A/N: Enjoy the chapter, and please rate and review. Oh, and if you have an opinion about the cover, I'd love to hear it. It was a bit of a rush job, so I hope it looks okay.
It's been a while since I last wrote to you. So much has happened in between. I kept meaning to write, but the timing was never right, and everything looked horrible once I'd written it down. It's hard, trying to tell my own story. It makes me wonder how much of it actually happened, or whether I just misremembered. Sometimes I even think I've imagined you.
You're fading, in my mind. Your eyes are gone, to be replaced by a brown pair like any other. The only clear memory I still have is of reaching for you, and then everythng is blankness. Did you do this to me? I don't feel like you would have. I feel like we belong together. That we love each other. But what if I'm wrong? What if I just made that up to make myself feel better? Please come for me. I'm starting to lose faith even in you.
After Fowl left for the second time, I sat down and composed a long letter to you in my head. I never wrote it, though. Fowl could have cameras in here. In fact, I'm sure he does. These letters are for you, not for him. I don't want him to know about you. He might take you away too.
The food arrived shortly after I'd mentally sent the letter to you. I like to think that you somehow got it. The food seemed a bit fancy- it's so weird what I remember- but it was good. It arrived the same way Fowl does, just appearing on the desk. It didn't occur to me until I was finished that it might be poisoned. I need to be more careful. Someone took my memories and locked me up. Who knows what they'll do next.
It makes me wonder if Fowl is just a hallucination. He seemed so real... as much as any of this can seem real. I keep thinking I'll wake up, and know who I am. How can I not know who I am? How can I not remember the color of my own eyes? I tried to check, but where the mirror should have been there was just a blank white square. Someone doesn't want me to know what I look like. Why not? Who did this to me? There are so many questions, and I don't have even a single answer.
I'm a girl. I know that much, at least. I have blue hair, which leads me to think that someone doesn't want me to know my hair color, which is odd. Either that or I'm a martian. My hair's really short too. Was it long, before? My body seems to be about average. Maybe a tiny bit overweight. My clothing is missing its tags (I woke up in a white nightgown, and I'm now wearing a white t-shirt and sweatpants), so I think I'm not supposed to know that either. Whoever this someone is, they don't want me knowing anything about myself.
But why? Why me? Did I do something to them? Did I know something I shouldn't? Or am I just an insane girl with blue hair and amnesia? I don't know the answers, and I don't like how familiar that feeling's becoming. I'm not going to give up. I want to know why I can't remember anything, who Artemis Fowl the Second is, and how I can get out of here.
I thought about this for a long time after Fowl left. I didn't reach any conclusions, but I felt better for having thought about it. When I was done thinking, I slept again (I think the food might have been drugged). I remember waking up a few times, my half-asleep brain hearing voices. Fowl's voice, and a strange girl's. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I remember thinking their voices were unusually serious, even for Fowl.
Could Artemis Fowl be the one who took my memories? He seems to be the one who locked me up here. But why? Who am I?
I was able to get a little bit more information after I woke up. Fowl was sitting in the chair, watching me sleep. It was creepy, but I decided not to hit him again. That might not end well if he had kidnapped me.
"Did you want something?" I tried to keep my tone pleasant.
He shook his head. "There should be a visitor soon."
Not that he'd asked me if I wanted to talk to anyone, of course. I noticed that he hadn't brought his bodyguard. A show of trust? Or were the two fighting for some reason?
"Who?"
He smiled. He really did look like a vampire. "You'll see. I think you'll like her."
Her. So it wasn't just Fowl running this thing. Would a woman be more sympathetic?
"How do you keep appearing like that, anyway?"
He said something long and complicated and scientific. Even if I remembered it all, I couldn't spell it. "Never mind."
He smiled again. He enjoyed knowing more than me way too much. At least he'd tried to explain. Or spouted techno-babble in order to fool me into thinking he'd explained. "I'm rather proud of it. It won several awards."
"You invented it?" Fowl might have been a genius- he'd have to be, to understand what he'd just said- but that seemed a bit much, even for him.
"Of course. It only works within this room, but no one else has even come close to true teleportation." I, of course, immediately thought of how if I left the room I'd be safe. Being Artemis Fowl, he immediately dashed my hopes. "Your room is always being watched, and even without teleportation, I know this building better than you ever can."
A building. I'm in a building, presumably a large one. Possibly in Ireland. With a genius teenager in it named Artemis Fowl the Second. If I ever get this to you, that should be plenty of information. You can come get me, and we'll be together. Except for this nagging voice in the back of my mind, which says that Fowl would never be that stupid.
