Chrysalis

Chapter One: Tissant

Perhaps weeks had passed. Perhaps months. Perhaps it had only been a day. Time in the hospital passed slowly, minutes dragging out for eternities, days seemed to go on forever. The only things that broke up the monotony were sessions with the therapists and daily meals, some of which he deliberately missed as he felt unable to eat. Even recent memories, those he spent with counselors and doctors, even with fellow patients, all seemed to blur together. It was like living in a dream.

Some days, it felt that everything could stir up a memory. Not a memory, as such, but the very end of a ribbon kite string, the kite of memory being tugged slowly away, out of reach. The taste of an apple, and there was the tug, the faint rippling surface of a memory, there and gone again. A brush of his hand against a sheet, the feeling of hair falling into his eyes, even the clouds streaming past the window offered him a string to pull, but never allowed him to really touch what they meant. Dreams were haunted with memories and unrecognizable images, pictures that seemed to have nothing to do with one another. He'd wake up in the middle of the night, with the memory of the dusty scent of dried flowers, or the eerie blue glow of a tank lighting up the face of a young boy, who seemed both dark and light colored. He woke up with the memory of green eyes haunting him, phantom lips on his mouth and his heart pounding as though it would break free of his chest.

Once he'd woken up, out of breath, tears burning the corner of his eyes. He'd thought he smelled smoke, sharp, pungent and scorching. The dream-remnants of lit ashes and embers floated before his sleep-dazed eyes before he realized where he was. The room itself seemed as insubstantial as the nightmare he'd just awoken from. It was an odd feeling, lying there in the narrow, white-sheeted hospital bed, and watching the moon through the sheer curtains shrouding the window. At first he thought that window had been left open, the curtain floated and billowed, looking like a wraith, a ghost of some departed child. He blinked, his eyes still foggily unfocused from sleep, and saw the dull sheen of the moon's light on the glass.

The smoke and ashes scent of the dream still lingered, and he felt sick. His throat was dry, and his mouth felt as though he'd eaten sand before going to bed. He had a fleeting and intense desire to open the window and be able to breathe clean air, at least. The room felt musty, stuffy, cramped. The air felt like it was burning. He fairly leapt out of bed, rushed to the window, turned the knob at the bottom, and yanked it up with a faint creak and a dry whooshing sound. Clean, dry-scented air wafted in, carrying the smell of the grass that had just been freshly trimmed. He could breathe again.

He shared the room with the girl, who was also suffering from amnesia. Apparently, since he'd been comatose, the problem of male and female cohabitation hadn't come up, and when he'd pulled out of his comatose state, no one seemed to find any reason to separate them. Perhaps they were still clinging to the idea that she and he may be siblings or at the very least relatives, he didn't know.

The girl had been found at the exact same spot as he had, but in considerably worse condition. He had questioned the nurse about the event, but she'd simply answered that her injuries had been extensive, and that she was, for the most part, healed physically. He'd gotten the impression that her body's healing had been extremely swift.

However, she was still in the same condition, mentally, that she'd been in when she arrived. None of the doctors or nurses here were given to long or detailed discussions with their patients, and so he didn't know anything specific about what ailed her, or even himself for that matter. The girl told him that she really had no interest in what her condition was called, so long as she 'got over it soon'. She'd been in one of her better moods that day, brighter and more active than she usually was. It was probably a brief view of the person she had been before whatever accident she met had changed her. Talkative, and ever-so-slightly mischievous. Unlike her usual mood, a faint melancholy that was emphasized by her gestures and movements. He was finding that he was very adept at reading a person's thoughts and mood simply by expressions, voice inflections, and even body language. He'd idly wondered once or twice where he'd picked up the skill. Anyway, in the case of the girl, she left her emotions so clear and open, she may as well have painted them in block lettering on the walls.

Most of her time was spent sitting at the window, curled in on herself like an infant in the womb, and staring outside at some unknown point in the horizon. She looked like a kind of specter, pale, thin, and black-clad. At times, she would sit on her narrow hospital bed and draw, a look of intense concentration in her eyes as she wielded the pencil and pressed it heavily onto the parchment paper. She drew roses often but they were sharp and angular, overlaid with designs reminiscent of swords clashing. At times, she would draw the silhouette of a woman with her face covered in shadow, long curly hair falling like silk over the jagged roses.

