Do You Remember?

Chapter Three

The nurse ushered the large Novak family out of the small hospital room. Mrs Novak took Ben's hand and squeezed it, giving him a forlorn look as she made her way out of the room herself.

The nurse busied herself with the machinery that Ben was hooked up to, obviously trying to avoid any kind of conversation. Her thin figure was just within Ben's sight and he shot her his best glare.

"Excuse me," Ben spoke up, turing his head so he could see the nurse fully. The nurses body froze as she glanced towards Ben.

"Sir?" The nurses brown eyes shifted back towards the piece of equipment that she was working with.

Ben shifted in the bed, trying his best to sit as high as possible, "What is retrograde amnesia?"

The nurse cringed as she wrote something on her clipboard. She ignored the question as she continued around the room, completing her tasks. "Doctor Keller will be in shortly," she said, in her thick english accent.

Ben sighed as he watched her walk away, long black ponytail swaying as she moved. "Can't anyone just answer one damn question?" He muttered to himself as he leaned back in his bed.

Closing his eyes, Ben focused on trying to remember. He could clearly see himself and his best friend from High School, Jackson, sitting on his parents roof. The two were throwing rocks into the small creek that ran through his backyard. Ben seemed out of place in this memory. The two friends were hardly talking. There was an obvious space in between the two, and they wouldn't even look at each other. However Ben couldn't remember why.

He focused, shifting his brain towards another memory. He was on a train. There was a girl sitting next to him, a warm smile on her face. She was dressed in military fatigues and her bright red hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She acted friendly towards Ben, shyly glancing over at him as she talked. Just as she began to speak, the memory blurred as if it were moving away from him. Ben tried to grasp the memory as it faded away, desperate for answers.

"PFC Novak?" A female voice broke Ben from his memories, "I'm Doctor Keller. I'm the neurosurgeon who preformed your surgery. How are you feeling?"

Ben tried to sit up, a sharp pain went through his body as he did so. He cursed himself as this was the fifth time that day he'd made that mistake. "I'm doing as well as I can consider." Ben laughed, gesturing to his surroundings.

The doctor laughed as she took a seat in the nearest chair. "From what I've heard from your nurses and family, you're having a hard time remembering things?" Dr Keller ran a pale hand through her golden brown hair as she read over the notes written on her clipboard.

"Somethings seem really blurry and distant," Ben spoke as he tried to make sense of how things seemed in his head, "I can very vividly remember my memories up until High School graduation. After that things begin to get blurry, and eventually it's at a point where I don't remember anything. Like why everyone's calling me a PFC?"

Dr. Keller nodded as her pencil scratched across the paper quickly, she looked up at Ben as she finished, her green eyes laced with pity. "Mr. Novak, the other doctors and I believe you have Retrograde Amnesia. I'm sure that sounds so foreign to you, but I assure you that with the help of our hospital nurses and a few months of therapy we may be able to help coax recovery of your memory." She handed Ben a small pamphlet as she spoke.

Ben was lost, he began to zone out as she continued talking. He lost his memory? Ben stared at the pamphlet in his hand in shock. When his parents had mentioned Amnesia he didn't want to believe it. But now, with the words staring up at him from the pamphlet in his hand, Ben was scared.

Dr Keller seemed to notice that Ben had stopped listening and she stopped talking. She placed a hand on his arm and gave him a reassuring smile, "Ben I have faith that you'll be able to find your memories. You are a fighter, I can tell. I believe in you." She gave his arm a small squeeze before standing up and making her way out of the room.

The small gesture she made definitely helped Ben feel a bit better about his situation. However, the future seemed dimmer now. He still had no idea what happened to him, or what he was going to do. Getting his memory back was a daunting task, and he knew it wasn't going to be easy.