Memories of Rain ❀ Calum Hood

first; waking up

She spent what felt like an eternity in the hallway.

The door was gone, and she couldn't return to the safety of the calming blackness. She was caught in the limbo of that hallway for days, maybe even weeks. Or perhaps it was just hours or mere seconds. She had no idea. There wasn't a clock, and she couldn't focus her mind enough to count. She was lost somewhere near one hundred, and she couldn't even remember what came after two hundred.

Sometimes she knocked on the wall, clawed at it, hoping that the door would appear again, so that she could return to whatever reality she had woken up to. The door didn't appear.

Then she started calling out for help, was somebody there? She didn't get an answer, and eventually she just stopped. Then she sat there, waiting. It felt like years. What was she doing in the hallway?

What was going on? What had happened, what had been on the other side of the door? What did those dreams mean? Were they even dream?

She had no idea, and instead of thinking about it, she tried to drown the thoughts. Tried to think of something else. She started humming. It was a melody that had been stuck in her head for a while. It had been playing in the background of her first dream. Something about a lost boy; she couldn't remember much. Then, when she closed her eyes, the hallway suddenly disappeared.

She felt something rush by, heard the sound of a door being closed and then the sound of a lock.

She could hear a soft beeping noise, and the sound of heavy breathing. It must've been her own breathing. She couldn't control it herself, something or someone was doing it for her.

She opened her eyes, and stared into the white ceiling above. There were no faces hovering above her this time. She didn't know where she was, but she had thought something about a doctor the last time she woke up.

Or did she actually fall asleep? Was this the dream, and the hallway was her reality?

She didn't know.

She turned her head, and looked around the room. It was disturbingly white. White floor, white walls, white ceiling, white door. Everything was white. There was something sticking out of her arm.

An IV, she recalled. She wanted to pull it out, but she feared that it might hurt. She didn't want to disturb the peaceful, tired feeling that rested over her.

The door to her room opened, and a young woman dressed in blue scrubs entered the room. She was wearing a name tag that read 'Zoey.' The second that Zoey's saw her awake, her eyes widened.

She ran out the door, calling out for someone.

"Doctor Williams!"

Another woman, she must have been the Doctor Williams that Zoey was calling out for, came in through the door.

But why was a nurse and a doctor coming into her room? And why was there an IV in her arm? The memory almost hit her harder than the car had.

She was running away, she didn't know why. She just knew that in the memory, she was desperate to get away. So desperate that she didn't see the black car rushing down the road, slippery from the rain. The tires screeched, but the car wasn't able to stop in time. The impact was enough to throw her into the air, and she didn't lose consciousness until she hit the pavement, and her skull cracked open.

Her hand flew up to her right temple. Her head was wrapped in a bandage, and the doctor looked at her with a slight smile.

"You hit your head pretty hard," she told her. She walked over to her, and sat down next to her bed. The doctor looked at her kindly.

She didn't understand what was going on. She had been hit by a car, and she had hit her head. What else? She couldn't remember anything. She searched through her mind; trying to get a grab on a memory.

It felt as if she had put her hands into water, and was trying to grab it. The memories were all running away, retreating into the darkest corners of her mind, and she couldn't grab a single one. Not her name, her age, her family or friends. She couldn't even remember how to tie her own shoes, even though she knew what shoes were.

"Are you okay Bailey?" the doctor asked, a concerned lookon her face. She looked at the doctor. What did she say? 'Are you okay Bailey' she had asked. Who was Bailey? Was it her? She didn't know.

"Who's Bailey?"

The doctor frowned, a crease appearing in her forehead. The corners of her own mouth were pointing downwards, and her eyes were searching Doctor William's face for any answers to be found.

"Your naime is Bailey," the doctor said. Bailey? Her name was Bailey? She nodded her head slowly. It made sense to her. Now she knew what her name was. She wanted to know more. How old was she? What was her favorite color? She had a feeling that it was white, but she didn't know.

White isn't a color, a voice whispered in her mind. She furrowed her brows. Of course it was. Of course white was a color, what else could it be?

"Do you remember why you're here?"

Bailey hesitated, then she nodded. She bit her lip. It hurt, she was biting it too hard. She couldn't even remember how hard she could bite her own lip before it would hurt.

"I can remember a car hitting me." she told the doctor. She decided to keep the memory of her heated make-out session with the dark haired boy to herself. The doctor nodded, and bit her own lip.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions now," she said. "Is that okay?"

Bailey nodded. She was unsure of whether or not she would be able to answer the questions completely, but she wanted to try anyways.

Doctor Williams asked her a lot of questions about her life, and she had to tell the doctor multiple times, that she did not remember anything, not even the face of her own mother or father. The doctor understood this, but kept asking.

Finally, she asked how Bailey was feeling. "I don't know."

Doctor Williams let out a frustrated sigh, and then got up. She smiled at Bailey. "I think it's safe to say that you've lost your memories, or at least parts of them," she told her. Bailey nodded.

"Think happy thoughts," she said. "It might help." Bailey nodded again, not fully understanding what she meant by that.

***

After some time, another woman came into her room. This one seemed familiar to her, but she couldn't remember why. She couldn't remember anything. The woman, who more looked like a girl, started crying the second she caught sight of Bailey.

She ran to her side, grabbing her hand, and pushing it against the side of her face. Bailey was scared at first, what was this stranger doing? Why was she pressing Bailey's into her face as if it was something she had always done?

"Please stop that," Bailey stuttered, still surprised that the girl had just run up to her and grabbed her hand. The girl looked at her, and started crying even harder.

"Oh God it's true," she said, her voice sounding completely broken. She shook her head, and sent Bailey a smile. "It's okay Bails," she said. Bails? Was that a nickname? It made her feel safe in some way.

"I'm your older sister, Cara," she told her. Her sister? Cara... She nodded her head. Okay. Her name was Bailey, she had an older sister named Cara, and she was in the hospital because of a car crash. She started putting together the three pieces, as if she had just received three puzzle bricks.

Cara looked at the watch on her right arm, and frowned. She patted Bailey on the head. "I'm so sorry babe, I have to go," she told her.

"Dad and the rest of the family are gonna come visit, okay?" Bailey nodded. She didn't know who they were, or how they looked, but she nodded anyways. More visits meant more pieces to the puzzle that was her life, her memory.

Cara got up and left, leaving Bailey alone again. She leaned back into the pillows, and waited for her next visit.