Darkness. It surrounds me. I can't see my hands or feet. It is just a pure abyss. Words don't come out when I try to speak, they remain just thoughts in my mind. It's silent, quiet. And it's cold. So cold. Where am I?
Who am I?
There is a sound, a whisper - the sound of splashing. It sounds familiar like water hitting the shore. It's soothing. A pitter-patter of something cold kisses my skin, slowly bringing me to realize that I can feel.
"Come on!" A voice rings through the abyss. It echoes. It's a smooth voice, belonging to a male, but it isn't familiar to me. Pain explodes in my head, starting from the back until it envelops me completely. It throbs like a heartbeat.
Thump, thump-thump, thump.
"Wake up!" The voice gets louder. This time sounding closer and doesn't echo.
Am I asleep? Is that why I am surrounded by darkness?
A heaviness pushes on my chest. I inflate and deflate. Inflate and deflate. And the pushing continues. The sound of a vacuum sucks up the abyss. A faint gray light spreads in front of me. I try to move my right hand to shield my eyes from the light, but nothing comes of it. Like a light turning on, my eyes open, and rain falls down onto my face. Something catches in my throat. I can't breathe. My face feels tight and hot. Rolling over, I cough heavily, gagging to get whatever it is out of my throat. A stream of water exits my mouth the more I cough. There is a gentle pounding on my back. It helps push the rest of the water out of my system. My face rubs against the smooth surface of rocks and pebbles. Nearby, waves of the ocean collide with the shore.
It is cold. So cold. My body quivers and shakes without my control. A hand grabs my left arm and tugs me onto my back. Above me is a young man, maybe sixteen of age, with long black hair that sticks to him like a second skin. He's soaked from head to toe. He has the most beautiful russet skin, smooth and taut, and chocolate brown eyes that look worriedly down at me.
"You okay?" He asks. It is the same voice I heard in the abyss, echoing to me, telling me to wake up. He softly rubs his hands along my arms that shiver under his touch, warming me up in just the slightest. My teeth chatter and I can't respond. When I don't reply, his brows furrow into a V and an intense concern formats on his young face.
I close and open my eyes, they burn from the salt in the air. I inhale deeply and my lungs ache and my throat throbs. My head feels like it's about to burst. But with all that, I place my left hand on the ground and lift myself into a sitting position. My head pulses treacherously. My right hand shoots up to my temple to try and stop the pain, but it is futile. It takes a minute for the pain to slowly fade.
Questions litter my mind.
Why do I hurt? Where am I? How'd I get here?
I try to think back but only a blank fills my thoughts. Nothing before.
"Dumb question," he says. "You must have hit your head. What were you doing up there to begin with? Jumping from that height almost always leads to getting hurt or death." He looks me over, examining my body. My whole being feels battered, but scrapes and bruises collect on my skin.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
The V in between his eyes deepens, and his lips part. He points off to my right and I look to see a high cliff being beaten by dangerous clouds are a dark gray and the rain drops heavy pellets of water. The storm is making the waves relentless.
"You jumped from that cliff."
"I don't remember…." I admit.
"What do you remember?"
I bite my bottom lip, looking down at my hands that rest on the surface of gray and white rocks. "Nothing. I remember nothing." My eyes look into his, and my head shakes slowly.
The concern on his face explodes into alarm. "Please tell me you remember who you are."
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and focus on anything beyond the blankness of my mind. Nothing. Nothing comes to me. I shake my head frantically, only doubling the pain of my head. "Ah," I hiss, pressing my right hand back against my temple. "No, I don't."
"Okay," He starts, but his eyes scream he doesn't know what to do. He looks around uncomfortably, making my nerves rise within me. "Let's get you to the clinic."
He helps me up but with every movement, my head throbs even more. Groans of pain leave my lips. He wraps a muscular arm around my waist and pulls me against his body for support. My right hand finds its way to his stomach where underneath his shirt I can feel the muscles of his abdomen tense. My cheeks feel warm, and instead of resting my hand on his stomach for support, I let it sway at my side. I try to use as much strength to walk upright along with him, but my head rolls against his shoulder, and another groan passes between my lips.