The drawings interested him for reasons he didn't quite understand. They were not well crafted, their compositions flawed, their perspective skewed, and yet somehow they caught his eye and held it. Once the girl had found him staring at one of her pictures, this a picture of a high, crooked tower of stairs, with jagged roses creeping and climbing all over it. She'd caught him holding it and gazing at it fixedly, feeling that he must have seen that picture from somewhere. The girl had laughed and asked him if he wanted to keep it. He didn't remember his response, something noncommittal about him liking pencil drawings.

Which was untrue, actually. He hated pencil drawings, graphite, charcoal, or other such sketchy media. They seemed blurred, smudged and unclear. He liked drawings detailed, clean and neat. Line drawings in pen and India ink were what appealed to him, but the girl claimed that it was too 'fussy' a media for her to work with. She loved free strokes, wide and rough. She'd work with watercolor as well, swathes of murky green and blue surrounded in stabs of red and fuchsia. Lilies or some other sort of flowers, a change from her usual parade of roses.

The girl hardly talked to him. Instead, she talked at him, rambling about things she vaguely remembered of her early childhood, things she had learned that day, and anything at all that could possibly be spoken about. Sometimes he would nod, or quietly put in an opinion of his own, but the girl seemed to ignore the little input he would give her. He found himself wondering if she had spoken to him when he was comatose, having a conversation with a body that could not hear her or answer back.

At the moment, she was speaking of arts and crafts, while sketching yet another drawing of her roses. Her hand traced the outline of a petal as she spoke, her hair falling into her eyes.

"I've decided not to work with colors anymore," she explained to him earnestly. The black and white conte crayons she was working with seemed to illustrate her point.

"Hm," he answered, buried in a book he had discovered in the small library the hospital possessed. It contained a number of Shakespearian plays, complete with notes hastily sketched in the margins of the pages. At the moment he was going through 'The Tempest.' He seemed to remember not being interested in novels and plays before, being more interested in science and mathematics than literature, but there seemed to be a delicate kind of science in writing, and Shakespeare's works were interesting, if not incredibly realistic. Pulling away from the book for a brief moment, he glanced at the girl, who looked at him as if awaiting further comments. "Why?" he asked her, almost interested in her reply.

"It's less complicated that way," she bit her lip in thought. "Well, that too, but I think it's better in black and white. Colors are tricky. You have to use them just right, or the picture won't turn out right. Black and white also seems more…dramatic somehow." She scribbled as she spoke, the tip of the conte crayon scratching over the paper in sharp, definite strokes. He watched the point of the crayon add lines, watched as the drawing grew shape and definition. One more stroke of the crayon, and a wistful pair of black and grey eyes gazed out from the paper, staring at him.

"Hm," he said. It didn't matter if he said nothing. The girl would continue to talk, simply to fill up the silence.

The drawing was only half finished, and it showed the mournful silhouette of a dark-haired child, arms outstretched. "I'm kind of hungry."

He shrugged, disinterested. "We should be getting food soon."

"I'm tired of being brought food. It makes me feel like an in…in…" she bit her lip, searching for the word.

"Invalid," he offered, not lifting his eyes from the text he was reading.

"Right," she said. "Like I can't do anything for myself."

He turned a page without replying. In truth, he didn't like it either, for different reasons. He was a loner by nature, he didn't like speaking or associating with people. The assorted nurses that brought them food or books, the doctors he spoke to, all made him uncomfortable. He'd rather be away from here, memory or no memory. The girl was undaunted, as usual, by his lack of response, continued discussing the matter at hand.

"It's not like I sprained my ankle or anything…" at that she trailed off, her expression changed. She looked as though she was listening to something very far away.

