"Lucy..." Jag moaned, lying starfish on the floor.
"Lucy..." he repeated for the countless time.
"Lucy-"
The floor shifted, and Jag slipped. He was falling onto the wall - or was it the floor now? The ceiling hovered, and then fell away. It started drifting off to one side.
"Lucy? I didn't mean what I said about the wall...Lucy, please, we're friends now; you don't have to do this."
The walls fell away, and Jag stumbled as his support was taken away from underneath his legs. There were yellow lights shining down: such a great feeling after staring at the whitewashed walls for so long.
The lights blinded Jag's field of view. He could see shadows moving in the distance, and heard machines whirring close by.
"Jag," the woman said again. He blinked his eyes, adjusting to the room. He was in some sort of laboratory. It was like a larger version of the box, but this time someone else was in with him.
"Do you remember me, Jag?" The woman said again, and his eyes slowly focused in on her. Dark hair wound about her shoulders, slim frame and green eyes, hiding behind a pair of expensive glasses.
"Lucy?" Jag said with awe. And then he stopped there, for he didn't know what else to say.
"Yes, it seems that you haven't forgotten your wife quite yet, hmm? Now if you would, please follow me."
Lucy walked out through a door that Jag hadn't noticed was embedded into one of the walls. And he doggedly followed her behind, with the exciting prospect of some food or water.
The pair of them walked down a winding metal mesh pathway, until they reached a single room at the end of it, locked by a door, and with two glass panels either side of it. Lucy opened the door, and gestured for Jag to come through. Inside was a desk full of sheets and cards, and a seat either side of it. Besides that, there were only two fluorescent lights overhead to light the room. The door closed, and several men also with lab coats and clipboards came to stand outside the room and observe through the glass panels.
"If you would take a seat, please," Lucy said to Jag, and waved a hand at the chair sat on one side of the table, before sitting down onto her own. Jag moved slowly and hesitantly.
Lucy took a breath. "Do you know what is happening?"
"Someone just took out wall-ee wall," he said, glancing worriedly over his shoulder.
"Jag! Focus on me. Stop acting like an idiot."
"But what about wall-ee wall?" Jag looked at her with puppy eyes, still not taking in his situation.
"It's a wall, Jag. Please. Do you know where you are?"
"Outside the box."
Lucy stood up, angry. The chair fell over behind her.
"I'm going to put you in isolation if you keep this up."
"Why?" Jag asked, confused.
"Because you cheated on me!" Lucy yelled, banging her fists against the table.
Jag's eyes widened, as he remembered the flashbacks.
Oh, oh gosh. Jane. And Lucy...and this was Lucy. The one who was his wife.
"Uh, I'm sorry?" Jag's voice came out as a little squeak.
Lucy sat back down.
"So you do know what is going on then?" she demanded impatiently.
"I think so. Were you the one who put me in the box?"
"Yes Jag," she sighed. "You were in there for roughly ten hours. Before you entered, I gave you a drug to help you temporarily forget yourself and your memories. And then I gave you another drug - to put you to sleep."
Bloody hell. His own wife would do that to him?
"Why?" Jag asked, bewildered.
"Because you cheated on me!" Lucy banged her fists on the table again. Jag flinched.
"You were supposed to...you were supposed to maybe contemplate your actions afterwards. I thought that taking out your memory for a little bit might help you look at what you...what you did with Jane...in a new light. Maybe find some guilt hidden under that massive ego of yours. Clearly, I was wrong."
God, Jane was right. She was a control freak.
"I still don't get it," Jag began.
"No, of course you don't. At least you suffered in there. You had to pay for what you did to me, to us. We've only been married 18 months!"
"Have we? Oh, right. Well, I can't exactly say that my memory is serving me correctly, but perhaps what I did with Jane was because you were a bit controlling?"
Lucy stared back with white-hit anger burning behind her pupils.
"Get out," she said slowly and deeply.
"This is what I mean. We should talk it over a bit, maybe not with the sinister undertones-"
"Get! Out!" She yelled.
Jag hurried to the door. And then realised he had no idea where he was going.
*******
YOU ARE READING
Truth Stealers (Thief's Signal: Book 1)
Science FictionTrapped in a box with no way out, Jag doesn't remember how he got there, or why. But with time, as he slowly remembers snippets of who he is, he tries to piece together why he is there. But what is fact, and what is fiction? Is he dreaming, or is he...