Scarlet Craving

Chapter 23: Spring

Three months later

"Piper, Piper? Oi Piper!"

"Hm?" I turned my head to see Ava towering over me, class was over.

"You're spacing out again," Ava said as she pulled me up out of my seat.

"Oh sorry...I just can't get over the fact that it's spring already." The trees and flowers were in full bloom. It was so strange to me for some reason.

"Well you were off sick for a while, it's bound to feel like time passed by quicker," Ava said reassuringly as we walked out into the hallway.

"That's true.." I said slowly. The past three months had been weird, to say the least. First of all, I woke up in the hospital to see my parent's and my brother's faces looking over at me, they instantly burst into tears upon seeing I was awake. I had no recollection of how the hell I got there though or what had exactly happened to me.

The doctor had explained to me that I had an accident. I had decided to go for a walk through one of the trails by the mountain reserve but the weather was worse than I had anticipated, resulting in me falling down the side of the hill. They had found me covered in snow.

The second thing is memory loss. I couldn't remember a single thing leading up to me deciding to walk the trail or me actually falling. It was so strange. I kept thinking I was in a dream and nothing around me was real. The hospital explained that I had suffered a severe concussion which was the reason behind my amnesia. They said over time my memories should come back but I still couldn't remember anything?

This obviously freaked my parents out massively. I mean their only daughter nearly managed to accidentally off herself. I was in the hospital for two weeks before I went back home and I mean home-home, not university. I went all the way back to our small village on the coast but again none of it felt real to me. I just didn't feel like myself but I guess that's because of the amnesia.

Eventually, I managed to convince my parents to let me go back to uni. I wanted to try and gain some normality again. The only condition was that Ava had to text my parents and my brother every and any update about me so they knew I was okay. I mean I know I had an accident but I'm not five. I'm perfectly capable of looking out for myself but I didn't bother arguing with them. I just wanted to get back to my tiny student flat and be alone with my thoughts.

Now the third thing was that I kept having the same recurring dream, since the accident I keep feeling like I've forgotten something important. But what exactly I couldn't quite figure out? I mean I went on the walk on my own and everyone in my life was still around me so what could be so important? The dream was always the same, everything around me was shrouded in a thick fog. I kept walking but I didn't know where I was going. I'd call out but there'd be no response. Then suddenly I would hear another person's footsteps, I'd try to follow them but to no avail, I was still lost. Eventually, I would trip and land on my front, horrible screams and snarls would then rip through the air around me and then I would wake up.

I deduced that the screaming at the end was probably me falling off the trail in real life but what were the snarls about? I'm pretty sure there's no bears or wolves in that part of the mountains...maybe it was somebody's dog? I still couldn't get over the other set of footsteps, was I perhaps not alone? What if I was pushed? I felt a chill run through my spine. No, let's not get ahead of ourselves, this isn't some crime documentary for christ's sake.

Because of this I just let myself drift from one class to the next, lost in the world of my own thoughts. I'd probably crash into more things if it wasn't for Ava, the accident had worried her too. She never said anything but I could see it on her face every time she spoke to me. Maybe I was losing my marbles.