Hello everyone! Having lost my codes to access my other account, I'm starting the same story again on another account (yes, I'm stupid). I've lengthened the chapters and changed a few details, but the story is the same. I've almost finished it, so send me comments if you want the rest.
Guest: Thank you for that lovely comment that made me want to continue the story. I hope you'll come by here soon.
Susan was sitting on a leather sofa, a scientific magazine on her lap. Her apartment was cluttered with moving boxes, but the table was set, the clam soup warmed slowly in the kitchen, waiting for Derek's return. Suddently, the clock struck eight and Susan hurriedly turned on the TV : she had almost forgotten her fiance's TV show!
On the set, the seductive Derek was standing in front of an old TV presenter. They finised giving news, quite boring. Then, the old presenter announced :
"And it's time to bid farewell to Derek Dieti, who will fly to New York tomorrow. We'll sure miss you, Derek!"
"Thanks, Charlie !" Derek's smile could have been in a toothpaste ad. "I will remember about you when I will anchor the prestigious NNC News !"
Susan smiled at the TV; Derek had always talent for charming his audience, but she didn't expect his career to take off so quikly. The National News Company had contacted her fiance one month ago. That's it ! The dream of their life came true ! Derek will be a star and they will leave Fresno for New York.
"And don't forget..." Derek finished the show with a phrase that had become his trademark. "Behind every great man is his truehearted wife."
Susan smiled again, knowing that theses words were dedicated to her.
Derek, my love, I can't belive that I almost never see you again ! She thought, tenderly caressing the cheek of his love on the screen, before turning off the TV.
More than a year ago, Susan and Derek almost get married. But in the middle of the ceremony, an earthquake had seized the church in which they were standing. Susan woke up weeks later in a hospital bed. According to the doctors at her bedside, she had a concussion and had been in a coma all that time. Susan's first reaction was to contact Derek. She thought he would be here in half an hour, but she discovered with shock that he no longer lived in their love shack in Modesto. He was in Fresno doing his job as a TV presenter. She boarded the first plane to Fresno and was on the landing of Derek's flat in no presenter almost fainted when he discovered his ex-fiancée with her suitcases and her enamoured look.
"Derek, I missed you so much!" Susan jumped up and down on him, crying her eyes out. "I woke up in the hospital and doctors told I had a concussion from an earthquake during our wedding. I don't remember anything from the last few months and you weren't there! Oh, Derek! I can't tell you how lonely I felt when I couldn't find you in Modesto!"
Derek couldn't believe his luck and immediately the couple reconciled. Susan moved with him to Fresno. It could have been a happy ending to this misadventure, but she found it curious that her parents weren't happy for them. In fact, they didn't seem to value Derek as much as they once did. Her father called regularly to see how happy she was, but when Susan asked why he didn't like his fiance anymore, her father just pointed out that he had gone to Fresno while she was lying in a hospital bed in Modesto. To be honest, Susan had also questionned, but Derek immedialty gave an excuse :
"Even though I was in Fresno, Susan, that didn't mean I didn't think about you. I knew you'de wake up one day and I wanted our dream ready, so I accepted the job."
"You really were waiting for me?"
"I would have waited for you all my life."
I was a nice explanation. Susan didn't understand why her parents kept shutting him out, but except for this problem, she was perfectly happy.
… Almost.
Susan got up and went to the bathroom to put on a more comfortable outfit. Passing in front of the mirror, she looked at her reflection: this old turquoise T-shirt was her favourite, it highlighted her blue eyes and her chestnut hair. She touched a strand of her perfect bob with a melancholic feeling. Few people knew that Susan didn't really have chestnut hair anymore. When she woke up, it was shiny and snow-white. Strangely enough, she hadn't been afraid of it, as if it had always been like that. Besides, she thought it gave her a mystical air. But Derek hated the colour and had argued that the fiancée of a serious TV presenter couldn't have such weird hair. So Susan went to the most prestigious hair salons every month to get her colour done. Derek was delighted now, he called her "Jackie".
The doorbell rang and Susan sighed :it was necessarly her doctor. She had been out of the hospital for several month, but shie continued to receive daily visits.
"Good evening, Dr. Smith." She greeted, opening the front door.
"Good evening, Miss Murphy."
Dr. Smith was a very skinny man, with a very elongated face, grey complexion and bald head. In winter and summer he always wore the same black leather mackintosh, gloves of the same material and dark glasses. Susan didn't feel much sympathy for him and nicknamed him "the undertaker". A nickname that suited him very well because he was as affable as a tombstone.
"Take off your clothes, Miss Murphy. I have only twenty minutes and seventeen seconds to examine you."
Susan complied and went to her room. Once in her panties and tank top, she lay down on the bed. The doctor entered without knocking, he had swapped his mackintosh and leather gloves for a science gown and surgical gloves. However, he still wore his dark glasses. His hands were icy when he pinched Susan's face as if it were plasticine.
"Do you feel sick?"
"No."
"Do you still have headaches?"
"Rarely."
"Do you sometimes have memory loss during the day?"
