When We Awoke

Arian

I could feel something prickling my skin. It felt as if I were laying on a bed of hay as sharp as needles. I opened my eyes slowly. I looked around. A voice in the back of my mind told me, you are not supposed to be here.

Around me lay dead,brown cut grass and it was not soft. It seemed to be the kind that stayed behind after crops were picked and the land was left alone. Grass was strewn across the ground everywhere and some were upright, probably nostalgic of the time that some sort of vegetable had been apart of them. I couldn't blame them, I was currently feeling nostalgic for something I couldn't even remember.

I tried to push myself upwards with my hands, I had been laying on my side when I awoke. After two seconds of this new position, my arms gave out and I was back onto the ground like I was before. I wasn't weak, something other than gravity was making me feel stuck or powerless.

I concluded that I was in a field that went on for miles. Or maybe the fuzziness filling my brain made me think that. Speaking of my brain, I still couldn't remember anything. Nothing at all, except for the fact that my name was Arian. Something else seemed to be tugging at my mind. Another name. Something starting with an "A" maybe. I couldn't grasp what my mind might be trying to tell me. All I really wanted to know was how I had gotten here and why I was here. More importantly who was Al--Alis--Alisa? The name came to me slowly and then all at once. She must mean something to me. But what?

I moved my hand over my pants and felt something paperlike through my pocket as my hand brushed against it. I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. Ink had scrawled out a message that read:

"You'll remember. Soon."- ❁

I flipped the paper over, but no name appeared anywhere. The only kind of signature was a simple flower. Did Alisa, the name painted across my mind, write this for me?

Suddenly a chill fell over me and my mind darkened, I shut my eyes as if to stop whatever was happening from happening but it was too late. I gripped the dirt under my hands and felt it plant itself under my nails, short as they were. Everything was fading away and a new place was unfolding in my mind. A memory.

I was in a mostly dark bedroom. The only light came from the illumination of the moon outside the window. A large bed was underneath the window. In it, lay myself and a girl whose skin absorbed the moonlight and the stars.

The girl beside me was laying with her bare back facing up, her face lay sideways on the pillow in the direction of myself, and the blanket stopped at the small of her back. Her dark hair lay in a controlled mess against her shoulders. I couldn't see her eyes because they were closed, possibly dreaming, but I knew her eyes were hazel. I knew they were beautiful just like every other part of her.

I looked at myself next, I was awake laying on my side and staring at the girl while caressing her back lightly in small circles. I saw myself smooth a lock of hair out of the girl's face and place it behind her ear. It seemed like such a typical thing to do, but there was meaning to these gestures. There was care and even love.

I planted my elbow on the pillow and rested my head on my hand while staring down at her. I heard myself say the words: "I've loved you for a thousand and one days. I've loved you since the first moment I spent with you, even if I didn't know it then. I'll love you for a million and one more days, if only we could live that long. Alisa, you're everything and more to me. Everything times infinity. The problem is, I don't think i'm the same person anymore. I'm sorry. You don't deserve this."

I saw myself look away and my eyes gazed at the ceiling for several seconds before I leaned over and placed a brief kiss on the girl's--Alisa's cheek. I moved the blanket off myself and stood up from the bed in black boxer briefs. I pulled on the pants that were laying next to the bed. I walked over to the dresser that was in front of the bed, I opened the top drawer and pulled out a dark shirt and put it on. I saw myself pull something else out of the drawer, something dark and metal. I couldn't tell what it was before it was tucked it into the waistband of my pants and covered with my shirt. Whatever it was, it worried me, because even with the little light in the room, I could tell that my mouth had formed into a frown. Was I about to do something terrible? Or might something terrible happen so that I needed that special item from the dresser?

I was not sure about anything from this memory, except for Alisa. I knew from what I said to her that she meant the world to me and that I never wanted to let her go. I felt that in my heart as I watched myself walk out of the bedroom. I heard a sound from behind me, almost a whisper. And it had said: "You are my everything too. I thought you told me never again." I saw tears fall upon Alisa's cheeks and she used her hands to wipe them away. My heart was breaking just seeing her that way.

My eyes flew wide open and I was back in the field, back to this strange reality, broken out of my memory. But if it was really my memory, why had I seen Alisa crying when I wasn't even in the room. That should have been her memory. I shouldn't have been able to see it.

I feared that things would only become more perplexing as I lay in this field. I needed to figure out everything and I wanted to figure it out now, but my mind remained cloudy and distorted. No such luck would fall upon me anytime soon.