"Or anything?" he prompted, after a short time had passed. Once in a while, either of them would dredge up some memory, and eerily often, the memories were similar. For example, both of them dreamt or had flashes of a very large building, something that looked like a palace or museum. The girl was of the opinion that it was a church they'd both been too, because she told him that she remembered the toll of bells whenever she thought of it.

The counselors encouraged them to speak to each other of whatever they remembered. They believed that he and the girl were related in some way. He had to admit that they looked quite similar, both had fair hair. However, his was a much paler color. Pink light enough to be considered white, especially compared to the rose of the girls' hair. She often compared the hair colors to candy, smiling as she did so. "Peppermint floss", she had said, taking a few strands of hair in her hands, "Your hair is like peppermint floss. Just enough pink to make it so. And if your hair is peppermint, mine is cotton candy." Then she'd laughed and let go of his hair, ignoring the disgruntled expression on his face.

Both of them had light eyes. Both had fair skin made lighter by the time spent indoors, although hers still had the faintly tanned look of someone who had spent much of her time in the sun. Even their height was nearly the same. It was uncanny, even by his standards, but he doubted that they were related. For some reason, he felt that he would have remembered.

"No, nothing," she replied, still looking a little dazed. "I just remembered I sprained my ankle once at school."

"You should write it down," he said in an uninterested tone, returning his attention to the book.

The notebooks were an idea of their therapist, who firmly believed in the idea that dreams were a result of the subconscious going through past events, and theirs revealed a lot of their memories. He'd also told them to write down any flashes or ideas they may have during the day.

"Not important enough." she replied. "I mean, spraining my ankle? Lots of people sprain their ankles. It's not important at all. I'm sure you did. Sprain something, I mean."

"I doubt it," he replied, turning a page. "I'm not too interested in athletic activities. In fact, I don't much like the outdoors."

"How come?"

He sighed and put the book down, seeing that he would get no peace until he'd explained. "Firstly," he began in a didactic tone, "I'd rather spend my time working indoors on a computer or engaging in intellectual activities. Second, I'm not and never will be as …physically fit as some people. I'm not built for it. Third, I don't like being in bright sunlight. It hurts my eyes."

She had been nodding slightly at his first reasons, even though she didn't look like she accepted them as valid. When he stated the last, she blinked in confusion. "It does? Why?"

"I'm an albino," he noted her confused expression. "Shouldn't it be obvious? Pink eyes aren't exactly ordinary."

"No, it's just…well what's an albino?"

He didn't think it was that uncommon a term, but he folded his arms and began the usual recitation. "People with albinism, or albinos, are born without pigment, especially melanin. Melanin is photoprotective, and protects the skin from ultraviolet rays. Put simply, it keeps your skin from being sunburned. It also helps the eyes develop, and since I'm lacking in it, I'm nearsighted." He sensed her next question. "They ran some vision tests on me here, and fitted me with a pair of contact lenses, but those don't help against the sunlight." he paused as a thought floated up to the top of his thoughts. "I …remember that I used to wear tinted glasses for protection as well as the conventional vision correction, but I don't know what happened to them. Perhaps they were broken after the accident," he added, with a niggling feeling of doubt.

"Well, still. Don't you ever want to go outside? I mean, do you ever wish you could?" The girl was gnawing her lips nervously as she spoke, as if she feared upsetting him. "It doesn't seem…fair."

"Frankly, no. Why should I?"

She glanced up at him, eyes wide. "Well, there's running and stuff. And just lying out in the sun. I used to…love to do that, I think. I remember…just lying in the grass with my hair spread all out," she fingered the shortened locks of her hair as she added this detail, but it didn't seem as though she knew she was doing it, "And I would just relax and look at the sky. The sky on a bright, sunny day is just beautiful, you know? A lot of times it doesn't have clouds, and then it's just this long stretch of blue."

"I can look at long stretches of blue any time I please. In textbooks. They're not really very impressive."

"That's because you've never seen it in real life, I mean, you've never just…gone out and looked at it," she waved a hand expansively at the curtained window. "Well, how about going to the beach? "

"Sand gets everywhere and I sunburn easily. I prefer a nice, clean room and a textbook on scientific theories."

