When she woke up, she thought she was blind.She opened her eyes and could see only purple darkness ,ominous and shapeless shadows stirring within other shadows. Before she could panic,that gloom gave way to a pale haze,and the haze resolved into a white,acoustic-tile ceiling. She smelled fresh bed lines. Antiseptics.Disinfectants. Rubbing alcohol.
She turned her head ,and pain flashed the length of her forehead,as if an electric shock had snapped through her skull from temple to temple. Her eyes immediately swam out of focus. When her vision cleared again,she saw that she was in a hospital room.
She could not remember being admitted to a hospital.She didn't even know the name of it or in What city it was located.
What's wrong with me?
She raised one dismayingly weak arm,put a hand to her brow,and discovered a bandage over half of her forehead. Her hair was quite short,too. Hadn't she worn it long and full?
She had insufficient strength to keep her arm raised ; she let it drop back to the mattress.
She couldn't raise her left arm at all, for it was taped to a heavy board and pierced by a needle. She was being fed intravenously: the chrome IV rack,with it's dangling bottle of glucose,stood beside the bed.
For a moment she closed her eyes, certain that she was only dreaming. When she looked again,however ,the room was still there, unchanged:white ceiling ,white walls, a green tile floor , pale yellow drapes drawn back at the sides of the large window. Beyond the glass , there were tall evergreens of some kind and a cloudy sky with only a few small patches of blue. There was another bed, but it was empty she had no roommate.
The side rails on her own bed we're raised to prevent her from falling to the floor. She felt as helpless as a baby in a crib.
She realized she didn't know her name. Or her age. Or anything else about herself.
She strained against the blank wall in her mind attempting to topple it and release the memories imprisoned on the other side, but she had no success ;the wall stood,inviolate. Like a blossom of frost ,fear opened icy petals in the pit of her stomach. She tried harder to remember ,but she had no success.
