Dating : Amnesia CWC3

Day 5: you wake up with no memories at all, you only have an envelope to help you remember.

Darkness. That’s how it all began.

Soft warmth caressed my cheek, bringing me back to consciousness. Behind my closed eyelids, the total darkness developed a faded orange hue. Drowsiness corroded my joints as I struggled to turn from my side onto my belly, my hand instinctively reaching for something next to my head but found nothing.

Begrudgingly I opened my eyes only to close them again. The sunshine broke through a cracked window like spears of heavenly light to daze me. I looked the other way and reopened them.

Old yet familiar wall stood few centimeters away from me, giving a reciprocating blank stare. That familiarity triggered something inside my skull, an urge to remember where I saw it. That urge only managed to intensify a subtle headache I mistook for sleepiness.

“Huh?” was the best I could manage to ask as a few dozen questions bounced all over my confused brain. Yet, one thought resurfaced above all others: “I can’t think”

Taking only a moment to realize how stupid the statement was, I reformulated it for what my low intelligence tried to actually say: “I can’t remember anything.”

Yet again, the idea felt lacking “Well if I can’t remember then how can I think? I’m thinking right now, using words and a language I remember. Words, where did I learn that? Where did I learn to to question? And where did I learn to learn? What the fuck.” and for whatever reason the last expression felt familiarly good to express my feelings.

I jolted up, looking around me, wondering why that was my initial reaction among other questions clouding my mind.

“Hands. Body. Room. Bed. English” my train of thought became chaotic as a rush of words, meanings and feelings began to overload my senses. I stared at everything as if it was the first time, but yet I knew it wasn’t.

Confusion, excitement and alertness, I felt like a squirrel on drugs. Images of both appeared over a screen I can’t touch. More images, more questions and more answers made my head spin as my eyes fluttered.

“Lightheaded.” I thought, remembering the term to another terms; symptoms “Symptoms, panic attack, cure, hospital, nurse, woman, man, penis, tits.” and the last evoked a pleasant feeling that stuck for a moment before more words and images hammered my skull into a pulp.

Knowing that I already forgot what the room I was in looked like, despite staring at it, I kept my head on the pillow. Conserving my energy, my eyes closed again, my breathing slowing down while my head disobeyed any order to stop the process.

After several hours, drifting in and out of consciousness, my brain power finally came to a grinding halt. The excitement, adrenaline and thoughts began to fade away, finally allowing less philosophical questions to make themselves be heard.

“Who am I?” I pondered “I was born, to a woman.” my memory was exhausted, and the images were less clear now “I can’t see her face, but I know I care. Do I? Should I? My head…”

It took me several more minutes before I left my bed, looking at the room around me but this time without distraction.

“It feels very lacking, not that I have a comparison or reference to what a full room is, but I can imagine. Or is that a memory? I mean, I can clearly see a furnished room, is this what I know as creativity? Made up by my own imagination? Or because I saw this place?”

The room was indeed simple. A bad, a door, four walls and a room, a closed window and a table. On the table sat a bottle of water, and a huge crave for drinking it rang my bells; thirst.

As I finished drinking, an activity I recognize as an essential part of survival, there was something else I didn’t notice before.

“An envelope. Correspondence, a letter, a message, someone saying something to someone else not in sounds, in writing. Something is also off with how I’m thinking, it’s not smooth as I feel like it should be. I sound stupid, I think.”

Opening the letter, there was letters, documents and pictures. Something told me that the letter came first in order of my attention, but my curiosity clearly wanted to see the pictures first.

Picture after another, each taking a few dozen seconds to look upon, faces and places were painful to see. The line between what could be a memory and what is a byproduct of imagination was very blurred. I could not tell if I knew the people or want to feel like I do. Do I remember the places or imagine being there. More headache.

After going through the forty or so pictures, I switched my attention to the letter.

‘Dear Alex,

I’m sure you have plenty of questions right about now. That being if our estimation of memory recovery is correct and you have the intellect to read this. Granted, you must also be feeling very exhausted and spent but it is to be expected.

How I know this is not important — helping with your recovery is. So allow me to answer some of the immediate questions with a promise on a follow up soon.

Where are you? You’re in an abandoned project building in Miami, USA.

How did you get here? You were abducted.

Why? We’ve been following you for quite some time and the way you think is something we need, and as you regain more of your memories, it’s something you want.

Who are you? Alexander Borgia, 26 years old from Austria, more details in your birth certificate enclosed in this envelope.

Why is your memory scrambled? You went under a surgery that I can’t discuss at length until you’re mind recovers. The process is complex and as I mentioned, you must be very exhausted by recovering the basics of human concepts. I assure you, you will have more answers but for now, do not let it drain you further.

When will we give you more answers? In a day’s time. You’ll find food and more water under your bed to get you through this day and night (it should be morning when you wake up, if our estimations are correct). By tomorrow, the door will be knocked and opened, so do not be afraid, we’ll be there to help.

I know this doesn’t answer all your questions, but I hope it’s enough to alleviate some of the burden off your chest — or well, mind. Spend the day reading the documents enclosed with this letter, and you’ll know more about the people and places in the pictures.

Until tomorrow,

Your new family.’

I stood there in silence, looking at the letter for few moments, for the first time since I awoke; my mind and feelings were blank. And despite all of the memories, this letter, these revelations, I felt like I was left in the darkness still. But that’s how it all began.