Our Darkest Memories

9. Keep Swimming

I just want to say beforehand: I do not recommend doing what Morgan is doing. It will ruin your eyes.
Thank you, and happy reading.

*****

6 weeks after forgetting

A few days passed after bringing the Red to the camp, and I had spent all my time trying to find the daily logs. There was no trace of them, whatsoever.

I had asked Clancy what happened to all daily logs that contained nothing special, but he had said that all of them were saved. So then where was the one on the day that I arrived?

Maybe it was insignificant, maybe it wasn't, but it had become an obsession of finding them. In the meantime, I tried to make sense of everything. Tried to put the dots together. But nothing in my mind connected and the inability to sleep at night made me so exhausted that it was surprising that I could even think at all.

I walked around the camp without any expression. Without any emotion. Without a soul. Was this what it felt like to be a red in operation Jamboree? Because in that case, I was happy that I prevented Clancy from sending the little Red to it. It felt like I was walking around on an automachine. It felt like I wasn't alive. Like I was a ghost floating around in my own mind. I could have not imagined the little Red walking around like this.

While we're on that subject anyway, she didn't speak to me. I didn't see her. Who I did see was the Yellow. Every time I saw him walking by he gave me a look that would make me shake on my legs. It was a look that could kill, but would that really be so bad? Could I even get worse? I barely ate. I barely washed. Why this was affecting me so much was a question to me.

Maybe it was because I was contradicting myself. My mind and feelings were fighting each other. My emotions were telling me something was up, but my mind... My mind told me something different. My rational thoughts told me that this was all a conspiracy theory. That there was nothing wrong because nothing had been out of the ordinary. I couldn't think about anything out of the ordinary. But my feelings wanted to think about anything out of the ordinary. It was an inner battle.

Or maybe it affected me because I was alone. I had no one to talk to. The Red and the Yellow were the only ones that would be able to provide me with answers, but they didn't give them. Clancy was the only one that could be able to gain answers, but I didn't trust he would share them. Nadia was the only one that was interested in finding answers, but she didn't want to be with me to find them.

And so, I gave up. Why would I try to find any answers anyway right? What would I do with them? Did I even want to do anything with them? The answers were a mystery to me and I had never been one to enjoy mysteries. I liked being sure of things.

But still, I was torn.

And to let no one notice I was practically broken, I could always be found on a small open field close to the lake. I had never seen anyone else there, and I intended to keep it that way.

I lay there staring up at the sky, trying to make sense of my thoughts. I lay there looking at the shadows of the trees surrounding the little field, trying to distract myself from everything else. I lay there like a dead body, trying to think of reasons not to become a real one.

Basically, I felt like crap.

Until that day, a shadow loomed over me while I just started a very painful staring contest with the sun. So far, it seemed that the sun was gonna win. I quickly blinked my eyes, trying to get rid of the black spots in them so I could make a clear image. An annoyed but desperate sigh escaped from the shadow and I sat up straight, still trying to make sense of the form.