds. His warm blood trickles and snakes thick against his skin. His vision is nothing but black-white spots, a field of black with white exploding starbursts as his body spasms in terror.
"Casey, stop!" Again the voice orders, but he really can't. He wants to remember what they're making him forget. Visions dance inside the polka-dots. Atomic discolorations, scattered gossamer fragments of goodness and decency, the shining honesty he found within. He wants to remember his grandmother and that he didn't fail her, was there when she died, and even though they hated her, he had loved her. He wants to remember he doesn't need things to justify his existence, that he'd discovered a place where possessions didn't make the man, principles did.
Stubbornly, Casey thinks if he wants badly enough to retain these things, he can hold onto them; flip them over in the base of his palm, like heads and tails on a copper coin. But it's all being sucked out backwards through a tube, pealed off his bones like layers of meat; uncoiled recognition spiraling down a long, dark drain.
When the material's removed, he can breathe. Realizes in a single, extended heartbeat, this is what breaking the surface of the ocean must feel like to a drowning man. He gasps solidly, drags cold air into his hollow lungs. He can breathe again, but he can't see. Bright lights to his left and right - trying to peer amid them forces sharp pain to settle between his brows. His mouth opens, he whispers an anguished, "Ah, God," his head lolling to the side, far too weak to sustain the weight. The harsh bulbs burn into his dermis, flaring past closed lids. Exhaustion eats his resistance, agony willing attrition. The voice speaks again, telling him to count. If he counts, if he forgets to remember, he'll be able to sleep. He'll be able to kiss away the pain.
He can't really discern the lyrical mantra playing on constant loop, or the way his subconscious counts it out: 10…You're a fuck-up, Casey. You let everyone down. 9…Your parents took good care of you, and you deceived them. 8…You never wanted for anything and when you had it all, you threw it away. . 7…They loved you and you almost destroyed them. 6…It'll be hard to make it right, but it's time to make amends. 5…You'll never be anything until you're absolved. 4…The money, Casey - it's their money. You know it. 3… It's time to give it back. Time to be a man. 2… Time to wake up and do the right thing. 1…
He wakes – naked in his bed, cloaked in sweat, shivering, gasping and clawing at what's not there; it's nothing but a nightmare, jigsawed pieces that refuse to slide together, ticking in his psyche to a metronome's pitch.
Driving down Sienna, the blazing rays beating on his neck, Casey Gant realizes he's missing time; hours, pieces, infinite to him, vanished, now disappeared. He maneuvers his Carerra into a parking spot and cuts the engine. He gives a half-hearted nod to the blonde at the side of his car, trying not to recall the reason she might give him hope for what he's misplaced. Grabbing his books out of the backseat, he slides an easy smile across his face.
"What's up, Veronica?"
He'll detach. He trusts it'll be easier that way.