ROOM 211

PART NINTEEN

23.

Curtains are open and the sunlight shines through. He opens his eyes, and his first thought is as to where it is he is and as to how it is he got there for he almost immediately does not recognize what he sees, then the pain hits. He clenches his eyes shut and brings his right hand to his forehead. The pain is horrible and intense; the light shining into the room certainly is not helping.

If anything, the light shining in to the room is aiding and abetting the pain so in an effort to avoid the light he rolls away from it and rolls so far that he falls out of the bed. He sits up on the floor and it is in this moment the realization properly kicks in. Where is he? What is going on? Why can't he remember? That plop onto the floor, it did create a thud and it becomes clear that he is not alone in this place, wherever it is he is.

'Will, is that you? Are you up?'

The voice, it belongs to a female. She sounds pleasant, nice, possibly even attractive too as far as a voice can sound though he does not recognize it, he does not know who it belongs to, and it sounds both distant and close both at once. His immediate instinct is to get up and get out no matter if it does look like he is not in danger, no matter how well the immediate surroundings look and no matter how friendly that voice sounds.

'William, you didn't hurt yourself, did you?' inquires that voice.

The voice is not quite a shout, but it does speak loudly and is traveling upwards so he is possibly upstairs in someone's home? This would be logical since he is in a bedroom and the owner of the voice, as well as possibly the home, is most likely downstairs. Should he answer? Say something, anything? No, he needs to leave, go somewhere, get away from here, until he can at least get his bearings. Who is William? Is this his name or does it belong to someone else? Why doesn't he know his own name?

Is he an intruder, someone being mistaken for someone else? He has no idea for he has no answers. He mustn't have been since he is next to naked and had been sleeping. There is clothing to put on, not much of a choice though this is not one of the more pressing worries. He throws on what he can including footwear all of which so happen to fit so perhaps this clothing is his. Does he belong here? He does not want to hang around to be persuaded one way or the other, not until he can know what the hell is going on. Something must come to him ... soon.

There is a mirror within the room, and he catches a glimpse of himself. What is he, in his teens? Surely, he is older than the reflection suggests, but perhaps not. He feels older. What is this? Why can't he remember? Surely, he must know what he looks like? This is crazy.

He begins to make a move towards the top of the stairs and then takes a few steps down. From where he is he can see the front door. The end of the stairs brings him only feet away from that door. The lower he gets the better a view he can have of the kitchen. There is a woman in there, older than what is, by more than a little margin. She is young too, mid-thirties perhaps and indeed attractive. If she so happens to be his mother, then he cannot be thinking of her in such a manner.

'William, what's wrong with you? You're a bit on the quiet side today. What did they do to you in that place?'

She hasn't caught full sight of him yet and this frightens him. What if he isn't this William fellow? If he is caught off guard and somehow apprehended, then he has nothing he can tell authorities, if such a thing were to come. If he is an intruder then he has no explanation, he has nothing at all to offer so instead of waiting to find out if he is in fact this William fellow, he makes a bolt for it.

The thing is, once a bolt for it has been made, now what? Where can he go? What can he do? There is no money, no nothing. He doesn't know who he is, where he is, he recognizes nothing, what he does know is as good as nothing. For right now he can always hope what he has lost will come back to him, action-wise there is nothing else but for him to go wandering and see what comes while taking in his surroundings in order to remember a way back to where it is he is about to leave. If he must he can always come back and face the music here and deal with what hits him.