"Aria." The sweet voice called to me. I didn't where I was, to who was saying my name. My real name, which nobody was supposed to know. "Aria." It sounded like a woman's voice, pulling me out of my trance and making me open my eyes. A bright light filled my vision and I was forced to squint until my eyes adjusted. I was sitting on the floor of our old living room, in the house I had left behind so many years ago. Or, more like the house I was taken from so many years ago. The room was empty and the paint on the walls had faded from so many years without cleaning. On the other side of the room, a woman in a light purple dress sat observing me with intelligent, green eyes. "It's been a long time since I last saw you." A smile spread across year face and she held out her arms. I got up and strode over to her cautiously. But when she embraced me, all my suspicion melted away.
"Mama?" I asked, tears sprouting from the corners of my eyes and running down my cheeks. She nodded and held me close. I thought of all the little things I remember about her. Memories of her reading nursery rhymes and dancing with my father around the house. Light purple and picnics in the park. I finally had her back. "Remember when you used to make puppet shows with me?" I asked, my voice filled with love for my mother. She laughed and her eyes become glassy. I knew she was thinking about all the plays we used to make together. She had bought me a small puppet-sized stage and two puppets, a king and a queen, when I was small. We used to play with them for hours. Then a disturbing thought occurred to me. "Am I dead?" I asked suddenly, looking up at the face of my mother, who had been taken so many years before. If she was here with me, either I was dead too, or seeing ghosts. The happiness drained from her face and she met my eyes.
"No Aria. You're not dead, only tranquilized." I didn't remember being shot, or even who shot me. Come to think of it, the last thing I remembered was my math lesson with Isla. Why couldn't I remember anything? Reading my thoughts, my mother replied. "Your guardian, Isla, shot you when you discovered something you shouldn't have." I gave her a confused look and she reached out her hand and touched her finger to my forehead. A white light flashed before me and my lost memories came flooding back. The panel sinking into the floor, Isla pulling a gun out of her pocket and loading a dart into it. The searing pain in my back and then the world going black.
I saw things after I fainted. Isla arising across the room to my unconscious body and prying the small dart out of my back. Then she took out a needle filled with blue liquid, took off the cap, and injected the liquid into my left thigh. I shuddered as the liquid made it into my system. The scene shifted and I saw Isla carrying me on her shoulders through the halls, pausing at every turn and peeking around the corner, looking for someone who might stop her. When she made it into my bedroom, she pulled back the covers of my bed and gently laid me down. Sitting in the chair across the room, she watched me sleep, my breathing steady.
I gasped, and sat up. The face of my mother was inches from mine, her eyebrows scrunched together with worry. My head pounded and I tried to sit up, but my mother stopped me.
"Take a second to sit, or you'll go into shock." I nodded and rested my head in her lap. She smelled like lavender and soon, my eyes were closing.
