No Name Trilogy, Book I: No Name

Chapter 1 - No Name

I woke up screaming, in a rush of terror, gasping for breath. All that existed of my memory was a white and blue flash that opened a pit of fear in my stomach in the first milliseconds before I unpeeled my eyes. I didn't know my name. I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know what I looked like.

There was a face there, looking down on me, but it didn't scare me; in a strange way, it comforted me--I wasn't alone in whatever void I'd wakened into. It was doughy and brown and pursing its lips into a demand for me to keep quiet, to Shhh! Its dark eyes sparkled with concern.

"Shhh!" the face of the boy ordered again. His finger came up to his lips. He was frantic, but how could I have known why? I wasn't making noise anymore, anyway, and would've questioned his hysteria, but the sickness in my stomach kept me from giving him a response. "You don't want them to come in here, do you?"

I tried to ask him who, but he stopped me.

"They'll come anyway." He pushed his glasses up onto his pug nose and looked past me, his seriousness worse than his panic. "Who are you?"

I couldn't answer him. I said only, "I don't know." My hands cupped over my mouth at the shock of my voice, and then I pulled them away immediately to look at them. I was browner than the boy was. I hadn't remembered. I hadn't even known the color of my own skin. A sob rose in me.

"You're fine," insisted the boy, putting a hand on my shoulder. He might've meant it; he looked sincere in his attempt at a smile.

But I was far from fine. I didn't even know my own name! I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them and squeezed tighter than anything, like everything would make more sense if I could just wrench it all into a compact ball. "I don't know my name. I don't know my name!" The words pressed through gritted teeth.

"Just hang in there. We'll be here when you get back."

Why? Where was I going? And who were we? A quick glance around the room showed me that there were three other beds besides the one I was in. They were all neatly made, like beds in hotels would be--unlike mine, a mess from my movement. That's all that was in the room: four beds and a square, barred window—a barred window. The window was barred. Where in the world was I? Sobs rose in me again.

"It will only make them come sooner!" said the boy. He kept looking up toward the ceiling and back, like something was there, and I began to feel that maybe he was more confused than I was—and then some terrifying deepness opened in me at the thought that this was an insane asylum. I was insane. Something had happened to me . . . had I ever been lucid? Was this even real? "But I guess they've already seen you wake up," the boy added in resignation. Clattering noises came from somewhere behind my head. I turned around and realized that beyond my bed, there was a door. Sounds of footsteps, the squeak of rubber tennis shoes, were coming from outside it, in a linoleum-floored hallway, I guessed. "See? They're here," were the boy's final words as a deep grating sounded and the lock in the door slid aside.

I jumped as a woman came into the room. She wore khaki pants and a long black jacket with words in white print across the front that read Oliphant Juvenile. The words meant nothing.

"Get up," she said as she came to me. She reached out her hands. I didn't want to go anywhere with her, but I did what she asked. Twisting my legs out of bed and getting to my feet, which ached with the weight of me though I was a scrap of a person, I saw that I was dressed only in a white hospital gown and in helplessness turned to the boy, who had backed away. He wasn't even looking at me anymore, the plump little traitor. I was speechless, and by the time the woman pulled me out of the room, my dread had morphed into nausea. I clutched my stomach as she dragged me through the halls, unable to focus on my surroundings. That boy had forgotten me. How could he have let her take me? How could I have let her take me? I wanted to go back. I wanted to give in to my weakness and vomit. And maybe even I wanted to follow this woman, who might have something to say. What should I feel? Nothing was making sense.