Disclaimer: Ooh, it gets exciting here, and you're gonna hate me for it! Oh, yeah. I don't own what you recognize, should be nothing but characters at this point. Hey, do they seem OOC to you guys? I'm trying my hardest not to make them as such, but it's getting harder...

Chapter 13: Remembrance of Things Past

Part 1

Anastasia
oOo

Location: Unknown
City Population: Unknown
Current time: Unknown
Current date: Unknown
Current alias: Unknown

The white ceiling whizzing past me was too much to understand.

The doctors shouting to each other and, apparently, at me, were too much to comprehend.

The memories of what happened were too blurry, all like a dream, fuzzy around the edges, like clouds. Too… impossible to believe.

It didn't even seem understandable when my brain decided that I had had enough unconsciousness for a while.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Oh, shut the hell up you goddamn machine."

"What?"

"I said shut up you goddamn machine!"

"I'm not a machine."

"Yes you are."

"Open your eyes and see for yourself."

I did. I quickly shut them again.

"Goddamn machine is talking to me. Shut it up."

"Anastasia, I'm not a goddamn machine!"

"What?"

"Just… nevermind. Fine."

I lay there for a while, listening. The steady beeping, the unsteady beeping, the thumps and wails coming from elsewhere in the building consuming me, wandering deep within my thoughts and memories, looking for a place to reside.

"Machines can't talk," I finally noted after who-knows-how-long.

"No, they can't."

"Then why was it talking?"

"It wasn't. I was."

"Who is you?"

"Jack. Jack Wilder. Remember me?"

My eyes seemed to open on their own accord. My head moved a little, trying to propel the rest of my body upright, but everything hurt. Everything right down to my appendix, and I wasn't even sure if that could hurt.

"Come here so I can see you."

I heard a chair scraping a little, then a hand sliding along the metal rail of the side of the bed. A boy, with a tousled bunch of chocolate hair atop his head and worried caramel eyes peered down at me, dressed clad in a black leather jacket and gray t-shirt and faded blue jeans.

It took me a minute to make any sound. "You do look familiar. Who is you?"

oOo

Doctors were running around once again, lights were being shined into my eyes, people were poking me and asking where it hurt, needles were being stuck into my arms and more bags filled with fluids were being added to the racks lined up behind my bed by the minute. The boy who had introduced himself as… something (why couldn't I remember it? I felt like I should) was sitting with four other people that I didn't recognize, either.

"How do you feel, Miss Rhodes?"

"I don't know. Ask your goddamn machine. It keeps beeping at me, but apparently it can't talk. Because machines can't talk."

"No, they can't."

"And it wasn't talking to me."

"No, it wasn't."

"You're annoying."

"You're delirious," the doctor noted.

"You're mean."

The only person that spoke to me was a man, the one that I had vague memories of, maybe when I was very small child. Just a newborn, still in the hospital. I couldn't remember a mother, a father, anything; just a fuzzy image of a face that looked like his but younger, less worried.

"Anastasia, do you know who I am?"

I stared at him for a long time, trying to tie a name to the face. "D… Darian? Declan? No, Dylan?" His face lit up at that. "Dylan? It sounds familiar…"

His composure fell when I said that-I wasn't blind-and I couldn't begin to describe the incredible guilt and sorrow that followed. "I'm sorry! I don't know why I can't remember who you are, but you obviously know me. I remember somebody like you when I was just a little baby, maybe in a hospital? But nothing after that." Something clicked inside my head, but it wasn't much. "You wrote to me, wherever I was, and then you stopped, and I never..."

A sudden pounding within my skull kept me from saying more.

"Anastasia?"

"Miss Shrike?"

"Anastasia, what's wrong?"

The voices became garbled and fused together, my vision began to blacken and all my other senses started to fade away. Someone was calling my name, probably multiple people, actually, but I only heard one. Like they were all put together.

"Anastasia? Anastasia, please wake up. Stay strong. Anastasia, wake up!"

Part 2

Nothing seemed to be taking a form, taking a shape. There was a white haze everywhere, as if I were in a cloud. Images flew past me, far off, and rather like a dream. I couldn't understand them, couldn't make out what they were, much less what they meant.

There was a voice in my ear, angelic, smooth as silk, calling to me.

"You don't belong. Go back. Go back. You don't belong, don't belong, don't belong..."