She sighed a long, gusty sigh. "I don't know, it just doesn't seem right."

He smiled faintly. It wasn't right to her that a person didn't have the chance to go out and do something that he had absolutely no interest in doing. "Mm," was all he said, a noncommittal sound. She seemed to take this as consent, and did not pursue the matter further. Her attention span wasn't short so much as it was selective, he noticed. Problems she found she could not fix, ideas she didn't understand, all of them were troubled over for a short time and then tossed carelessly to the side. Those problems that she was capable of solving were obsessed over until they were resolved. When they were done, she'd move on to the next, with no sign or acknowledgement of her achievement.

The picture in her hands was gaining more detail. The child in the drawing was given a sketchy sort of dress, the frayed and broken lines making it seem ragged. Looming up and behind the child was something that looked like a broken stained glass window. No floor was visible, making it look as though the girl was floating in midair.

She caught his glance at the drawing and gave a sort of shrug and smile. "I'm going through a lot of pencils a day. It's nice of them to keep giving me paper and stuff. I thought they'd limit me to, I don't know, three sheets a day, but they're really good about it."

"It's not that they're generous, I think," he replied. "Most likely they think that it's another form of subconscious expression and those drawings of yours are actually scenes from your repressed memories or symbols of traumatic events." He frowned slightly. "Which I believe is patently ridiculous."

She blinked at him. "How come?"

He gestured at the drawing. "Take that, for example. What is it a drawing of?"

"Well…" she looked at the paper in her hand. "A girl, I guess. I don't know. I really don't think about what I'm drawing, most of the time. I think this one's a little princess, though. And she's lonely."

"Well, feelings aside. Is it remotely possible for you to have met a princess in your life? And unless you are severely anthophobic, I doubt those ceaseless rose pictures of yours have anything to do with your trauma. I am not an expert on archetypes, but I do not believe a rose symbolizes anything remotely threatening or sinister."

"Love."

"What?"

"That's what they symbolize. I…read it somewhere, I think," she glanced at the small bookshelf at the far wall. "Not here, though. Anyway, I don't really like roses. I don't know why I draw them. It's this pattern, though, it's kind of stuck in my head. I don't draw it right, though. At least, the picture in my head looks kind of rounder, but I always draw the edges too sharp."

Amazingly, a mental image of something like what the girl was attempting to describe rose in his mind and he found himself nodding in agreement before coming to his senses. "In any case," he said abruptly, "Nothing you have told me seems to indicate anything that would cause you to repress memories. Flowers, princesses. It seems very normal to me."

"Well, what do you dream about?" she asked pointedly. When he failed to answer, she set down her drawing and leaned forward, indicating that she would wait for as long as it took him to speak. "Well, I think it's only fair that you tell me. After all, I've been telling you everything about me."

"That is a different matter. I didn't tell you to tell me about it, and you did it of your own free will. I, however, don't want to discuss my own problems with anyone but the therapist. And even that is somewhat annoying."

"It's just a simple question," she persisted, looking slightly annoyed. "I just asked what you dreamt about. And you said dreams aren't real or memories or anything, right? So then they're not problems, they're just…dreams. Nothing wrong with talking about them." She looked proud about this deduction.

He sighed. It was obvious that she wouldn't leave him alone until he told her something, so he may as well get it over with. "I don't dream coherently," he began, searching for a way to describe it, "It's mostly a series of jumbled images. Mostly I don't remember my REM cycles- those are dreams," he added, seeing the girl's blank expression, "I wake up and that is it. When I do remember, it's mostly a feeling, image, or concept."

"And what kind of concepts?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Dried flowers. A large marble building. A computer, a few faces, etcetera. Once or twice, I've dreamt of a very large room filled with coffins, but that's the most macabre example. Everything else is mainly normal."

She sat back with a disappointed expression and crossed her arms. "Maybe you worked in a funeral home?" she suggested slowly, then shook her head in obvious confusion. "Well, whatever it is, I guess you'll find out eventually."

"If the amnesia is from mental trauma and not physical brain damage, there's a possibility."

"Gloomy," she said with a slight frown. "That's what you are. I don't see why you have to be so pessimistic."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't you?"