"Maybe I will take you to my dad instead," he says. "It's closer and then we can drive you to the clinic."
His words barely get through to me as my brain scrambles to piece all that has happened and what may have happened before this. It's heavy on my mind, the confusion and uncertainty, especially about who I am. How can I forget who I am?
'Furiae…' A woman's voice whispers in the back of my mind. It frightens me for a brief second, causing me to pause in my tracks and earn a confused glance from the young man. My eyes dart all over his face as if searching for an answer to what I just heard. 'Furiae…' She continues. Her voice is angelic, smooth as silk, and has my heart pitter-pattering when I hear it, but it still frightens me because I don't know who or what it is.
"I think my name is Furiae."
"You think? Where'd you get that from?" He questions, leading the walk once again towards a forest.
I am not sure bringing up that I am hearing voices would be a good idea. "It just came to me."
My feet drag beneath me, gathering up pine needles, dead leaves, and sticks as I go along. I try my best to avoid tripping over roots that stick out from the ground but the young man has saved me twice from falling when I failed to do so.
Once through the stretch of the forest, we reach a paved road that on the opposite side is towered over by another wall of forest. We walk along the road for a short bit until we reach an opening in the forest, at which he helps me walk down a dirt road to a small red house with a white door that has a ramp in front of it.
"Furiae," he says fluently. "That's a unique name. My name is Jacob by the way, but you can call me Jake."
"Is it - my name I mean, it's unique?"
"I've never heard of it." He guides me up the ramp to the door and then opens it, alerting a man in a wheelchair who rolls out from the back of the house.
"Hey Dad, I saved this girl. She jumped from the cliffs and must have hit her head pretty hard. She doesn't remember who she is or how she got here."
"And you brought her here?" His father questions, raising a peppered brow.
"She's in pain. I didn't think we could walk all the way to the clinic."
He stares at the two of us for a short while, both of us struggling to stand in place as he evaluates the situation. He lets out a sigh and nods his head towards a brown couch sitting on the right of the house in front of a small television.
We walk over to the couch in unison, where Jake helps me sit down slowly. He comes ahead of me where a coffee table stands and sits on top of it; it creaks under his weight.
"Furiae, this is my dad, Billy," Jake introduces. Billy rolls up to the left side of the couch.
"Furiae? Thought she couldn't remember who she is?" He questions.
"It just came to me while we were walking," I answer.
He glances at the both of us suspiciously, but then he turns his chair back towards the kitchen and rides on over to a phone above the counter. "I'll call the clinic and see if someone can come over to check up on her."
Jake nods to his father and smiles at me with pearly white teeth. "Don't worry, everything will be okay," he promises.
"Other than a minor concussion, she is suffering from anterograde amnesia," claims Doctor Dave, who has just finished examining my eyes and ears. He has gorgeous long black hair similar to Jake's, but his is pulled back into a ponytail. He is wearing a doctor's jacket and smells like disinfectant. He must have come from home because underneath the jacket are your typical stay-at-home clothes. He gently grabs my chin and moves my head from left to right, watching my expression as it changes from okay to painful, depending on the direction my head sits. "She's going to need to stay up for some time. Make sure she doesn't fall asleep for a couple of hours."
"But what about her memories?" Jake asks.
"That's the thing. Her concussion is what caused the memory loss. It can last hours, days, or even weeks before she may get her memories back. They may come slowly or all at once. It can be a little shocking when they return all at once," Doctor Dave addresses. "Does she have a place she can stay? Maybe take her to the hospital in Forks?"
Jake and Billy look at one another. Jake is the first to nod his head while Billy shakes his. Billy lets out an irritated sigh. "She can stay here. I'll take a picture of her and deliver it to the hospital just in case anyone is coming to look for her."
My eyes widen. I know it'd be a burden for them if I stay, after all, they don't know me, so how can they trust me? I can't complain. Staying here would be better than staying at a hospital.
