Remember [Book 1]

1 - Mikito

A light. Just a light. A light so bright that it makes your eyes squint. The sun? Maybe. But last I remembered I wasn't in space. What was worse is that the light seemed... familiar? Isn't that the worse deja vu? I think it is.

This light was odd. It sucked me in to wherever it was going. It seemed endless. But I knew it was moving from different sounds moving past me left and right. They started in front of me by what seemed like a few feet before they sounded like they disappeared through a door behind me; muffled a while then muted before the next sound started.

I remember hearing footsteps. That was the first sound I heard. I reached for the sound and I couldn't reach it. I couldn't even see my hand when I reached out. Everything confused me. The next sound was a whirring sound. It cut out the fastest. It was the briefest.

More and more sounds came and went. Most were common sounds, others you only heard in certain places like a hospital or a concert. Sometimes I heard laughter that I knew who they come from. The sad part was I couldn't name who was laughing. They were at the front of my head and then they were gone again. Hardly even a face to remind me who was who.

Then the last sound I heard was the sound of screaming. Screaming so loud that I wanted to cover my ears. I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. The screaming lasted for the longest. But it ended in the heart-stopping sound of a flat-line. It made my own heart stop.

Am I dead?

In a frantic reach for anything outside of this bright light and the unending sound of a flat-line monitor, I pushed at the blindness. Anything to stop this.

Get me back!

I don't want this!

I struggled more before I felt my body jerk up. My arms flailed in front of me as I desperately tried to grab anything in front of me. But instead of grabbing anything, my head hit something.

"Ow!" I heard a voice call out.

It then dawned on me that I wasn't smart enough to open my eyes before now. Opening them, I blinked away the mysterious pain that was in my eyes. I couldn't see anything at first.

I heard groaning of the thing I had hit with my head. I rubbed my forehead with my wrist, making a pained sound as well.

"What did I hit...?" I asked the area around me.

Blurry shapes were starting to come into view. Tables with different colored blobs floating above them. They must be in something glass if they were floating. Lights were on the tables in the form of lamps and on the ceiling.

"Me," the voice grumbled. "I was trying to check your eyes when you woke up."

"Is that why my vision's blurry?" I asked. I shook my head, trying to see if the classic cartoons were right. They weren't...

"Yeah..." The voice sighed, almost like they were guilty about it. They sounded male. Young. Maybe about my age? I looked in the direction of where they voice was coming from. A green blur was moving upward. Standing is the more appropriate word. The blur moved closer to me. "Sorry about startling you. I honestly thought you were out cold."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. Then I remembered the light. "Is that why I heard screaming?"

The voice didn't speak for a few seconds. I wasn't sure what for. But since he was talking his time answering, I listened in the background for anything to gather where I was.

In the background there was more people talking. It sounded like a TV or radio from the odd blasting sounds that came from it. Then there was the sound of a pin ball machine. The dings I could recognize anywhere. Lastly, and only for a moment, I heard a familiar voice.