A Fight to Remember

You're You

A/N: Continued immediately from last chapter. 

April 2031

Naniamo BC

Derek

Spinning- spinning falling swirling in a dark vortex of- all consuming black. I couldn't breathe.

I'm disappearing into the murky debris filled water

It's like I was drowning...

"Chris?"

The voice echoed in my ears, soft but concerned.

"Chris?"

I blinked, and the spinning stopped as I focused the blur in front of me.

"Are you okay?" The blur said.

I blinked again, the blur was familiar. It was Lynn.

Inconclusive, she'd said only moments ago... something about fire and sprinklers and... That feeling was there, in the bottom of my heart, a crushing ache. Nobody was looking for me. I was nobody before the tsunami, and I was nobody now.

Right?

"Maybe you should sit down- here-" I felt myself being gently pushed backward until the backs of my knees hit my recliner and bent.

A heavy groan escaped my lips. "I think I just need some time..." I managed to say.

"I know... it's okay. It's okay Chris, it will be."

But it wouldn't be. I was nobody- right?

xxx

June 2031

It seemed as though I blinked and I'd leaped ahead through time. The days between April and June were blurry and insignificant.. Nothing seemed important anymore, Time flitted and slipped and spun in an incoherent maze. I didn't do anything, I hardly worked, only odd jobs here and there for income as I needed, and I in my spare time I read and researched everything about the brain and memory.

Piles of books and articles were scattered around my living room. But still- nothing came to me. I couldn't remember.

But there was still stuff I had to deal with. Although I was living in my houseboat, there was still the other house. I decided I would sell it. It just needed a little work.

The drive up to Qualicum was trepiditous. Sarah still lived there, though I hadn't spoken to her since she told me who I wasn't. If I saw her today, I didn't know what I would say.

I walked into my empty, barren house. This was where I wanted to start over. This was where I was to begin my life again... but through twisted turns, I felt this was where it ended. The walls were blank white slabs of drywall, fixtures and electrical needed to be hung and installed, and the flooring needed to be finished. I wrote up a list of materials that I would need to purchase to finish the job.

Before I left I stood out on the unfinished deck to take a look at the view. The house rested on a modest piece of property, not completely in the middle of nowhere, but far enought that the nights were dead quiet and the lights from the nearby town didn't interefere with the view of the stars. While the front was nothing spectacular, the rear of the house revealed lush green fields, tapering off to a sandy spot of beach. It could've been perfect.

We stay here. We work here. We move into that beautiful house you built us!

But it wasn't. My life is a shattered mess under the thick weight of a Tsunami. I'm drowning.