"Alright, I will take my leave. If anything gets worse, have her taken to the hospital," Doctor Dave says. He clamps shut a black leather bag he brought, grabs it by the handles, and heads for the door. Once he's gone, Jake scoots in front of me and pats my kneecap reassuringly.
"I'm going to get you some clothes to change into. You can stay in my room."
He gets up, nods to his father, and walks down a thin hall. He disappears into a room.
"You really can't remember anything?" Billy asks.
"I know what things are like, that's a television," I point to the black box with a glass front across the room. "You're in a wheelchair, that sort of stuff."
"Ah, well, when you're dressed and cleaned up, I will take a picture of you and send it to the hospital in Forks. I will also send it to the police station just in case someone comes looking for you."
"Thank you," I reply softly, trying my best to smile. It is hard to smile for some reason - my heart isn't in it like it should be.
The room is dark and warm. The small cot of a bed I am laying on is a little uncomfortable, but it beats sleeping on a couch or the floor. After taking a shower, getting dressed, and having my pictures taken. We sat quietly and ate dinner. They kept their eyes on me the entire time until night fell - a few hours later, and here I am.
I am finally allowed to fall asleep, but I am finding it impossible. Rolling over, the blanket catches under my arm and tugs along with me. The scent of bark, campfire, and mints fills my senses. Even though it's cold outside, I push the blanket down and off my body. For some unknown reason, a sticky sheet of sweat covers me. I rest on my side and stare into the darkness of Jake's tiny room. I can see the shapes and figures of the furniture and junk on the floor.
It is almost silent. There is a faint ticking of a clock coming from the living room, which I can hear from the door being slightly open. A soft creaking noise breaks the quiet. My eyes dart to the door and notice a silhouette in the doorway. Sitting up, my heart races and my breathing stops.
"Don't worry, it's me," whispers Jake. I can't see him through the darkness, only his outline that moves over to the side of the bed. When his face is finally clear to me, I relax, and lie back down.
"Sorry," I mutter quietly.
"For what? You did nothing wrong," he whispers back.
"What are you doing here?" I ask. The question feels a little weird, given that this is his room.
"Honestly, I don't know. Something just felt right coming in here," he says, giving a small shrug that I can just barely see,
There is a second of silence between us, and after another passes, Jake lies down on the floor. I observe him, wondering if he'd get any comfort out the wooden floor. The moonlight beams through the small window behind me, down at Jake just enough for me to see a wide smile.
"Oh, tomorrow my friend Bella is coming over to help me continue building some bikes. If you're feeling up to it, would you like to join?"
I shrug. "Sure."
"Bella is pretty cool, I think you'll like her," Jake breathes.
Another moment of silence, except for the 'tick, tick, tick,' of the clock.
He leans up on one elbow and looks me dead in the eyes. "Are you sure you can't remember anything? Nothing at all?"
It bothers me a little how much I am being asked the same question, as if no one believes me when I say it. But I can't be angry at Jake. There is something about the softness of his eyes and the subtle frown that makes me want to reach out and comfort him. He truly wants to know. Closing my eyes, I try again to focus within the darkness of my mind for any sort of memory, imagery, or even sounds, but nothing comes up. Silently, I shake my head and sigh.
"That sucks. Not knowing who you are, where you came from, and where your family is. I only hope that the reason you were jumping off that cliff was because you wanted to have fun and not wanting to harm yourself. Not sure if you'd want to remember your past if the latter is true," he lies back down on the ground.
I stare blankly up at the white ceiling, the darkness taking over the edges of my vision. Why was I jumping off a cliff? Was it really for recreational purposes? Or was there a darker reason for it? There is silence between us for a few minutes before I hear the soft sound of snoring coming from the side of the cot. Rolling over, I see Jake laying on his side towards me, his arm underneath his head, eyes closed, and passed out. I can't imagine it being comfortable, but he makes it look easy to fall asleep on the hardwood floor.
I smirk, rolling onto my back and stare up at the ceiling once again. At least I am safe here.