"𝙄 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙄 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪."
When Thalia wakes up in the lift, the only thing she can remember is her name. She's surrounded by strangers-boys whose memories are also gone.
She awakes with another girl as wel...
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She began her new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air.
Metal ground against metal; a lurching shudder shook the floor beneath her. She fell down at the sudden movement and shuffled backward on her hands and feet, drops of sweat heading on her forehead despite the cold air.
Her back struck a hard metal wall; she slid along it until she hit the corner of the room. Sinking to the floor, she pulled her legs up tight against her body, hoping her eyes would soon adjust to the darkness.
With another jolt, the room jerked upward like an old lift in a mine shaft. Harsh sounds of chains and pulleys, like the workings of an ancient steel factory, echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls with a hollow, tinny whine.
The lightless elevator swayed back and forth as it ascended, turning the girls stomach sour with nausea; a smell like burnt oil invaded her senses, making her feel worse. She wanted to cry, but no tears came; she could only sit there, alone, waiting.
My name is Thalia, she thought.
That . . . that was the only thing she could remember about her life. She didn't understand how this could be possible, her mind functioned without flaw, trying to calculate her surroundings and predicament.
Knowledge flooded her thoughts, facts, and images, memories and details of the world and how it works.
She pictured snow on a trees, running down a leaf-strewn road, eating a hamburger, the moon casting a pale glow on a grassy meadow, swimming in a lake, a busy city square with hundreds of people bustling about their business.
And yet she didn't know where she came from, or how she'd gotten inside the dark lift, or who her parents were. She didn't even know her last name. Images of people flashed across her mind, but there was no recognition, their faces replaced with haunted smears of color.
She couldn't think of one person she knew, or recall a single conversation.
The room continued its ascent, swaying; Thalia grew immune to the ceaseless rattling of the chains that pulled her upward.
A long time passed. Minutes stretched into hours, although it was impossible to know for sure because every second seemed an eternity.
No. She was smarter than that. Trusting her instincts, she knew she'd been moving for roughly half an hour.
Strangely enough, she felt her fear whisked away like a swarm of gnats caught in the wind, replaced by an intense curiosity. She wanted to know where she was and what was happening.
With a groan and then a clonk, the rising room halted; the sudden change jolted Thalia from her huddled position and threw her across the hard floor. As she scrambled to her feet, she felt the room away less and less until it finally drilled.
