Shocking Memories

Chapter 4

I woke up on the couch, dazed and confused at first, my mind believing there should have been more to the bootup process than there actually was. To my great disappointment I only needed to load up yesterday's events. I took the fact that I could remember anything as a win. Continuing the wake-up procedure as my muscle memory seemed capable of doing, I kicked my feet out from under a blanket that had been thrown over me, and rolled my tongue around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the cotton feeling. The sun was pouring in through the large windows, making the city below glow. It looked like the sun was beginning to set, but something in my internal clock told me this was actually a new day.

"Jared!" I called through the apartment, "Are you here?"

To my surprise there was no answer. I wasn't exactly sure what I should have been expecting from this whole situation, but I'd figured Jared would stay with me, at least for a while. My head felt a little light, and I hoped this was just a symptom of having had nothing to eat but a bowl of soup. I couldn't recall exactly when I'd fallen asleep, but I knew it couldn't have been long after the meal. I pushed myself further into the back cushion of the couch, using its strength to straighten my back out, and grabbed the remote. The window TV clicked on, displaying a news station with a male anchor wearing a hair piece..

The apartment door behind me opened, startling me so much that I felt a tingle run down my spine, and causing the lights in the apartment to flicker briefly. "Woah," Came Jared's voice from the other side of the room. "calm down, it's just me!"

I turned, looking over the back of the couch to see Jared holding a bag of groceries. He was wearing different clothes, than before, confirming my suspicions. He was wearing a white button up shirt with a large pink flamingo on it, and tan cargo pants. He rushed into the room and set the groceries down on the kitchen counter. "You have keys to my home?" I asked skeptically.

"Not usually!" He admitted, his voice echoing out from the fridge as he put food away. While still looking into the fridge he held up a key chain and jingled it above his head. "I helped myself to your keys so that I could go pick some stuff up. I'd have rather just taken your spare, but I don't know if you remember where it is, so I didn't bother to ask." He stopped putting food away for a moment and looked over his shoulder. "Do you?"

"I don't." I admitted, crossing my arms defensively. "Just wish you would have woken me up."

"Tried to." He said, finally closing the fridge and making his way over toward the couch. "But you've always been a pain in the ass to wake up. It's one of your charms."

I found myself letting out a half assed laugh as he plopped on the seat next to me. This all felt too strange. He was still acting as though we were great friends, but I couldn't remember him at all. Part of me felt bad, I wanted to think I could remember my friends, but another part of me was uncomfortable. This man was, hypothetically, a friend of mine, but I couldn't confirm that. He was, by every definition, a stranger to me. For that matter, a stranger with a key to my apartment and a hand on my food. I didn't like the pit that grew in my stomach as I thought more on this paranoid spiral. I had to start trusting somewhere down the line. "A charmer huh?" I replied, turning my attention back to the TV.

The news seemed to be running a story on a man named Hodges, a name that meant nothing to me. I had hoped watching the local news might trigger something, but no old memories found their way back to me. I reached for the remote, ready to change the channel, when Jared shouted out, "Shit, turn it up!"

Curious, I did as he asked, locating the volume button and allowing the newscasters voice to ring through the room. The footage seemed to be a helicopter level point of view hovering over top of a large brick home. "-three in the morning, the body of Governor Hodges was discovered in his private office by one of his cleaners, along with the body of his personal bodyguard. Police are not currently releasing details but inform us that these do not appear to be violent deaths. We don't want to speculate at this time, but this could mean the deaths have little to no criminal element."