It became unintelligible, and I struggled to hear it more. Nothing came for a moment, and then it seemed as though it might be... Something like a humming? No, a beeping. A flat, monotone, singular beeping.

A jolt. I felt a jolt, and I heard about her beep, then another. And I was once more in a place of peace, where nothing could bother me. Not a white, angelic haze as of before, but a black that could only have come from unconsciousness.

There was no light after I woke from it, save for the silver of a thin moon floating in from the outside, though I took no notice. There were no other lights on except for a few green and red dots... And screens with lines moving around... And... Too much light. No, no, too much light, too much light!

"Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!"

Nobody answered me. I was alone, in this strange place with the too many lights and the too many sounds and the too clean smell. Alone.

The nurse was running in now, asking me questions to which I grumbled out what seemed like unviable answers, most finding that I couldn't remember what I should be able to say. My head hurt. Everything hurt. I informed the nurse of this at some point, and she exchanged a tube from a bag hanging on a rack beside my bed for another tube from a bag hanging on a rack beside my bed. There was darkness once more and I felt no pain.

I don't know how much time went on like this, but I was hardly ever awake, hardly ever asleep, and always somewhere in between. The nurses seemed kind, considering how much I complained whenever I got the chance, which never seemed often enough for my liking.

The day I finally woke up, I realized how cold I was. I had learned somehow that when I could, there was a button next to me that lay there and didn't move, and if I pressed it, a nurse or a doctor or somebody would come running.

And so I pressed it. Nothing.

Again, and still nothing.

Again, again, again, again, again until finally somebody burst through the boring wooden door, panting heavily, looking mussed and tired and only mildly annoyed.

"I'm cold," I croaked hoarsely, and the look on her face was as though I had just presented her with a holy freakin' medal. Made of gold with platinum edges and everything.

"You're awake?"

"Of I'm bloody awake, woman! Why else would I be telling you I'm cold?!" She was already rushing to a closet and heaping blankets onto me, keeping careful not to yank the tubes in my arms.

There were more doctors running in the doors and they were talking and there were people clambering at the door to be let in and they were being ushered out and I had no idea what was going on, but I still wasn't going under.

"How do you feel, Miss Shrike?" one doctor asked me, and I let a small smirk form on my face.

"Like I got run over by a truck. And then it decided to reverse and then I got struck by lightening."

The doctor laughed a little. Though it seemed nervous and relieved all at once. "How's my face? It feels black and blue." I continued.

"It is, but it's getting better. It's a lovely yellow-green color now, if that helps any, and we took care of all the cuts. You have a high-level grade three concussion, however."

"That's good. That's good." I paused, thinking. "What happened to me? Where am I?"

"What do you remember?" asked the doctor.

"Umm…" Images flashed before my eyes like a flip book filled with different scenes and times. I only caught a few of them and managed to blurt them out. "I was… hanging. Handcuffs and chains were holding me up. First spiked ones and then electric. Something happened to my hands, I think. I can't close them all the way."

He nodded in confirmation. "It should only be temporary nerve damage, from the puncture wounds that is. We would have operated had we thought it best for the recovery, but just natural healing with some help from us is what's looking to be our best option.

Trying to nod hurt too much, so I simply continued with what I could remember before it went away again. "And somebody was there… an older man. I knew him. I hated him."

"Do you remember anything else? Like what his name was or where he is now? We've asked your friends, and they know next to nothing about him."

"He… Devil. He was the Devil." I looked at him thoughtfully. "Tell me what happened to me." His face was hesitant, and like he was about to say that he couldn't. "Please."

He sighed in response, a long, heavy, dreary sound. "You were tortured, Miss Shrike. You're at the Oculus Memorial Hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania. We're specially for Eye agents not available to anyone on the outside." The Eye? "You're friends brought you here when they found you, from what I gathered."

"Hmm. Interesting. Interesting." I paused again for a little while, still compensating. The doctor was walking away, figuring that I was done talking. "How's my face? It feels black and blue."

He turned back to me, and I strained my neck to look at him. "Miss Shrike, I just told you this. We fixed up the crack in your jaw and took care of your busted lip and the strike wounds. You hit your temple pretty hard at some point and are thought to have a grade three concussion."

"Hmm. Good, good... Where am I?"