A water color painting of magnificent greens and elegant gold ran together making an intense blur of calming colors. A moment more was spent admiring this water color, then I realized…this wasn’t a painting. My eyes fluttered open and painfully adjusted to the afternoon glow that seeped through the canopy of the forest trees.
Dull noises came into hearing. Their tone panicked and worried. I wish I knew where they were coming from. Sitting up, I examined my surroundings and took note of the two people squatting beside me. Their mouths moved wildly, a sort of excitement coming over them. The ginger girl grabbed my shoulder a searing pain jolting from her touch. A scream escaped my mouth, sending my senses back into their full effect.
“Amy? Amy, are you okay?” The man next to me asked hurriedly. He had dark scruff covering the lower half of his face a black waves of hair that were desperate for a cleaning.
“Amy?” The lady spoke now, her long crimson hair was silky but had twigs intertwined in its grasp. Her emerald eyes bore into me, intimidated I looked away quickly.
I now looked down at my own body. I was in tattered skinny jeans and a gray tank top that was covered in grass stains and dirt. I was missing a boot and my sock was torn. I didn’t recognize myself.
Panic. Fear. Shock. Horror.
“W-what…who…where am…” I struggled to find the words and my mind desperately racked itself to find any sort of memory of mine. There were none. I couldn’t remember. Remember what though? What did I need to remember?
“Amy calm down…see Gavin, I told you. I told you that we shouldn’t have let Amy go off the usual path but what did you say? ‘Oh it won’t be dangerous,’ well it looks pretty fucking extreme. We should have followed her sooner.” The woman scolded the man for an act that I couldn’t recall.
“Amy,” the man directed at me ignoring the other girl.
“Amy?” I asked. Was this my name?
“Shit…Do you know who I am?” he questioned. I shook my head and his face went ghostly pale.
The two strangers bickered back and forth quickly, too fast for me to keep up with. The forest grew darker causing the shadows to snake towards us. Finally, they got quiet and returned their attention to me.
“Your name is Amethyst Jericho, we call you Amy. We are your friends. I’m Hayley Rain and that jackass is Gavin Williams. You fell off a very steep hill and I guess you hit your head pretty hard on the way down.” Hayley seemed to whimper the last part, her eyes drooping slightly.
“We need to get back to our home. Can you stand?” Gavin rose to his feet and held out a hand for me to grab in case I needed assistance.
There was so much to take in and I seemed to be in a hypnotic trance. Taking Gavin’s hand, I propelled myself to my feet. The world spun and but I managed to remain balanced. These strangers knew me…I didn’t. Maybe trusting them was the only option here.
They guided me through the gloomy woods. The trees looking more cryptic than when there was sunlight. The shadows became eerier and the animals of the night louder. Howling sounded in the distance causing immediate alarm to Hayley and Gavin. The two began to run, pulling me along rapidly with them.
Before long we arrived at a small wooden home. A familiarity flowed from it but of course I couldn’t place it. The creaky porch squealed under our feet as we bolted through the door. Candles lit the room and I noticed the abundance of clutter. One couch sat in front of a boarded up window, three mattresses were scattered in the large living room, and piles of clothes were placed in available corners neighboring mounds of ammunition and guns. A door to our right opened and a man with dirty blonde hair and a gray T-shirt stormed out.
