Chasing Yesterday #1
Awakening

JD may not know the truth about her past, but she knows she's in danger, and she can't shake the dark visions haunting her dreams. She won't be safe until she figures out who she is and where she came from. She can trust no one, not even herself--especially not herself. Because it turns out there's one thing even more terrible than forgetting her past: remembering.

   

    Light swallowed the darkness.
    She must have opened her eyes.
    At first, there was nothing but the pain. It began as a low rumble, background noise. It was almost soothing, the way it folded around her like a blanket. It made her mind dull, gave her a place to hide. It throbbed. It hummed. It came in waves, tossing her up, dragging her under, washing over her, carrying her away from herself, from everything.
    But it was growing. Swelling. The rumble turned into a roar. The pain stopped cradling her, began clawing at her, devouring her. It was like a living beast, ripping her apart from the inside, struggling to break free to the outside world. The darkness nipped at the edges of her mind, crawling back, offering her peace, a sleep free of pain.
    And she almost accepted.
    Instead, she screamed.
    Or she tried to. It came out as a moan. But it was enough. The tiniest of motions--opening her mouth, drawing in a breath, tipping her head back to unleash the sound--sent a new, different kind of pain screaming through her. It was sudden and sharp, a knife slicing across her chest. It cut through the dull fog of her mind.     The bright light of the world resolved itself into defined shapes, sharp lines.
    She was awake.
    And, for the first time, she was afraid.
    The light...she realized it was the sun, blazing through a haze of acrid gray smoke. It hurt to squint. It hurt more to look away. She lay on her back, her arms stretched out to her sides. Beneath her, the round felt hard, uneven. Small, sharp objects bored into her back, biting into her skin. Somehow, they made everything real. She was afraid of floating into the darkness again--but they kept her on the ground.
    She couldn't move her head, but she darted her eyes from side to side. Nothing. Nothing but pitted gray cement, smoke, and blue sky.
    Where am I? she thought, her breath rasping as she sucked in more air. There was a tickle at the back of her mind, like a voice she could just barely hear. the answer was there, just beyond her reach. But when she strained for it, the pain came back worse than before.
    Maybe this was all a dream, she decided.
    So she lay still, breathed, and waited to wake up.

    At first, she thought she was imagining him. Shadows flickered at the corners of her eyes--motion, where before there had been only stillness. She thought he was a phantom and waited for him to disappear.
    Instead, he approached. Slowly, like she was a wild animal, like she would bite. Like she could move.
    He was just a silhouette against the sun, his face hidden in shadow. She knew he was coming for her, and she should have felt relieved. But as he stepped closer, she saw his shoes, black leather with shiny gold bars where the laces should be. And she screamed.
    Panic.
    Terror swept through her, without reason and without end. She needed to stand, to run, to escape. Now, her body told her. But she couldn't catch her breath; she couldn't stop shaking.
    And she couldn't run away--she couldn't even sit up. She was too weak.
    She was too terrified.
    I can't stop him. She didn't know where the thought had come from, what it meant, or why she felt so certain it was true. He'll take me back there. It made no sense. Stop him from what? Take her where?
    It's all over now. The voice in her mind was her own, but it knew more than she did, and it was afraid.
    The man drew closer, circling cautiously, almost as if he were the one afraid of her. Her muscles tensed and she opened her mouth, but her throat closed up. She couldn't make a sound. The dark figure was almost on her.
    Then, without warning, the scream of a siren cut through the silence--and the man ran away.
    She never saw his face.

    Now there were people everywhere, and light and noise. And more pain. The man from the ambulance lifted her arms, squeezed her wrist; another shined a flashlight into her eyes. She was poked and prodded, a blanket laid over her body, a mask pressed against her mouth. She panicked as the thick plastic covered her face, but her next breath was deep and fresh, and it gave her the strength to take another.
    Warm hands gripped her on either side, lifted her up, then placed her down on a long, smooth board. They laid thick straps across her body, tied her down.
    Trapped! The panic was back.
    "No," she whispered, forcing her mouth to form the word. "No."
    But the straps clicked shut, were pulled tight. A hand pressed softly against her forehead. She felt herself lifting off the ground, then moving forward, toward the gaping mouth of a white truck. Its sirens flashed, turning the world red, then blue, then red again.
    "Shhh, it's going to be all right," a man said--and somehow she knew it wasn't the dark figure she'd seen before. He was gone. For now. "Do you know what happened?" he asked, leaning over her. His eyebrows were bushy, his eyes deep green. They crinkled at the corners as he tried to smile. "Can you tell us your name?"
    He lifted the mask so she could speak.
    "Do you know who you are, hon?" he asked as, in the distance, an engine roared to life. A door slammed shut, and the ambulance lurched into motion. "Do you know your name?"
    Of course she did.
    It was...
    She was...
    But where there should have been a name, a person, a life, an answer, there was nothing. Her mind was black. Empty.
    "I don't know," she whispered. The words scraped her throat raw. "I don't know who I am."
    And the darkness returned.