"Well…alright. Fine I'll give you that." she made a tiny sketchy line on the paper, forming the kanji of a name, and then dropped it to the floor beside her and studied it, biting her lower lip in thought. "I don't know," she started again after a few minutes of gazing at her drawing, "I just…I'm tired of everything being so… grey. It feels like it's raining all the time in here, I don't like it."

"If you're bored, why don't you tell one of the nurses? I'm sure that a trip out of the hospital wouldn't be too taxing for our traumatized minds." He added the last with heavy sarcasm, glancing at the list of rules, laminated and placed carefully on the door. Her eyes followed his, and she gave a thin smile.

"Hopefully not." she agreed, and then full out grinned. It was the first completely happy expression he'd seen on her, and the effect was enough to take him aback. It wasn't so much the smile itself, a wide curve of the mouth, showing every tooth possible. Her eyes sparkled, her whole posture changed, every gesture exuding life. He was given a slight glimpse of what kind of girl she'd been before her accident.

And irritatingly, a vague feeling that he'd seen that girl before.

"What?" she asked, snapping him out of his momentary trance. "Something I said?"

"No." he answered shortly.

But the rest of the day, all he could think about was that brief smile, and the thoughts that had come with it.

Sunlight.

It felt like gold, streaming on her face and hands and warming her from the outside in

Of course, they'd been able to get sunlight, filtered through the thick window panes and half-shuttered in, blocked out by blinds and white gauze curtains. Then it came in as shoots of white, eye-achingly sterile. Like everything else in that room had smelled of liniment and band-aids, it was barren and lifeless.

Out here, even in the faux-winter greys of the landscape, the sun seemed to gain color, seemed to pick up a fresher, cleaner scent. It was like life pouring into her.

There was something about it that made her feel more alive. Had it always been this way, even before The Accident, or had the long stay in the grey of that hospital room caused it?

Outside the building, they kept small, ornamental trees, dark-colored things with tiny, waxy grey-green leaves and neat, circular beds of mulch. Grass growing around these trees was usually taller than the neatly clipped surrounding lawn, forming odd-looking fringes around each tree. There were no flowers, but they did have a few sculptures. Funny things, rigid and static and unyielding, modern art pieces made of tarnished bronze. They protruded directly from the ground, like huge jagged rock formations. Stalagmites, or was it stalactites that formed on the ground? She'd pointed them out to the boy, but he gave an uninterested shrug. He was always uninterested, it seemed. That was almost unhealthy.

She scuffed her shoe at a rock in her path as she walked, her mind still on the boy. Albino or no, staying inside away from the fresh air and stuff wasn't good, and it shouldn't be fun or pleasant either. Maybe if she asked the nurses for sunglasses and sunscreen or something like that, he'd be able to come out and look around the place with her, next time they were allowed out. It was definitely doing her a world of good to get out and finally stretch her legs…

Stretch…

/"Hey, watch this!"

"Oh, my, how wonderful…'

"I could always stretch like that. I used to be able to put my legs…"/

Behind her head. She turned around sharply, unnerved. It felt like something spark-y and tingly, like the feeling when a leg went to sleep, had brushed right behind her head. Nothing there but the long stretch of brownish green that was the lawn to the hospital. Nothing, not even the dark-haired woman nurse who had sent her out here for a walk and had been supposed to look after her. The white, screened porch area that she'd been standing in front of looked completely empty, and she was suddenly struck by how quiet everything had become. Not dead silent, but the whispery, drawn-out, waiting silence that came before something big was about to happen.

She blinked uncertainly as she stared out at the empty lawn, brushing her hair away from her face. A light breeze stirred up the nearby grass, rippling her shirt around her. Odd…

In the corner of her vision, she saw a quick fluttering moment, and turned. A butterfly flapped its wings at her and hovered in its jerky way above her head before landing on the front of her shirt. It was pale yellow, with tiny brown spots flecked over its wings like freckles, and if she looked closely, its antenna curled slightly at the tips. She grinned in delight at it as it flexed its wings open and shut, like an animated decorative pin. "And what's your name?" she asked it quietly. In reply, the butterfly opened and closed its wings twice and flew off, dipping around her shirt as it headed to greener pastures.

