Remembering Me

Preface: Lost

What do you do when you lose yourself? When you lose everything you are, everything you ever were, every memory, thought, feeling you've ever had?

I suppose you have to find the person who knows you better than anyone, and trust them to find you, trust them to bring you home.

Chapter 1

Awake

Tap tap tap, tap tap tap.

My fingers beat a frantic rhythm against the glass on my bedside table.

As my heart rate soared, I tried to think of a way to calm myself down before the organ gave out completely. Staring down at the strange purple shapes on the wall (I think they're called...flowers, maybe?), my subconscious kicked and I found my hands clutching a necklace on a thin, black cord around my neck.

James.

Who? I didn't know, but just the thought of the name made my heart slow then fluttery in an entirely different way.

No need to panic now. No need. Keep calm now. Just breathe.

As my body threatened to panic again, I held the name in my mind, and, faintly, so faintly I thought I might have imagined it, I heard the whisper of a laugh in my mind, deep and carefree, and it made me feel like laughing with it.

Suppressing the terror, I went back to the question that had brought it on in the first place.

Who am I?

***

Who am I?

I don't know.

Where am I?

I don't know.

Why can't I remember?

I don't know!

"Calm down." I ordered aloud. My voice was feminine and low, with a steely edge, definitely well used. So I was a girl.

Good to know.

Scanning the room (my room?), my eyes lighted on; two slim white wardrobes; a tall, plain wood bookcase, well stocked; a comfortable-looking purple cord armchair with a stack of books on the seat; and, finally, a long, thin mirror decorated with black ink musical notes at the top. Standing up on shaky legs, I let the covers fall away and looked at myself in the mirror.

A stranger stared back.

She had longish, wildly curly red hair, a golden-coppery hue that looked darker at the roots and glinted in the morning light streaming in through the window. Her face was round and pretty, with childish pink cheeks and high cheekbones, beneath large, shiny hazel eyes framed by thick brown lashes. Her lips were full and the colour of raspberries, with a small scar at the middle of her bottom one.

She was tall, very tall, with long legs and wide feet. She was also quite fat. Her hands were long but her fingers were pudgy, and her wrap around cardigan had split open to reveal a pale, large stomach and a full, polka dot bra.

I searched this face, for any hint or glimmer of familiarity.

Nothing. She was just a stranger in the same clothes as me.