Long Term Memory Sauce

hey, just wondering if you got your photos printed?

They woke up in a strange place they've never seen before. The carpet was deep blue with bright, colourful swirls, nothing like the blank, white walls they've known their whole life. The same walls they could not remember ever again. Suffocating walls that blinded them with an overwhelming consistency.

Strange people in tacky outfits surrounded them. One of them spoke.

'You're awake,' murmured somebody in a cyan hoodie. It was torn and battered. There were dried tear trails streaming from their heart-shaped spectacle frames, and the rose tinted glass was cracked.

'I thought you wouldn't wake up.' The stranger chuckled uneasily in hopes of lifting the mood, and they reciprocated. Human contact felt uneasy, but it was thrilling to the lost soul.

They sat up to observe their surroundings. There were many strange machines, they beeped and flashed haphazardly, and it gave them a headache. To their right, a frame of blinking parts that smelled of smoke. It was evidently falling apart. The person in the jacket subtly refused to look its way, but it was apparent to them.

Another stranger spoke.

'Mel, are you alright?' The speaker was in a maroon vest and squarish glasses. They had blonde hair and a greyed left eye.

Who was Mel?

They looked down at their outfit. They themself were in a lavender coat and indigo sweater. A helmet resembling a View-Master sat on their head. They felt their face, and their fingers landed on a pair of large, round glasses where their eyes were. A metallic name tag, engraved precisely and ornate with flouncy swirls and lines. It read 'Mel'. They realised that foriergn name was most likely theirs.

To forget their own name is one thing. To have relearnt it, a stunning step from the haze of amnesia clouding their own mind, was another.

Mel, as they soon called themself, realised that they have yet to learn about large chunks of what once was their core identity.

'Are you alright?' The vested stranger echoed, their furrowed brows carrying more urgency.

Mel jolted back down to earth.

'Yeah, I think so.'

'That's good. That explosion was really loud.'

An explosion? That was the last thing Mel could recall. They could barely grasp the chaos of that moment.

The remaining stranger, who donned a mask with a long nose, remained silent, tinkering away at the shambles of the frame.