"No." Susan leaned on her elbows. "On the contrary, I think memories come back."
The doctor abruptly removed his hands and looked at the young woman with suspicion:
"Memories coming back?"
"Yes, I noticed that I was less sensitive than before my accident to smell of fish...and eating jelly brought back a bit of deja vu."
Dr. Smith looked upset: "Miss Murphy, you have been in deep coma in a hospital. You cannot have memories, especially about fish or jelly. Your mind is trying so hard to fill this vacuum that it creates these false memories."
"But I remember voices I cannot find around me." Susan insisted. "And your white coat remind me something too."
Dr. Smith looked at Susan as if she had offended him, and he pulled off his lab coat and ut in his suitcase.
« Maybe you have memories of the hospital, all the doctors wear white coats. »
« But you just said that I couldn't have memories since I was in a coma. »
This time the doctor really lost his patience and his voice cracked like a whip: "Miss Murphy, that's enough! Dead fish, jelly, lab coats and butterflies... these are just ideas invented by your delirious brain. There are no memories, no real sense of deja vu. You cling to it like an idiot who wants to think she's special, but you're nothing more than a common human being who had a common accident, like any common human being!"
Susan hated herself for cowering, but she didn't always trust herself and Dr. Smith's icy voice terrified her. Why wasn't Derek ever there when that horrible man came to examine her? She also refrained from pointing out that she had never talked about butterflies... yet she sometimes dreamt about them too. She dreamt of a big, big butterfly with a soft fur. It was one of her favourite dreams, she felt like Alice in Wonderland. The doctor looked really upset. To get him out of there quickly, Susan put her clothes back on and obediently took the box of medicine he was handing her.
"Four pills per meal for three weeks."
"That's twice as many as usual." Susan noticed. "Isn't it dangerous?"
"The most important thing is that your brain gets rid of these false memories for good. This time should be the right one, but if it continues, I'll come back."
"But Derek and I are moving to New York soon."
"It doesn't matter. I'll come anyway. I'm not in the habit, Miss Murphy, of stopping a patient's surveillance like this."
Susan couldn't see the look on his face behind his dark glasses, but she swore she would never again tell him her dreams and never give him her address in New York. She walked him to the door. A few minutes later it was Derek who entered the flat:
"Hello, baby. I hope dinner's ready 'cause the prestigious NNC TV presenter is starving!"
"Good evening, Derek." Susan kissed him. "I watched your show."
"So you heard when I talked about wives of great men. I was thinking of you, of course."
A small voice inside Susan pointed out that Derek's tone was like a star with his groupie, but she ignored it. They sat down for dinner. Derek talked all the time about his promotion and the fame he was going to have New York.
"And me, I cannot wait to see our house in Brooklyn." Susan said, when her fiance finally let her talk.
"Yes, it will be perfect." Derek said. "I would have preferred a luxury apartment in Manhattan, but that will be for later."
"Oh... really?"
Susan was disappointed: she always had a penchant for pretty brick houses of Brooklyn. Hopefully, Derek would change his mind when he saw the adorable place she had bought. He was not at all interested in buying the house, unlike Susan.
"You know it has a marble entrance. And in the living room, there are mouldings that date from the beginning of the 20th century. To furnish it, we could go to the flea markets together, it would be so romant..."
"Oh yeah, that sounds great." Derek replied in an absent-minded voice, barely holding back from yawning. "Hey! You know what would be really important? My presentation speech to the NNC News. We need to think about it as soon as possible."
OoO
Dr. Smith had not left the neighborhood after visiting Susan. He walked down a dark alleyway, and he entered in a telephone booth, supposedly out of order, and dialed a number.
"1-2-3-4... What a stupid code number!" He mumbled.
He waited a long time, listening to the interminable ringing tone.
"Stupid electrical grid." He grumbled.
Finally, a falsely feminine voice ends up picking up the phone.
"Helloooo, General Monger's office."
Dr. Smith pinched the bridge of his nose : "Stupid monster, put General Monger on!"
"He's in a meeting. Can I take a message?"
"Bob, stop playing and put him through to te general!" A voice in the back, with a English accent, grew impatient.
Finally, the authoriarian voice of General Monger resonated in the telephone handset : "General Monger's office, Area 51. It's you, Dr. Smith?"
"Yes, I have just paid one last visit to the formerly Ginormica guinea pig."
"Did he just call our Susan "guinea pig"?"
"Quiet, Link. He will pay it for later."
"The subject was more resistant than expected to the retrograde amnesia that we inflicted on her, but I doubled the dose of her treatment. Fortunately, she is docile and I have already convinced her that her "memories" were just a delusion of her sick brain. Moreover, she seems eager to start a new life in New York. She won't be a problem for us in the future. Her last memories about the Aera 51, Quantonium and monsters will disappear quickly." Dr. Smith finised his report.
« Very well. I'll order my soldiers to stop Susan Murphy's surveillance. This woman, formely Ginormica, returned to an ordinary citizen. »
General Monger hung up the phone. Then he turned and had to conted with the reproachful glances of a missing link, a blue blob and a scientist with a cockroach head.