Sanity

4

There is always something special about the moment you realize that you are different. That you are somehow the stupid one in the room, or the one who didn't see some disaster coming. I am special. I am forgetful. I am stupidly the one who has no idea what is happening and gets caught in the hurricane unprepared.

"Janice?" Kourtney asked, waving a hand in front of my face. I couldn't feel my face. I couldn't feel my legs, hands, arms, feet, I was completely numb.

She continued to wave her hand in front of my face. I blinked quickly and rubbed my face with my hands before pressing my palms against my eyes.

I moaned and let out a long, frustrated groan. Four years. The last I remember was....was my fourteenth birthday? No, thirteenth? Ugh! My brain is like mush. Everything flowing and getting tangled together. Nothing is making sense.

"Why should I believe you." I realized that maybe she was lying. I couldn't think of a good reason why she could possibly be lying but if she was, and I really hoped that she was, then I would still be my normal self again. Although I don't really know who that is anyways...oh well. "Why do you remember and I don't?"

"They didn't have me visit those memories. I still have them." She put a finger to her head and kind of made little swirling motions around her right temple.

They didn't take those memories from her? I knew that they were memories. I knew that the guy was real. That the kissing and the love I had for him had to be real. Was it love? How could I continue to love someone that I have already almost completely forgotten?

"Oh." I whispered, dropping my hands from my face. I stretched my legs out in front of me and leaned back, my hands propping me up as I let them hold me there. Courtney moved out of the way of my legs a bit and I realized how tall I was. I hated this. I hated this discovering new things about my body all of a sudden it felt, almost, wring to have to figure out new things like this about something I should already know so much about.

There was a knock at the door. Apparently my room was the new commons room or something. Everyone seems to want to come in. Well, come in everyone! Make yourselves comfortable!

"Dinner! Please come to the door backwards with you hands clasped behind your back." The voice was a woman voice and I relaxed a little. We both stood up and Kourtney put a finger to her lips to keep me silence I guess? And we both followed the directions.

The door opened slowly and a woman in tight black pants and a bullet proof vest walked in. She was packing heat and shivered a little bit. I didn't want to know if she ever had to use it.

She blinded our hands together with a zip tie and then turned us around to face her. "Now you know the drill. Walk forward." We obeyed.

I followed Kourtney and the lady was behind me, her cold calloused hands pushing me forward every couple steps. 

The hall was white. The walls plaster and bare, seemed to reflect the fluorescent lighting that ran along the ceiling. It was the kind of lighting that were lightbulbs that looked like tubes. Those were my favorite. I liked the way they plugged into the long cylinder shaped covers that ran from the beginning to the end of the hallway.

Each door we passed was numbered, one to ten. This must be the main sleeping, or dormitory like, hall where all of us...test subjects? Patients? I didn't know what to call us, but we were not really treated like people if that makes sense. We are...special I guess? We were chosen. I remember that, being chosen. It was the greatest day of my monotonous life. I went from one padded room to another. I can tell you this, all white padded rooms look the same, it's just the surroundings and atmosphere that change. You could be in one room and wake up thinking you were in another and not know the difference until walking outside.