ROOM 211

PART THREE

3.

She turns from her left side onto her back and stretches then opens her eyes. It hits her, a sense of something being very wrong rushes through her, a brief and temporary crash of everything physical within her strikes. It'll take a moment or so to recover from this drain.

What she initially can see she does not recognize. She doesn't know where she is. She sits up, slowly, cautious of that momentary draining sensation. She definitely does not recognize this room. There had been somewhere else not so long ago where she had been laying, wasn't there? Another room, a larger room, but where? For the life of her she doesn't know.

This place she now lays within, this is a hotel room, perhaps? Why is she apparently alone in a hotel room? She may have come here alone but why can't she remember?

Her head hurts, all of a sudden too. Pain from the center of her head emanating outwards, a brain kind of pain, she puts two fingers from her right hand to the base of her nose, there is blood but not all so much. It takes a moment or two for the brain pain to begin to ease. Gathering herself she stands, turns, and flinches suddenly. The flinch causes her to fall backwards and onto the floor next to the bed. She had caught sight of a reflective image and in turn it had caught her off-guard.

The reflective image had been her own; it is her own reflection having briefly come back at her from within a lengthy mirror on the wall opposite the bed. Though it couldn't have been her own image. Part of the reason she flinched and fell was seeing movement and not realizing the presence of a lengthy mirror and then not recognizing the image coming back at her.

The reflection, it may have been ever so brief though she did not in any way recognize that mirrored image. How can that be? How can she not know her own reflection when she sees it? Something is very wrong here.

She stands and attempts to compose herself then looks towards the mirror and begins to move closer to it. The mirror reflects the movement. She is in someone else's skin; this must be it. Whatever she had been previously has left her and what is new is still to be discovered, but is it new? It must be. This reflection, her eyes, her hair, her mouth and chin, the make-up she is wearing, there is nothing recognizable, she knows not of what she sees. Her brow contracts and thought takes over. What is it that she does know? No answer is coming.

Her name, her age, her family, and friends, she knows none of this. Where she is from, where she is now, how she got here, everything is a blank. Her heartbeat quickens and her eyes begin to search as if there may be answers hidden nearby, waiting to be found. There are no answers to be found, not in this room, at least not immediately.

But there is something, something brief, something dark. It is there in her mind's eye. She can see a darkness, she can see movement as if her mind is locked away in a room and trying its darnedest to get out, and just like that an attempt to escape from such a prison ceases.

On a seat, a cushioned wooden chair situated right next to the mirror there is clothing, more specifically there is a dress, white and red coloured, mostly white. There are two sets of shoes next to that chair, a pair of white high heels and a pair of red flats with a thick white rubber rim.

She presently is wearing nothing more than under garments and white stockings that stretch up above her knees, so the dress goes on as do the flat red shoes. The clothing fits and feels odd. She cannot see herself wearing clothing like this in any circumstance; then again, what does she know. For the moment it is not as if she has many obvious options at her disposal. If she looked more thoroughly maybe there are other options.

What to do now. She can't stay where she is. There is a window within the room, so she moves to it and has a look outside. It is bright out there and she appears to be at least one or two floors up in some town she is also unlikely to remember, yeah it is quite likely she is within a hotel too. So, a trip outside is in order, possibly get her bearings? What else is there to do?