Distorted Affliction

Chapter Two

"Lucas, what the fuck was that?" I asked, glancing into my rearview mirror again as my foot pressed a little harder on the gas. I didn't want to go above the speed limit, but I also thought I may have better chances taking on the law than whoever had the strength to send the laundry room door flying with one solid kick.

"I'm going to explain everything, I promise," he urged, but made no effort to offer any clarification at that moment. "Do you remember that place we used to live, before everything went wrong?"

My mind flashed to memories of us together, smiling as we sat on the porch swing watching the way the sunlight gleamed off the water. That seemed so long ago, like a different life entirely.

"I do," I answered slowly, fighting off the memories from our marriage that, up until twenty minutes ago, seemed solidly left in the past. 

"I need you to meet me there, and I'll do my best to explain what I can."

When I hung up the phone, I glanced up in the rearview mirror once again, cursing the long commute I made between work and home every day. It was roughly a thirty minute drive through a back highway that connected the town I lived in with the town I worked in. The roads were usually empty, with the exception of Fridays when traffic picked up with people heading to the city for the weekend.

I glanced up again, my heart catching at the car quickly closing the distance behind me. What had Lucas gotten me into this time? I pressed my foot down on the gas a little further, but it seemed to be no use. Before I realized it, I felt the tap of the bumper on the back of my car, and I gripped the steering wheel as hard as I could to maintain control.

My jaw clenched tightly as I navigated another impact from the sleak, black vehicle, but I overcorrected and the car veered off the road sharply, losing all traction and launched itself into a roll into the trees lining the highway. Everything spiraled, and I felt myself reaching for anything I could grab hold of as my body left the seat and pain seized me entirely.

I felt the car slide to a stop, and for a moment I couldn't understand why the world seemed to be upside down. My mind was spinning, and I blinked several times to bring myself back to reality, but I could feel myself losing consciousness. Nothing hurt, but I knew it wouldn't be long before the injuries of rolling my car would catch up to me.

Pushing my legs against the bent metal, I managed to open the door, but I was still fighting with the seatbelt when a dark figure stepped into view. My breathing was ragged, and I could feel the dull pounding of a headache taking hold as they stepped closer to me, leaning down until a pair of soft, hazel eyes were staring back at me.

"Who--?" I tried, but a sharp pain took the words from me. My eyes slid shut for a moment, but I could feel his hands reach around me, ripping the seatbelt off in one quick movement. Everything was spinning, but I could feel the pain set in as he drug me from the wreckage, ignoring my screams of agony.

"Sleep," I heard him utter, his voice deep, radiating through my mind. As much as I wanted to argue, to fight him off, I couldn't stop my body from shutting down and doing as he said. Consciousness slipped away from me, despite the absolute fear inside of my body that this would be my final moments, that he would kill me and it would all be over.

I stood just outside of the house, watching the flames as they engulfed our home, eating the wood and everything inside so quickly it seemed unreasonable. There should have been panic, but the only thing inside of me that I could feel was the closing of another chapter of my life, the end of everything this house stood for.

The windows shattered from the heat of the flames, and I cocked my head sideways, watching with fascination as it was all devoured. By the time the fire department made it out, the house was already reduced to ashes, the biggest down side to living in the middle of nowhere.

"Your son," I remember the police saying. "Was he inside?"

This memory wasn't the same, it felt altered somehow. I recalled feeling panicked, screaming, the tears rolling from my eyes as I searched the ashes for his body. I remembered the police taking me to the hospital, the psychiatric evaluation, the questions upon questions until they confirmed that the fire had been an accident.

Except that it hadn't been, not in this version of my memory. I could feel myself doing everything to make them believe that I was in shock, because I needed them to believe that this had all been a tragic accident, though part of me knew that none of it was real.

My heart ached for my son, but not in the same ways I remembered, not in the same ways it always did when I thought about the fire. Somehow, I felt relieved, because they wouldn't find him anymore, he would be safe. He would grow up--

There was a ringing in my head that started low, from somewhere in the back of my mind, and it increased until it was nearly too painful to ignore. My eyes flashed open, and I sat upright, crying out loud as the pain seized me entirely before it disappeared altogether. I blinked, looking down at my hands and wondering what universe I had woken up in; how was I not dead?

"You have a lot of conflicting memories inside of you," a deep voice remarked, and it took me a moment to remember how to move before I could look up into his eyes. I blinked, swallowed, searched for the words I wanted to say for several moments before I dared ask him anything.

"What's going on?" I finally managed, trying to make myself break eye contact to no avail. He held my attention, and though I wanted nothing more than to run, my body wouldn't do as I begged it to.

He was silent for a moment longer, his head tilted sideways to look at me as if I was an oddity to him. His face held no emotion, gave nothing away to answer the flow of questions inside of me. With a sigh, he stood from the edge of the bed and looked away from me.

"I've compelled you not to run," he said finally, pulling the dingy curtain to the side to glance out into the rain. I recognized the room from the motel, though I thought it strange that he had taken me back here, of all places.

"What's happening?" I asked again, my voice barely above a whisper. "Who are you? Why am I here?"

He said nothing more, only stood at the window in silence, without blinking, without even breathing it seemed.

"Please," I found myself asking softly. "Obviously you don't want me dead, or you would have left me in my car to die on the side of the road." At least that was what I was hoping, but I had watched enough television to know that there were some seriously sadistic people living in the world around me.

"I came to you," he began slowly, his words thought out before he spoke. "Because I'm in need of the things I've seen you do, but whoever you are now..." His voice trailed off as he turned to look at me, raising an eyebrow. "Is clearly not the same woman I met before."

"Then why run me off the road?" I asked, narrowing my eyes for a moment as I tried to make sense of it all. "If you know me, and you needed my help, then why would you risk killing me by running me off the road?"

"Are you injured?" He asked, raising a brow at me. That was the first time I realized that my body didn't hurt in the ways that it should for having rolled my vehicle into the trees at the speed I had. I mentally took note of how my body felt, touching my face gently with my fingers, expecting to find sore spots where there were none.

"How?" I was surprisingly calm considering the situation, as if part of me had been prepared for a situation very similar to this. "What's happening to me?"

"It seems as though you are not the one who holds your memories, which makes me wonder..." his voice trailed off for a moment as he turned back to the window. "If you, August Bishop, don't know who you are, then we may be in bigger trouble than I thought."