7. I Should Be More Afraid…
Yoko Suzuki sat up in her bed in a cold sweat gasping for breath. The darkness of the room surprised her, at first giving her the impression she was dead. She sat up, holding her throbbing head and trying to figure out where she was, her head spinning nearly out of control. She called out for somebody, anybody, but the darkness gave no answer. Slowly and carefully she climbed out of the bed, and with her hands she felt her way into another room, this one with a light switch. She flicked the switch on, and was startled to see another person staring back at her.
But no, it wasn't somebody else. It was her reflection.
Her reflection stood in the bathroom wearing a plain white t-shirt and gym shorts, staring back at her in a sense of wonderment. She didn't recognize herself.
She looked in the sink, and noticed long bits of dark hair strewn about the counter top, a pair of scissors resting beside them suggestively. She put her hands on her short hair. Is this mine? She asked herself, feeling as if the answer was in the back of her head just out of reach. Why, she wondered, but stopped herself halfway through after noticing something else on the sink.
She lifted a small bottle of pills and looked at them closely, seeing only a blur; she couldn't see very well. She put the bottle down and searched the bathroom for more clues, then found two small containers; a pair of glasses, and contact lenses.
The lenses fit perfectly.
She looked at the bottle again, and though the medical jargon on the label seemed strangely familiar to her she couldn't discern what it meant. Or maybe she didn't want to.
She made her way back to the dark room, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. It appeared to be a typical apartment that overlooked the streets of Raccoon City. She searched until she found a small lamp, which she quickly turned on. Around the room were various scientific books that seemed very familiar to her, but for some reason she couldn't grasp why and the puzzle itched and poked at the back of her brain.
A more thorough search revealed to her a backpack, the label Raccoon U on its front. She searched through it a bit and found a key card deep within it, a picture of a young girl with dark shoulder length hair, thick glasses and an orange uniform, the symbol of an Umbrella emblazoned on it. The girl's name was Yoko Suzuki.
Who is Yoko Suzuki? She thought to herself, the itch at the back of her mind growing increasingly irritable.
She then looked at the card again. Umbrella, she thought. What is that? She brought the card key over to the mirror, looked at the picture again, then compared it to herself.
Is that me? Is my name Yoko?
She felt so confused she began to panic. Never before had she experienced something like this. She couldn't remember anything.
Yoko stuffed the card key in her backpack and paced around the room, looking for anything she could find that would refresh her memory. But aside from the various stacks of books, she found no other piece to the puzzle she was struggling with.
But for some reason, the name Umbrella stuck out to her.
"Umbrella," she said out loud, hoping in some way that the verbal recitation would bring about some sort of mental image, anything at all.
Nothing.
As any person in a similar situation would be inclined to, Yoko felt a flurry of panic and frustration overcome her being. She started to consider whether she was mad, insane, and everything in the room was a figment dreamt up in her mind. Yes, maybe that was it; she was dreaming, it was all a horrible nightmare.
She pinched herself hard, leaving a mark, and yelped loudly at the pain. She sighed dejectedly to discover that, for the moment, this was her reality.
She gave another look out to the city, it's lights glimmering in the still young darkness of the night; the sun had just recently set, and the lights of the distant football stadium shone brightly. Maybe the city, she thought. Maybe if I see the city, I will remember.
Quickly she searched out the closet, and instinctively pulled out a pair of blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and brown dress shirt. She realized that the manner in which she did this felt completely natural, as if she had done so a million times before, even to the point she could do it in near darkness, as the closet sat in the far end of the room which had yet to be lit by the small lamp. Maybe this really was her room, she thought.
After dressing herself, she searched the pockets of her jeans and found a key, which fit the door to the apartment perfectly. She found it hard to think now that this wasn't her room. She strapped the backpack on and locked the room.
She made her way to the streets of Raccoon City, which was bustling with life. Cautiously she walked down the sidewalk, glancing at the passersby hoping she may recognize somewhat, or maybe the other way around. She turned the corner and looked down the street, the sense of déjà vu she had hoped to acquire entirely absent.
Suddenly she felt a shove from behind her and fell to her knees, putting her hands out in front of her instinctively to avoid hitting the sidewalk face first. She looked up and saw a skinny, black man wearing a purple uniform looking down at her.
"Oh shit," he said. "Sorry bout that girl, you're a tiny thing aren't ya!"
The man put out a hand, offering his aid to her, and reluctantly she received it.
"Whoa," the man said as he helped her up. "Damn girl, you alright? Looks like you scraped up your hands pretty badly, sorry bout that!"
Yoko looked at her palms, which in fact had been bruised in her fall, one of them bleeding slightly.
"We got ta' stitch you up, woman! Can't allow a cute lil' Chinese girl like you go around with cuts on her tiny hands. That just ain't right!"
"A bathroom," she said. "Where is a bathroom?" Her stomach began to churn. "I feel sick."
"Hey," the man said. "I know I bumped you pretty hard, but c'mon it wasn't that bad!"
"Please," she begged. "I have to go to a bathroom."
"Okay okay," the man said. "I'm on my way somewhere that's got a bathroom. You can clean yo hands there, make sure they don't get infected or some shit, and this nice white girl can fix you up. Used to be a nurse or somethin'."
"Thank you," she said as the man lead the way.
"By the way, what's your name girly?" the man said.
She hesitated, then responded, "Yoko. Suzuki."
"Good to meet ya, Yoko!" the man said cheerfully. "The name's Jim Chapman! I work at the subway. It's no glorious job or anythin', but it gets me through, and I get to throw out my jams while I'm conductin' shit! Once I got some playah hatah all up in my shit though, tellin' me I should play more attention. But then I tell em' to just sit their grumpy ol' asses down and let Jim handle the train, it's his job after all!"
Jim reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a shiny coin, then flipped it into the air, caught it, and glanced at it in the palm of his hand.
"Heads. Good! Looks like you'll be bringin' me some sort of good luck today, Miss Suzuki!"
"What do you mean?"
"Luck my lady, it's what keeps the world moving! And it's what keeps ol' Jim chuggin' along as well. Maybe it's luck that we met. Or maybe ol' Jim's been sniffin' the white fairy dust a lil' too much! Either way, Jim's lucky coin is tellin' me you're alright!"
"Are you often lucky?"
"Sometimes," Jim responded. "We'll just hafta see what happens now, don't we? It'll be cool my Asian princess, don't you worry nothin' bout it!"
Jim then pulled out a small puzzle booklet and flipped the pages, grabbing a pencil he used as a place-holder, and jotted down something.
"Man," he complained. "This one's been givin' me problems all day, and I still can't get it. It's the last one I need, though. What's another word for amoeba? Hell, what IS an amoeba?"
"Amoeba," Yoko dictated with a strange expertise. "Any of various one-celled protozoans that lack permanent cell organs and occur especially in water and soil. Try protozoan, or paramecium." How did she know that?
With a dumbfounded look on his face, Jim measured the spaces required and the letters already established, confirming the accuracy of Yoko's dictation.
"Holy shit," he said gleefully. "That's right! Damn woman, where were you during my biology test! You're like a thesaurus, I bet you can fill three a' these books up in no time!"
Yoko giggled at Jim's compliment.
"Well," Jim said with hands outstretched as if he had just arrived at the Taj Mahal. "Here we are!"
Before the two stood none other than J's Bar, it's flickering sign welcoming one and all. Jim opened the door for Yoko and the two stepped inside, the busy noises of the city streets replaced with blaring jazz guitar from the jukebox in the back of the bar.