AN: I would just like to remind y'all that the POV changes from chapter to chapter. Last chapter was Todd/Squee's POV. This chapter is narrated by Cara. She's a female OC and about 17 but you'll find out about her by reading. Don't worry, just 'cause she's an OC doesn't mean she's not interesting. ALSO, Todd does appear in this chapter. :) Another BTW... This chapter takes place about seven years after the last one. They WILL catch up to each other by chapter four, I believe.

Also, I wanted to thank my reviewers for the DELICIOUS reviews that they left me. :3 I love you guys.


Cara

It was quite a long time since I'd been home. The sky looked different than I remembered it. Weren't skies supposed to be blue? The bits and pieces that showed through my sunroof were lavender and grey. Clouds of pollutants from the local city, I suppose. Everything was dirty here. I could see it with my eyes that had become so adjusted to clean. I knew that after a week or so they would readjust, though, and the filth would become home again, just as it had always been when I was a child.

I coughed weakly from the backseat of the car. "I-it's up to the left, Sir!" My voice stammered.

Though the driver of the car made no sound, he nodded in recognition of my voice. He was a good driver, but certainly not a very friendly one.

I coughed harshly again and closed my eyes warily for a moment. Maybe the pollution I'd been sent to escape from was catching up with me…? I was gone for so long; I hadn't even realized how much cleaner the air was at my boarding school.

Ah, Seraphim Summers Institute: the most wonderful learning center the world must have to offer… not I smiled to myself at the internal sarcasm. The SSI was… clean, but certainly not welcoming. The bleak marble halls and irritable staff were, to lightly put it, harsh.

But besides the clean air, there was another good thing about the Seraphim Summers Institute. The library was full of books, tomes and volumes of notable intelligence that stacked up and down countless shelves, so even someone like me who couldn't get out much, was able to learn about the world.

During my time away, I studied History, Arithmetic, Science, and more. I learned a lot of things, to put it bluntly. Most of which I'm quite sure will never be put to good use. I don't see myself ever becoming some sort of accountant or a CEO of a major company. And I probably wouldn't be very good for teaching, you see. I'm very forgetful, myself.

When I was younger, still a child, something went very, very wrong. And whatever happened made me start to forget things: Lots of things.

It started off slowly. After the accident, which I had to be filled in on considering I couldn't remember it, I started to forget. At first it was just little things. I would forget that I had homework, or that someone's birthday was coming up. Tiny, insignificant-seeming things left me. After a while, though, my mother became worried.

I remember only once…

She had appeared at the top of the stairs, peering down at me. I stood looking through the glass of a window, trying to remember what I was doing. "Cara?" she started anxiously. "Weren't you going to your friend's house tonight?"

I turned to her, "Hmm?" I didn't remember that.

My mother bit down on her lip. "You said yesterday that Emily had asked for you to sleepover."

"I did?"

"Yes!" a note of panic, then.

I must have been seven, or eight, maybe. I gripped the hem of my dress nervously. "What time did I say?" I asked.

"Six-thirty," she murmured. I looked at the clock and it was seven.

"Should I go?" I asked quietly.

"Probably, won't Emily be worried about you?"

"I don't know…" I was trying to picture this girl in my head, but time and again my memories failed me. "Where does Emily live?"

My mother chose then to come down the stairs. "Cara, you walk home with her every day after school. You know where she lives."

I shook my head. "I can't remember."

Mother raised an eyebrow. "That's not funny, Cara," but her tone was unsure. "You do remember."

"No, mommy, I don't!"

"Why don't you?!"

My voiced hitched on a sob, "I don't know!"

-o-

And after that… it only got worse. I forgot where I lived; who I was. One day after school when I still went to public school, I stopped outside of the front steps; unsure of which way was home. I couldn't make up my mind. Left, right, straight? Did I even have a home? I couldn't remember and I was scared. I didn't move from the font of the school until my mother finally came to pick me up, unbelievably relieved that she'd found me, an hour later.

-o-

But my mother knew there was something incredibly wrong at that point. "Cara," she said quietly, as rain pelted the windshield and she watched the cars come and go. "I think we need to see someone about this."

I was quiet. I didn't know who this someone was, but I didn't think it sounded like a good idea. Even so, I didn't protest. I didn't want to make matters worse.

And ten minutes later we were there, at the shiny chrome main-entrance of the city's hospital. My mother took me in to the ER and told everyone she saw that is was really important; that there was something wrong with her daughter.

She whispered and muttered of course, not saying those words in front of me, but I could still hear her. She must've been in a real hurry.

And so began the many interrogations and examinations. The doctors wanted to know when it started, what had happened, what the symptoms were. They tested me and took x-ray pictures of my brain, hoping to find an abnormality.

But they found nothing.

They said I was a rarity. I had a disease no one had ever contracted. Some of the doctors even seemed happy about it. They figured the discovery could make them big-shots in the medical world.

They called my condition Amnesia-X.

-o-

And since then, my family sent me to Seraphim Summers Institute, where other people would take care of me. That was fine with me. I wouldn't have wanted to be a burden to them.