Not willing to take that from a butterfly, she started after it in a jog, running over the grass with a speed that just felt natural to her. She stopped that after her legs suddenly felt slightly wobbly, and the landscape around her started to blur and ripple before coming back into focus. After a few dizzying seconds of her falling to her knees and watching the ground move, she took a breath and steadied herself. "Those pills they gave me this morning must be really something…" she muttered, and got to her feet.

A few yards in front of her was a wood. Not much of one, it was more of a smallish-large clump of gathered trees, but it was big enough and wild enough to really look like one. The trees stood so close together, they looked nearly entwined, and vines laden with thick green leaves draped over the lower branches of all of them.

Like clothing, she thought. Or at least robes.

She walked a bit closer, hesitantly. It was definitely on the weird side, running into a forest on her first day out on the grounds. Especially, since she could have sworn she hadn't seen it when she'd been staring out the window all those times. Of course, the corners of the building could very well have hidden it from sight, or the curtains, or the little overhangings the shutters made even when open, rectangles of wood punched out of the landscape. Glancing back, the theory seemed more plausible. That was her window, or was it that one? From that side it would be hard to see, or was it that window?

She thought maybe she could see a tiny flash of pale hair in one of them, and waved at it. Probably it wasn't him, but it was fun thinking, just maybe…

She turned and faced the woods once more. Considered the possibilities. It was hard to see from the outside of the thick clumps of branches what was really inside the forest, but she could see one or two tiny trails leading into it. Squirrels or rabbits or little animals like that. Maybe a family, considering how worn down a few of them looked. And wouldn't it be fun to explore it, maybe climb a tree if the branches were right and wide enough near the ground?

There was a thinner area of vines just in front of her, cascading down the trunk of a tree. It had fallen and landed right smack against another tree, making a sort of triangle of the two trunks. Like a door. Mostly it was covered with leafy branches and vines, making a thick heavy curtain. So, the vines are a kind of ivy. That's what it looks like, anyway. Only what kind of ivy? Flowering or normal or poison? Please don't let it be poison. Please, no poison ivy, period, no no no. And she knew about poison ivy, having come down with a bad case of it once during…during…

Vacation? Or a trip?

Whatever it was, it would be hard to forget the pink, itchy rashes all over her arms and legs. Calamine lotion and oatmeal baths only did so much for it, and she'd been absolutely miserable until it healed. How lucky for her to be extremely allergic to the stuff.

A few steps forward and a hesitant examination showed that the vines were just the normal ivy and honeysuckle, completely harmless and really rather pretty. She reached a hand through and smiled in delight when it passed right through the nearly solid-looking wall of leaves to the other side. Into the forest.

For a moment, as she stood there, arm halfway through the vine curtain, she felt a brief sense of déjà vu, a feeling that another girl who had also been her had once stood before another forest, opening a different sort of gate. The feeling disturbed her enough to make her shiver before pulling back the curtain of vines and stepping, hesitantly, into the shadows in front of her.

It was like a fairy wood, the kind she'd read about in the storybooks up in her room.

Dust motes danced lightly in shafts of sunlight that seemed to stab through the tops of the trees, lighting up patches of forest floor. Tiny circles of pale white toadstools huddled near tree stumps and around the gnarled roots of trees rising from the ground.

And there were flowers everywhere.

They covered the ground in a carpet of dark green and purple, tiny, delicate little things. She recognized them immediately. Violets. There looked to be dozens and dozens of them, multiplying in the sunny areas, shrinking back into the shadowed places. She knelt down to look at them more closely, reached out and brushed a finger against their petals with a smile. She hadn't realized how much she'd been missing flowers.

"Hello."

For one crazy moment, she'd thought the violet had just spoken to her. With a surprised cry, she fell back on her rear, scrabbling against the bark and dirt on the ground as she turned to see the owner of the voice. It was a woman, dressed in a nurse's shift and jacket. She stood directly in the light of the 'doorway', one hand neatly drawing back the curtain of vines.