I stood, trying to indicate that the meeting was over, and also trying to get out some of my excess energy. The room I'm in isn't large, and there wasn't much to do except write, think, sleep, and talk to Artemis Fowl.
Except that a humming noise filled the room just then, and Fowl smiled, looking for once like an excited kid instead of an evil mastermind. "That would be our guest."
The humming was quiet, but still incredibly annoying. "What's that noise?"
"A loose piece of equipment, I imagine."
The humming stopped before I could question him further,- did he mean his machine wasn't safe?, and there was suddenly a child sized something in the room. It was dressed in all black, and mostly humanoid, although its helmet- I sincerely hoped the shiny black object was a helmet and not a head- seemed just the tiniest bit taller than would be strictly necessary. Fowl was grinning. "You should talk to Foaly about that noise. It rather destroys the point of stealth."
"True teleportation?" The voice was female. More adult than I'd expected.
Fowl shrugged. "True teleportation and a bit of magic. Quite brilliant, really."
"I'm not here to listen to you brag, Artemis. This is the girl?"
The woman-child seemed to disapprove of me. A possible accomplice? Although she called Fowl by his first name.
"Yes, this is the girl. Was there someone else you expected this girl to be?"
The woman-child pulled off her helmet to reveal pointed ears. She had a face too, of course, but I was so stunned by the ears that I didn't really notice it. If I see her again, I'll pay more attention so you can identify her. She was definitely an adult, though. "Total memory loss?"
"It would appear so." Fowl got up and moved over to the bed, pointing at my eyes with his finger far too close to my face. I was going to move or scream or something, but then I noticed that the woman had a gun holstered at her waist, and decided to cooperate. "The pupils are intact, see?"
Apparently another identifying feature is that I have intact pupils. How helpful.
The woman leaned her head in to examine my eyes more closely, which was kind of creepy. "Odd. I don't think I can fix this, Artemis. Maybe someone at the hospital can."
"I doubt it. I see no obvious cause."
"Even magic can't restore what isn't there."
"Please, Caption Short." So Fowl wasn't on first name terms with her. Was she some sort of superior? And what was all this about magic?
Captain Short shook her head, and put a tiny hand on my arm. Blue sparks appeared on her fingers, but fizzled out the instant they touched my skin. I was too freaked out to move. "It's no use, Artemis. There's nothing that needs healing here. She's in perfect condition, as far as the magic can tell."
Could those sparks somehow heal? I looked at Fowl, and realized that his black eye was gone. This was getting weirder and weirder.
"There's a scratch," Fowl said. "On her left thumb. The magic should have targeted it."
Captain Short glared at him. I continued staring at her pointed ears, after checking for burn marks on the arm she'd released, and glancing at the tiny red line on my left thumb. "You knew."
"Holly-" So much for that.
"Is this one of your grand schemes? Another 'The Plan'?"
"I was simply-"
"Simply what? Curious? Wanted to know if you could ward against magic?"
"No!" Fowl actually looked wounded. "I didn't do this to her."
"Right, because you have no history of kidnapping."
"Must it always go back to that? I've changed, Holly." He touched a pendant I hadn't noticed he was wearing, a golden coin with a hole in the middle. If he'd changed for the better, what had he been like before?
Captain Short sighed. "One minute, mud boy. After that I report you."
"Thank you."
I was excited, hoping that I was about to find out where I'd come from, but Fowl glanced up and saw me. "Upstairs, I think."
Captain Short looked uncertain, but nodded. They both vanished.
I don't know what to make of this. I still don't know who kidnapped me, or why, except that it was possibly not Fowl. I don't know who this Captain Short is. And I'm not sure I want to. But it all comes down to this: who is Artemis Fowl, and why won't he tell me anything? I don't have any answers. All I know is that he's a genius, he somehow managed to take possession of me and is for some reason keeping me locked up, and he has some very strange friends who possibly have magical powers. Here's the thing about my memory loss- I know it isn't normal for people to have magic. But I can't be sure that it doesn't exist (unlike pointed ears... why do they shock me so much?). So I don't know just how strange Artemis Fowl and Co. really are.
I need to find some way to get this to you. I need to get out of here.
A/N: Did I do Holly okay? Also, I know my excuse for not describing her is a bit weak... I need to do some research on that (there are a few points I'm not clear on).
Artemis... I'm getting sick of calling him Fowl, and I imagine you're all sick of reading it. :) I will have to figure out how to get them on a first-name basis. But I don't think that was so terrible, in general. A bit more action, more characters, a few clues... not my worst chapter.
Thank you for reading, and please review. Even if you think it's terrible, all feedback is good. I want to hear from you.
