Chapter One

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The sound of my heart was steady. It was rhythmic and blaring through my ears. I could not muster any strength to push myself up. I slowly opened my eyes, almost as if I had just forced my brain to re-learn this involuntary action. Dark. I couldn't see a thing. Almost instantly fear kicked in, I did not know where I was, and I could not remember why I was asleep or what I did before I fell unconscious. I looked around failing to find even the dimmest light that would brighten my knowledge of where I was.

I slowly began to raise my arms, some, but not much. It was difficult to try and move, and almost a little painful. My whole entire body was numb, and my brain was searching for any explanation to where I was and why it was so difficult for me to move. I began sweating and my heart began to race faster.

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After what sounded like a door being opened, a bright light shined in on me and I could see only a black figure standing in it's way. The figure walked over to me and placed it's warm, rough hand on my forehead.

"Vic?" The figure said, his voice deep and raspy, that of a smokers voice who desperately needed to clear they're throat. It was almost calming and comforting in a strange way.

I tried so hard to speak or reply but my voice was gone. It felt as if I was trying to push sound through an empty space in my throat. I began to panic, and looked around as my eyes adjusted to the newly, barely lit room. He pushed the stringy hair off of my forehead, and let out a deep, relieved sigh.

"Vic, baby. You were asleep for 4 days." He lightly kissed my cheek, his lips were soft, yet rough. Much alike his voice.

He rubbed my arm and finally I began to see his facial features. I tried desperately to make out who this strange man calling me baby was. He appeared young, maybe 20. He was dirty, and his short, dark, un combed hair was pushed back out of his face. His eyes were a deep blue that held a curious state in to mine.

His skin was a flawless cream color, minus the dirt that covered most of it. He pulled the strings of hair out of my dry mouth, and gently placed them behind my ears. His face stretched in to a soft smile showing surprisingly white teeth and dimples. I still could not decipher who this stranger was, but he obviously knew who I was. I closed my eyes and began to try and recall my last memories.

The first thing that came in to my mind was my mother. A tall, lanky blonde woman who most frequently wore jeans and a t-shirt that was either too small, or too large. I remembered her rapid footsteps running up the stairs, and her unsteady breath when she flung my door open.

"Victoria get up! Get your sister now!" Her dry voice screeched out to me, piercing me with fear

my sister...

I turned to my little sister, shaking her tiny body and telling her that we needed to wake up right now. We needed to go.

"Victoria?" The dirty stranger spoke to me, breaking me out of my memories. His rough hand brushed from my shoulder down to my elbow.

"You need to look at me, okay?" He said almost sternly. I slightly turned my head so that my focus was clearly on him. I had no idea who he was but obviously he wasn't here to hurt me, so I did as he said.

"Good, good." He said, placing his hands behind my shoulders. "Now, you need to sit up." He said slowly lifting me up to a sitting position. This made me extremely dizzy, and a little disorientated. I looked down and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make the shapes that I was seeing leave my head. I was beginning to finally regain some of my strength, and leaned most of my weight on my hands that we're behind me, and holding me up off of the hard surface I was sitting down on. I swallowed hard, trying desperately to moisten my dry throat.

"Who are you?" I said very dryly, but pleased that I could now speak. He just turned his head a little, in confusion, and opened his mouth.

"Baby...what do you mean who am I? I..." He said, and I watched the hurt that was plastered on his face turn in to anger. He turned and walked out of the room, trailing along the sound of his loud boots.

"What did you do to her?!" The stranger yelled out.

"I saved her David!" Another mans voice yelled back in defense. His voice wasn't as rough and sounded like he was maybe in his 50's. I lifted myself up off of the table that I was laying on, and tried to walk over to the door, grabbing surfaces near me to hold myself up.

My legs shook, but I kept them steady as best as I could. There was a piercing pain behind my left eye, and the drowsiness from sleeping so long forced me to walk as if I was heavily intoxicated. Everything was almost cloudy.

"She...she doesn't know who I am!" I stumbled towards the doorway, and saw him yell at the old man, finally able to see him in the light. He slammed his fist down in to a wooden table and pushed his hair back off of his forehead.

"What the hell is going on?" I said, un necessarily loud because I didn't know my voice had came back completely.

I looked around the room I was in, it looked like it might have been a bar, but maybe 10 years ago. Everything inside was falling apart. The paint was almost all of the way chipped off, glass was broken on the floors, barely kept together chairs stood on the floor, and an old juke box that looked to be somehow in okay condition sat next to the boarded up front door of the building.

There were five people in the room, excluding myself and the stranger who's name I know now, David. Everyone was dirty, and after looking down at myself, I guess I was too. They all looked at me in almost shock. David rushed over to me and put his arm around my trying to make sure I wouldn't fall over.

"Please, I'm fine." I said, pushing him off of me as kindly as possible. I examined everyone and every thing around me, painfully trying to remember where I was.

"What is going, where am I and who are all of you?" I asked, trying not to sound desperate, and trying to conceal my fear.

A very tall man stood up, and placed a knife that he had been turning in his hands down on the bar table behind him.

"What's the last thing you remember, Vic?" He said, walking towards me. He was the man who David was yelling at.

I closed my eyes, trying so hard to think. It was like trying to remember some bodies name, or a title of a song that was on the tip of your tongue. I felt a pain in the back of my head. I lifted my hands up to rub the spot where it was coming from.

I quickly forced my eyes back open. I remembered.