I tried to scream, but the sound was muffled. The attacker outweighed me as I struggled to get free, and the line of the IV in my hand tugged as I fought, causing my hand to scream in pain.
I couldn’t see the face; it was completely shrouded by fabric, but hate rolled off them. The more I fought, the calmer the person became, until they shifted, sat up, and brought down the second hand to pinch my nose closed.
My eyes shot open. They were suffocating me!
This was murder!
Opening my mouth, I did the only thing I could and bit down into the hand as hard as possible.
The person gave a muffled, low cry and wrenched away. I twisted from beneath them, kicking them in the chest as I went. The person fell back against the bed, and I rushed forward, literally dragging the IV stand behind me as I wrenched open the door and collapsed into the hallway.
“Help me!” I screamed.
The hallway was no longer lit up. The nurses I saw before were missing. It was oddly still and oddly quiet now.
I was alone. With a killer.
“Help!” I screamed again. The way the plea echoed down the long, lonely corridor was not hopeful.
I turned when I heard the assailant behind me. They stood hunched over in the doorway. Without saying a single word, they lifted their finger and pointed at me… just pointed and said nothing at all.
“No!” I screamed, back-crawling farther down the hallway.
The sound of squeaking sneakers around the corner made me openly weep. “Help,” I called weakly as I prepared to defend myself again.
The attacker heard, too, and suddenly burst forward. I fell back, but they were done with me. The cloaked figure disappeared just as fast as he’d materialized, leaving me a hurting, trembling mess on the hallway floor.
“Amnesia!” one of the nurses exclaimed.
I began to cry harder.
The nurse crouched beside me, yelling for help. As she issued orders to those bustling around her, I took solace in the fact the hallway was no longer so bare. Even lights came back on.
I barely said two words the entire time they fussed. The dream replayed in my head over and over… and so did the feeling of being almost suffocated. I barely registered the smear of red on the back of my hand and someone yelling about my IV being yanked out of my skin.
I shut it all down and just sat there, a catatonic sensation weighing me down like a heavy blanket. Like the weight of the lake at night.
What haunted me most was the parallel the dream had with my sudden reality. I couldn’t help but question if it was really only just a dream now.
The dark, shrouded figure was the same in my sleep as it was coming out from beneath my bed. It appeared chillingly identical hovering over me with obvious nefarious intent.
I thought of Eddie in the middle of my internal shutdown. It was his blue eyes and black hair I imagined when trying to push away the worst of my fear. I wanted to ask for him.
I didn’t.
My thoughts continued to go back to him when the worst of the night would tug me into its clutches. How just a few hours ago I’d whispered to him my biggest fear… What if I never remembered?
That terror was now overcome, so obsolete it was almost invalid.
Now my biggest fear wasn’t what if I never remembered…
It was what if I did.
Loch General opened at eight a.m. It wasn’t so early it was unbearable, but it was early enough because this lake town was sleepy, a little slower to wake up than, say, a city or even a larger town.
Visiting hours at the hospital didn’t begin until ten, but I didn’t care. I was blind to the rules of that place, almost as if they applied to everyone except me. I was there for her, for the girl who told me her name was Amnesia. Being there for her made me exempt from their limiting rules.
I felt unbounded when I was near her. As if anything were possible.
The bakery just a few doors down from Loch Gen opened at six, the owners being the earliest waking couple at the lake. Joline and Jeremy had been married since before I was born. They always said a couple who baked together stayed together.
I had no evidence to prove them wrong.
About thirty minutes after their closed sign flipped to open, I pushed through the turquoise front door, the bell obnoxiously loud at this early hour. Even though it was summer, there was a chill in the air. And a fog that twisted along the streets, hovering just above the brick sidewalks and clinging to the quaint streetlamps lining the road.
Joline poked her head around the wall separating the kitchen from the front with a surprised look lifting her flour-covered eyebrows.
“Eddie!” she exclaimed, sounding way more awake than I felt, then disappearing for only a second before stepping out from behind the wall as she wiped her flour-laden hands on a white towel. “What brings you by so early this morning?”
Mustering up the smile I always had ready for everyone, my hands rested on the counter near the old-fashioned cash register (yeah, it still worked, and Joline still used it). “Tell me you already pulled some of those monkey bread muffins out of the oven this morning.”
The sweet, rich scent lacing the air gave me hope while my stomach grumbled with greed.
“It’s the first thing we made!” She confirmed. “Today’s batch has a little something special, early apples from Severil’s Orchard and some plump, warm raisins.”
“I’ll take four,” I said, my mouth watering.
“Four!” She laughed. “You have an appetite this morning.”
“I’m going to share.” I grinned quickly.
Her eyes turned curious, and I knew it would be easier to just tell her where I was going than to have her ask every other person who walked through the door if they knew what Eddie Donovan was up to.
“I’m taking them to the hospital. Thought Amnesia would like something other than green Jell-O.”
How easily her name rolled off my tongue. I’d been afraid I would slip up and call her by a different one.
“They’re calling that poor girl Amnesia?” Joline asked, leaning on the other side of the counter. She was good and interested now.
Pushing my hands into the pockets of my zip-up hoodie, I said, “She insists it’s her name now… since, you know, she can’t remember her real one.”
“So it’s true? She really can’t remember a thing?”
“Nothing.”
“Such a tragedy. And to have no one at all come for her… She must be terrified.”
“She has me,” I said, my voice lowering.
Joline smiled, her dusty hand reaching out, and I surrendered mine from my pocket. Her hand was warm and dry giving mine a squeeze. “She’s a lucky girl to have someone like you looking out for her.”
My lips curled upward. “I’ll be sure to tell her you said so.”
Swatting at me before pulling back, she made a tsking sound. “You want coffee with those buns, hon?”
“Of course,” I replied instantly. “My regular, but maybe make hers a hot chocolate. Not really sure if she likes coffee.”