-o-

I leaned drearily towards the window. It was beginning to rain. The water splattered down onto the car as the sky began to darken. As my driver turned down the old paved road that led to my childhood home, I watched the houses pass me by. And when I saw house number 777, I remembered something. If I'd known then what would happen… it might have been better if I hadn't remembered.

The memory was almost lucid as it formed in my mind… But the idea of it was outrageous! At first I questioned whether it had ever happened to begin with. But it was so vivid… so much clearer than the other memories I had brought back from the void. It was too real to be anything less than a memory. It had to be real!

I went over the memory again in my head. The day it happened on must have been fairly normal, because I didn't remember anything about it. But I remembered the night, clear as a bell, just as I did recall the man behind the night…

I don't know how I could've ever forgotten the memory of him. And I couldn't comprehend why now of all times I remembered this… I must've been only ten or eleven when he first visited me.

Though it may sound silly, it was well past my bedtime. As I was pulled from my sleep by his light maneuver through my open window—as if he'd done it a thousand times—thoughts of the boogeyman ran through my head, scaring me stiff. Of course, I was still a small child with a large imagination. I wanted to cry out, scream to alert my parents of this intruder, but my mouth opened in only silence as he stepped into a shaft of moonlight that illuminated his features.

His voice was slightly gruff with an edge of worry. "Please don't make me go," he begged, his dark eyes locked on me. "I only wanted some company."

I hesitated. He seemed only a few years older than me. "Who are you?" I asked, curiosity conquering my fear for the moment.

"Todd," he whispered, a small smile of relief forming on his face. I wouldn't involve my parents and he knew it. "I live across the street." His eyes darted unconsciously out the window he'd come in from, towards house number 777. "It gets lonely over there." He said the next part more to himself. "It almost makes sense how crazy Nny was."

I coughed once and chose to reply with an inquiry. "Who's Nny?"

"Just a friend," Todd said, "Used to live over at 777, back when I still lived here." He gestured around the room that I then called my own.

"You live—" I coughed harshly several times, the spasms rocking through my frail body. "You lived here?" I finished.

Todd's head cocked to the side. "Once," he replied. "Do you have a cold or something?"

I laughed. If only. "I'd be lucky if I just had a cold…" I trailed off coughing again. Then I tried to explain my illnesses as well as I could. "It's… it's kinda a forever thing. We can't figure out what's doing it. They say it might be from my heart."

-o-

Of course, back then I hadn't figured out that the coughing was mostly caused by the pollution here. The only thought the doctors had at the time was that it might be from the heart troubles I'd been having. They were so worthless… they never figured out what caused my weak heart.

I was never allowed to do sports in school. I had a doctor's note and consistently failed my physical education classes. I was glad I'd never really had time to develop an appreciation for a sport. That could've crushed me.

-o-

But I continued my explanation, throwing Amnesia-X into the factor as well. "There's more," I said, holding up a hand at Todd's wide-eyed expression. "I forget things: Lots of things. Sometimes I forget who I am…" I looked at him. "So if I don't remember you… don't be upset with me, please." His face was in shadow now, but his bowed head seemed sad to me.

I fidgeted uncomfortably, wondering if I'd hurt his feelings. "Todd?"

He looked up. "I never asked you your name," he said quietly.

I blinked. "Cara." I was embarrassed for not having introduced myself.

He half-smiled, "I'll be sure not to forget."

"Sorry." I frowned. It wasn't my fault I forgot things.

Suddenly, three things happened at once.

Firstly, as if sensing the sequence before it happened, Todd disappeared under my bed.

Before I could ask him what was going on, my door began to creak open, my mother behind it and whispering, "Cara, are you awake?!"

Before she had her head around the door to check on me, my head had already slammed into my pillow, instantly feigning sleep.

I heard her breathing there, a few paces away. I held as still as I could, breathing gently to ward off her suspicions. It was another minute before she finally walked out of the room and back down the hallway.

I sat up, completely silent. I could hear my heart beating fast under my ribcage from the scare of it. The quickness made me dizzy. I shook my head, trying to clear it. "Todd?" I whispered.

"Still here," he answered just as quietly. In one fluid motion he was out from under my bed.

"Where did you learn to do that?" I asked, bewildered.

He seemed confused. "What?"

"The bed thing," I pointed to the end of my bed which he'd slipped under and reappeared out of.

"Oh. I think it just came to me." He contemplated this information for a second. "But Nny… He used to do a lot of stuff like that." He looked concerned at this. "I watched him do stuff like that a couple of times. Maybe I subconsciously learned it from him." He shrugged.

"Anyway," Todd said, stepping towards the window, "I'd better go before your mom gets back. She seemed nice." He smiled, trying to hide his jealousy.

"Alright," I agreed. "Maybe… some other time we'll see each other? Preferably not so late at night…"

Todd's mouth compressed to a thin line. It made him look stern. "We will," he turned once more to look at me before jumping out my window. "I'm sure of it."

And that was the last I ever saw of him... Or was it?


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