"H-hello," she managed, staring up. For a second she felt resentful of this slim woman, angry that she'd intruded on the one moment she'd had in someplace that wasn't dingy white and lifeless. Then she realized that, technically, she wasn't supposed to be wandering around this far from view, no matter how beautiful the scenery was. "Er," she said feebly, "I guess you were sent to look for me?"

"You could say that," the woman replied, making her way through the narrow, leaf-strewn path. Up close, she was less intimidating. She was shorter than her, with short brown hair and light brown eyes. Her features suggested that she smiled often, but at the moment her expression was one of calm amusement. "When you suddenly 'disappeared' from view, one of the other nurses sent me out to look for you."

"You're kind of young to be a nurse," she accused. Once the words left her mouth, she realized that she didn't even know how old this woman was.

The other woman laughed, "Yes, I suppose I look it. I've always looked much younger than I actually am. Hopefully, it means that I'll age gracefully," she gave her a brief smile before turning around to view their surroundings. "It is rather lovely in here, isn't it? I don't blame you for wanting to explore," her eyes drifted to where she sat in the dirt.

"Um, yes," she said, feeling as though some reply was necessary. "I didn't know there was one. A forest, I mean. Well, this isn't exactly a forest…I mean, it's really kind of a small one. But the rest of the lawn was very…well, boring, and I really didn't mean to wander so far away, and I'm sorry if I upset anyone."

"Dear, the hospital and grounds seem to be surrounded by a very high iron fence. With a lovely pattern of elaborate curlicues, I noticed. I don't think they're worried about you wandering far away. The head nurse simply noticed your path to the forest, and sent me after you." Without waiting for a reply, she knelt carefully in a small pile of leafs and debris. "Violets, hmm? Very pretty, though not entirely unexpected."

"Unexpected? What do you mean?" Her head was starting to hurt.

"Hmm?" the woman asked, seemingly focused on examining the small purple blossoms, "Oh, for the season. Violets usually bloom in springtime. Crocuses or another kind of wildflower might have been nice as well, but the violets seem to make this place so nicely colorful, don't you think?"

"Oh…yes, I guess so." she watched as the other woman brushed her fingers against the petals of the violets. It looked almost like she was talking to them in some way, petting them like a mother would a child. She didn't seem at all like the distant, hurried nurses and doctors of the hospital. "Er," she said hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"Who are you?"

/I am your/

The woman's mouth formed an 'o' of surprise. "Oh, excuse me! I haven't introduced myself. My name is Michiko Suzuhara. It's a pleasure to meet you," she bowed her head in greeting, sending a few strands of brown hair sliding over her shoulders and covering her face.

"A pleasure to meet you," she stammered, ducking her own head quickly. "I…I don't know my name," she added with an awkward wobble in her voice. She felt faint, almost dizzy. Like the world was swirling around her.

/I am your flowerflowerflowerIam/

"Yes, I heard," said Suzuhara-san's voice from a mile away, "I'm sure I look forward to learning it when you do remember."

Even feeling as though her brain had been put through a juicer and poured back in her head, she could make out the slight emphasis on 'when', and the fact that Suzuhara-san hadn't used 'if'.

"You see, I've also been assigned to you as your new therapist," she continued, "You and the boy you share your room with. I'm sure I'll be delighted to meet him as well."

Suzuhara-san said something after that as well, but unfortunately she had trouble catching it. That was, in fact, the end of their first conversation, as her headache and dizziness suddenly and anticlimactically turned into a full out fainting spell, and she had to be revived and sent straight back to her room.

Two chalky white pills and a nap later, she finally remembered the last words, and puzzled over them as she drank one of the huge glasses of water the nurse had left her. (They'd decided she'd been dehydrated.)

"I've been waiting so long to meet you."

Author's Note: Dear lord, this chapter took forever. I'm sorry for the lack of twenty-something pages as I planned, but I couldn't seem to get the plot to stretch quite that far. Sarasusamiga, I hope you're still reading this, this chapter's for you!