Nothing Left

Chapter Nineteen

February 25, 1972 7:11 a.m.
"Who are you?" I repeat, my voice rising. The girl just stares at the carpet, tears running down her cheeks. The nurse that is with her walks her out of the room. I start struggling again against the doctors' grips. "She isn't dead!" I cry. "I don't believe you!" A nurse comes in with a shot in one hand, and a small silver chain in the other.

"Here's his mother's necklace. Only thing on her that was worth something." The nurse murmured, setting the locket on my nightstand. I cease my fighting.

"Is it true?" I ask the nurse. She nods. I feel my hopes fall, everything leave. Only yesterday, I had remembers my mom, but now they told me she was dead.

"Should we still give him the injection, Doctor?" the nurse asked, holding up the needle. One of the doctors looks into my eyes, then feels my forehead. I draw back.

"Maybe to help him sleep...he needs it." The doctor let go of my arm, which I let drop onto the sheets. I sit quietly when they press the thin tube into my shoulder. I feel drowsiness come over me, and my eyes close.

A dream soon follows. In my dream, I walk down a sidewalk, snow blowing all around me. I find myself wearing a black overcoat, one that a man would wear over a suit. I see something ahead of me, someone arguing with another. I start running towards them, even though I don't know why. I see the girl who was crying earlier that day, but she is older. I get an idea that I am older as well. I put a hand up to my face and feel the stubble that would appear on my dad when he didn't shave. A gunshot makes me continue running, and I see he girl on the ground, golden hair fanned out, eyes closed. The man that shot her is running away, but I saw who it was. Wait...I remember! It was a
policeman, the one who...who...I shake my head in the dream and kneel beside the girl. Or rather, woman. Blood trickles from her hair, and I brush it away with a piece of paper...wait, how did I get the paper? I look at it, and read, "Young Raymond Diakon, twenty-nine years old last June, was manning his post in a barrack in Vietnam when an attack from the enemy began unexpectedly. He was honored in death, his seven-year-old son refusing the Purple Heart that was left to him. His wife, Esther Diakon, was with him in his last moments, reading his Bible to him. He-" I stopped reading the article and dug my hand into my pocket for my driver's license, birth certificate, anything that would tell me who I was. I pulled out an envelope that had already been sent and opened. I couldn't tell where it was from because it was blurred. The name on the front shocked me. To Mrs. Esther Daikon and David Daikon. I looked at the woman below me, and saw that an emblem on her coat had the name Esther on it. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I suddenly realized that I wasn't David. I was Raymond. But the newspaper said I was dead!

Suddenly, I woke up, finding that I was bathed in sweat. I took in shaky breaths, reassuring myself that I was still to young to join the military, and that I wasn't married. I took in gulps of air, finding myself very much alive when I accidentally knocked my head against the wall. Rubbing my hand over the back of my head, I remembered something. The girl who had come in earlier...that was Esther! But that's all I remembered. I still didn't know how I got here, even though I knew I had dead parents, and knew a girl named Esther. I drew my knees up to my face and felt tears slip out of my eyes. I felt so confused and messed up. I felt like I had no hope. None. Zero, with a big, fat, red "X" over it.