Red

Gran, I'm Sick

Warning: There is no warning! I'm not giving you one! Don't worry, you'll probably like it! Probably! *peppiness*

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I wonder what it would be like to be at Gran's again. I only have one memory of her, after all.

One. One memory. The memory of a happy family, dining in the living room and laughing as a short eleven year old runs around the coffee table screaming bloody murder for pasta.

What? I liked pasta.

And then, just as Gran exits the room, a man, 9mm pistol in hand, crashes through the window, fires off two bullets at my parents in quick secession, launches across the room and grabs me around my waist, and makes a run for it, out the window.

The only words spoken from my dying parents was a strangled "Av-" from Mother.

As he crosses the front lawn, me struggling and about to bite his smelly gloved hand, Pop runs out the front door with a shotgun and prepares to shoot the old contraption.

He never got to.

The man pointed the 9mm behind him, not turning, and blindly shot. He was lucky.

I wish he wasn't.

Pop's body dropped to the ground with a loud thud, blood oozing from a hole in the middle of his forehead.

I didn't realize I was screaming until the man told me to shut up and smacked me over the head with the butt of his gun.

That was my only memory of my family. I hid it so well, I tried to hide others, but they found them and had them removed. They just took them away.

I woke up what was probably days later in a tube, white padded cloth surrounding me with a small gap closed by Plexiglas that showed a white hallway brightly lit with florescent bulbs. I was now wearing a soft cotton hospital gown, my arms strapped to the cushioned back of the tube and my ankles tied tightly together with thick cord.

I, like any normal person, started screaming.

Which set off an alarm. Which made the other 'patients' next to me start screaming, too.

Men in shiny helmets and black armor, like the one who kidnapped me, rushed into the room, shut off the alarm- an odd metal handle on the wall- and yanked open the sliding door to the tube and snatched me from the tube, the straps breaking easily after a few harsh pulls.

I thrashed in their arms, I was having a spasm attack, and they were struggling to hold my limbs down. Another rushed over and roughly injected me with a needle and I fell limp. I found I could move my eyes; I was conscious.

I wished I wasn't.

They took me into another nondistinct white room and laid me down on a table, machines surrounding it, strapping down my arms and legs, even my torso. A woman came into the room as soon as they finished, white lab coat and blouse, black tights, pale, perfect face with blood red lips and raven hair.

She strutted over, the men backing away from the table into ranks on either sides. The woman carefully pulled on a pair of latex gloves, picking up a scalpel and  making her way over to my head.

I'd rather not say what happened, but you get the gist, yes?

Which brings us to now.

It has been seven years since that day. I do not know my name. They removed it.

They are evil. They removed all memories of my family, except the one I hid so perfectly that they overlooked it. It was like hiding all my memories in a chest at the bottom of the ocean. They found the chest and removed almost all inside. The chest had a false bottom, with three memories.