The Persistence of Memory | ✔

17

Rain was just beginning to fall—so weak it was barely there—when Nina walked into the dimly lit room where she would be spending the night. Off white walls looked nearly yellow beneath the dull lighting while the few pieces of furniture looked worn even from the doorway. Nina didn't mind it so much. She wouldn't be staying for long, not if she could help it, and the place was desolate enough that it would not be easy to find.

No one would be looking for her there. At least, that was what Nina was counting on.

She sighed as she closed the door behind her, making sure to lock it before walking to the bed and dropping her bag on top of the tacky, multi-colored bedding. Even with the bed looking like a far cry from the one in her apartment, it looked incredibly enticing to Nina at the moment. She was exhausted, her eyes burning while a headache built up and everything that had happened filled her mind to the brim until Nina could no longer process it all. Simply put, Nina didn't know what to do.

For someone who'd always been so self assured, so certain of her role and her purpose, that was a frightening feeling. It was something Nina had been battling with, perhaps from the moment she awoke in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there, something she'd managed to push back as she worked to get back to her normal life. And then, just as she managed to get a grip on who she was, it slipped away and she fell into a world that kept shifting beneath her feet—throwing her off balance.

Nina didn't know what to do, hadn't known for longer than she cared to consider, but she knew that simply sitting around—giving up—wasn't an option.

She took a deep breath, exhaled, and felt her head clear just a bit. Enough that she thought she could function well enough to do something. Even so, she dug around her bag for the emergency meds she carried and downed a couple of pills for the headache that was slowly becoming a real nuisance. Once that was done, she reached for the files she'd hurriedly packed away, pulling them out and making her way over to the desk across the small room.

The sole chair she was provided with was dragged back over the grey carpet that had seen better days. It creaked as Nina took a seat, the wood feeling flimsy enough that Nina was concerned about it giving away for a minute, but she settled down soon enough and opened up the files once more.

Perhaps there wasn't much more for Nina to find in there. Still, there was a certain comfort to be gained from doing something. Nina needed a purpose at that moment, something to guide her and show her what she should do when all the walls were closing in on her and the world felt like a stifling place. Something to drown out the voice telling her that she was going mad.

Nina found some of that in going through Fearnley's records, even if it was the second time.

The clock, an antiquated thing that reminded her of her school days, when she'd sat at an uncomfortable desk with a test in front of her and the ticking of the clock a steady warning that her time was slipping away. That very feeling returned to her in full at that moment. Behind her, the clock was ticking away, echoing in her mind as she tried to put all of her attention into the words on the pages before her. All the while, the conversation she'd had with Ben played over and over in her head.

I was so stupid, Nina couldn't help but think. I shouldn't have gone back to that place.

Her return to the SEIN building had felt like a mistake from the start, but Nina had credited that to purely personal reasons. After all, there was much reason for her to feel apprehensive about entering the building. The time she spent there after the accident was not something she wanted to be reminded of.

The clock on the wall kept ticking away and the words began to blur into a dark, inky mess. More than ever before, Nina wished she had someone she could talk to. Even if she hadn't gotten rid of her phone at some random point between her apartment and the distant motel she'd stumbled across after driving without a set course, Nina knew that there was no one she could confide in. Her friends, her family, couldn't be involved in the mess she'd trapped herself in. Ben had already done more than he should have by warning her.