I awoke to bright lights. My first reaction was to reach out to hold the unknown hand that had been held up to be but there was no one there. Jasper was not there.
As I regained my consciousness, awareness of my surroundings kicked in. White. That was the first thought. Then the waves and waves of sound. The beeping of the machines, the humming of the fans. Everything in this room had an aim, knew its purpose. Well everything if you didn't count me. What was I doing here?
A nurse walked in, startled by my state of consciousness. "You're awake. I'll fetch a doctor."
I frowned as a headache started at the back of my head. It started as a dull ache, slowing building as my entire vision went fuzzy.
Throb.
A sympathetic looking doctor was smiling at me. But there was no one in the room. A picture flickered in and out of my mind
Throb.
There was another picture.
The doctor was trying to smile comfortingly, twenty years of his job showing through his dull skin. Stress was not good for your skin - that much was evident.
Throb.
He reached out to pat me.
As the pain subsided a little, my eyes flew open, and the golden eyes that I had woken up to brought me back. Well, this was an out of body experience if I had ever had one. How peculiar. Even in my state of unknowingness, I knew that this kind of thing was most certainly not common.
"Good Morning." Cheerful, far too cheerful considering the fact that I had either amnesia or was a Martian, with amnesia. It was then that I spotted the polystyrene cup of coffee and understood. Coffee good. It teased me from the end of this lump bed. He flipped open the chart, tapping his chin as he thought. It was a quirk I quite admired. "My name is Dr. Samuel. You are in the infirmary. How are you feeling?"
For some reason, I decided to ignore the headache and lie. "Great." My voice was cheerful and I knew that I must have been a great liar in my past life.
He was fussing with the machines beside my bed. "Do you remember anything at all? Your name?"
"I don't know." The words came out like a croak.
"Well..." The doctor tied to do that strange grimace again, like the one I had seen him do in my head, each throb of pain bringing a fresh new image. "Do you remember anything, anything at all?"
The doctor smiled, pouring me a glass of water. I took it gingerly, not sipping it. This was strange. Very strange. "Three months ago, you had an accident. You were a passenger. Paramedics found you trapped in the truck having had suffered a high impact blow to the head. You were brought here." Skimming the details. Hmmm.
"And this memory thing? Will it last?" Where was Jasper? Why was he not here?
"It is very likely; that with the kind of damage you had that recollection of your past life may take a long time. You just have to be patient." I wasn't sure if patience was a trait I possessed or not.
But...there was always a but.
"But what?"
The doctor stared at me. "There is a possibility that you may never regain your memory."
I tried to process all this information. "No one came for me?"
He patted me briefly. "Rest. Don't try..."
The pain in my head intensified as I echoed his words. "Don't try to move too soon to fast. Take it slow."
The doctor just stared at me again. His beeper broke our silence and intense eye contact. "I have to go. Think about what I said." The door clicked shut behind him.
Thinking about what he had said wasn't really an option. I stared at the white bars on the frosted windows of the white room. I sensed a theme. Who had I been in a past life? What had I done to be caged up like an animal, to be trapped in my own prison?
The door was locked; I knew that just by looking at the ominous metal that wasn't just there for decoration.
Throb.
The door was slightly open now.
Throb.
Security guards running, smoke.
Throb.
Dr Samuel was shouting, his mouth frozen in time, ash smeared over his face.
Throb.
Nothing but woods.
The throbbing stopped.
I sat and waited. And waited. Seconds passed, then minutes. These pictures...I didn't know what they were, only that they were a fact. I remembered reading a paper once, something about selective recall. The human mind was subjective, and memory – selective memory, was a human mechanism to protect. I frowned. Protect me against what?
The golden eyes came to mind. Jasper. As I focused on those eyes and slowly branched out, I recalled the shock of blonde hair, the straight nose, the sharp cheekbones and the strong jaw. This was different to those pictures I had seen. This was less sharp, but not vague. It was soft, less detailed. It wasn't something I could have made up. Jasper. No, he wasn't the danger. He was the answer.
I looked to the window again. It was sunny outside. When would what I has seen become true? It was only time, if my previous experience with the doctor was anything to go by.
I didn't wait long. Alarms sounded, loud and piercing. It was an almost welcome disturbance to the deathly quiet and machine beeps I had been forced to endure. Doors slammed outside, as people shouted. Panic. I sat on my bed, pulling off the wires that had been taped to me. It was liberating. The door clicked open. "Orderly line." The person shouted. I shuffled out slowly, my slippers making noises against the linoleum floor. It was cold.
As I followed the line moving silently but swiftly towards light that wasn't artificial, I smiled.
This was it.