Blackout. [COMPLETED]

Capture.

Until this moment, I had never experienced what some people refer to as ‘real life slow motion’. In the utter confusion of the situation, my senses were numb and I couldn’t hear or see anything until I recognised the sirens of the two cars behind us.

“Okay?” the driver said, swerving in front of a small red car that honked desperately in response.

“Okay what?” I replied, gripping onto the worn leather of the seat either side of me. The driver laughed nervously.

“Don’t joke about this,” he said as he turned a sharp corner and sped down a small alley.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Where am I?”

“Are you kidding?” he yelled as a police car slammed into the bumper of the taxi. I yelped and wrapped my arms around the headrest of the chair in front of me to keep myself from smacking my head on the window. I looked up at the money meter, which was already on an incredible price.

“Do you expect me to pay that?”

He sped through a junction and caught sight of a third police car approaching from behind us.

“What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied quietly, my voice shaking. The driver cackled, shaking his head.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered.

I stayed quiet as we accelerated down a long, narrow country road. I wasn’t aware of the time, but the darkness that was pushing against the car windows made it fairly obvious. I began to loosen my grip on the headrest when the car suddenly swerved to the right and smacked open the gate to a field, and the entire car was bouncing on its axis. I screamed and desperately fiddled with the lock on the door for an attempt to escape.

“Let me out, let me out,” I stammered, punching the door handle. I could feel tears streaming down my face, and my whole body felt paralysed with terror. How was I suddenly in a hot taxi that was travelling at speeds that I never even knew existed, being chased by the police? The stale air mixed with the shaking of the seat and desperate confusion caused me to clench my teeth shut to prevent myself from throwing up.

“Are you joking? We’ve nearly lost them!” the driver yelled, speeding through the field. I looked back and saw that the police cars were hesitant to drive through, and had slowed their pace dramatically. Streetlamps in the distance were flying past like white strips of light in the darkness.

“Let me out when you can then, okay, please,” I said helplessly. He looked back at me in the mirror and rolled his eyes, taking a slow turn onto another country road and driving down it at a more acceptable speed. We approached another alleyway and he slammed on the breaks.

“You have ten seconds to get out,” he hissed, adjusting his mirror so that he could see himself, and running his fat fingers through his thin hair.

I shook the door handle but it wouldn’t free me. “It won’t open,” I said. He pushed a button on the dashboard that caused the lock to click and the door flew open. I stumbled out into the alley and tripped into a puddle. I stared down into the thick darkness and turned back around to see the car speeding away.

I walked down the street for a few minutes before realising that there was darkness all around me. I couldn’t see anything. Behind me, in front of me, above me, below me, it was all black. A deep, dense darkness that felt like it was weighing down on me. I stumbled through some more puddles before sitting against a wall.

I closed my eyes and hoped that the darkness would slowly pull away from me and let some sunshine through, in a matter of time.

I must’ve fallen asleep because I woke to the wall behind me disappearing, and I fell backwards. Before I could even open my eyes, two hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back into a room flooded with light.

***

“No memory?” I heard a voice say.  My eyes opened slowly, and adjusted to the light. It wasn’t artificial light, it was more subtle. I noticed candles were spread around the room to create a warm and comforting hue of orange. I rubbed my eyes and felt a band slip down my wrist. I looked down at it; “NO MEMORY.”

“Well, that explains why I don’t remember anything,” I mumbled. A few people around me chuckled. I looked up and saw a group of about a dozen people scattered throughout the large room. One of them, the closest to me, was holding my hand.

“Are you okay?” he asked. I nodded.

“I think so. I just had the craziest taxi ride, though.” He smiled at me.

“We heard sirens, was that anything to do with you?”

I shrugged and pulled my overall over my knees. I felt, and looked, like a mental patient. He patted my hand and shuffled away to bring a drink of water to me. I sipped at it reluctantly, and examined all the other people around me. The boy sitting by me looked a little older than me. He had a brown beard and dark hair that sat on his shoulders. His eyes were bright blue, and despite how young he appeared he had wrinkles on either side of his eyes. ‘Smile lines’, I think they’re called. His cheeks looked hollow and he had tattoos over his arms, and all he wore was a stained grey vest and some shorts. His legs were tattooed a little too, and they all looked fairly new. They also didn’t look entirely professional, to say the least.

A woman sat opposite me, but was avoiding eye contact. Her head was shaved and she had a tattoo underneath her left eyebrow. She was similarly dressed to the boy beside me.

There was a couple in the corner of the room who were burning incense and giggling with one another. They glanced over at me occasionally, but tended to avoid any conversation with anybody else.

Other people in the room seemed to walk about a bit, and ask if I needed anything. Some of them had intriguing scars in unusual places and yet seemed reluctant to tell me anything about them.

“So, what’s your name?” a small, young woman asked me. She sat in front of me and leant forwards, her long, dusty brown hair touching the floor. Her eyes were light brown and she had a tattoo on her forehead that resembled a bindi.

“I don’t know,” I said, gesturing to the band on my wrist. She nodded sympathetically.

“That won’t last long,” she replied, tugging at it. A small rip formed down the centre and she quickly pulled away apologetically.

“Shall we make it more permanent?” she said, picking up a small bottle of ink. I looked at the needle that the boy beside me was holding and leant away.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said nervously.

“Why? You won’t remember the pain, it’ll just be a better version of that wristband you have.”

“Yeah,” the young girl said excitedly. As far as I could see, the tattoos that they had done themselves were quite beautiful, and their practise must have paid off.

After an hour of being held down, which for some reason felt unusually familiar, I had “you have no memory but you mustn’t forget about us” tattooed on my arm. I looked down at it and smiled.

“I don’t even know your names,” I said reluctantly as the girl with long hair hugged me and the girl with no hair avoided me even more.

“You won’t remember them,” the boy said, nudging me with his elbow.

“They’re here,” somebody whispered. I looked round, and a boy I hadn’t noticed was pulling himself through a gap in the wall. The couple in the corner began blowing out all of the candles and stubbing out the incense on the floor.

“Who?” I asked as everybody followed the boy back through the gap.

“Quick, come here,” the girl with long hair said, looking around desperately and holding her hand out to me. I held out my hand as the door behind me opened and somebody grabbed my ankles, pulling me backwards.

“No!” I heard the girl shriek, as she was similarly pulled away into the gap.

“Gotcha’,” said the silhouetted figure holding my ankles.

I woke up on a cold sofa in a small room.