Denham

1 || Blue March Afternoon

There was no dark and stormy night when Levi Denham lost his memories. It was a bright and clear spring day when the impact lifted him off his feet; the noon sun blazed high in the sky when he slammed into the windshield and flew off of the car.

Pain exploded throughout every inch of his body, pierced his muscles and bones. Air rushed in his ears and time slowed to a crawl as the world spun around him; he couldn't tell if he was soaring up or down or sideways.

Sunlight and blue sky and red all melted together and danced through his vision before darkness overcame them entirely.

His limp, broken body hit the street with a sickening thud, and his head cracked against the pavement with a loud, hollow noise. Everything and nothing hurt all at once and suddenly he was on his back, staring shocked into the blue afternoon.

Everything spun and the sun itself seemed to twirl above him. He tried desperately to decipher what had just happened, but there was nothing but blankness in his mind.

He closed his eyes to escape from the vibrancy of the sky and the trees looming into it, but he felt himself spiral into unconsciousness the moment his eyes fluttered shut.

Time passed, but it couldn't have been quantified. It could have been two minutes or two years, but all he knew was that he peeled his eyes open to an even more vibrant, saturated world.

Oh. It's all so bright, he blinked, unsure if his quivering lips moved when he said it--or if he said it at all.

Glass shattered and passerby screamed in slow motion. The lethargic shriek of metal on metal sounded to his left, but he didn't even know if he could move. So Levi watched from below the chaos created by his incident and the one he couldn't see, trapped in molasses. It was as if he was laying prone at the bottom of a rippling pool.

Even the colors that bled into his sight and began to swirl and shape did so at an unhurried pace.

He blinked in and out of consciousness, of existence, felt his heart beating and was vaguely aware of the blood in his mouth. Doors slammed and distant footsteps approached; each sound echoed in his muddled mind and wrapped around him.

A stricken, tear-soaked face slid above his own and rippled and spun with color like the rest of his world. They formed a silhouette around her and constantly shifted and moved with her, solid tendrils of deep blue, green, yellow and purple.

Time decided to right itself when she came into view; everything was brighter and louder as it happened in real time.

"Call an ambulance," The woman screamed, voice hoarse and choked with sobs. She checked over his body with frantic hands and eyes and wept harder when her shaking fingers came away bloody from his scalp.

Levi was uncertain of it, but he thought that he recognized her. He knew her face and he knew her eyes and her voice; all he could think was that he knew her. There was something he could focus on besides the purgatory of pain and nothingness he floated in.

"Can you hear me? Oh my God please can you hear me? I'm so so sorry, I only need one word or a sound or something oh my God--" Her voice drifted in and out of his mind. Even when he read her lips, he could sense the desperation in her tone; he could practically feel it as she hovered above him.

He watched her closely, studied her as the colors began to clash in her face and hair, no longer held by the bounds of her shadow. Her chest heaved with another heavy sob when her eyes locked with his clouded ones. A tiny, unexplainable shock ran through him and he nodded.

The woman visibly sagged with relief and let out a long, rattled breath. "Okay, okay. Can you--can you talk? Because if you can't talk to me then maybe you can blink? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know--"

She searched his face and eyes for some kind of coherence in him, but the only thing that rolled off of his useless tongue was an eloquent "hrrmggh".

It was a start; he could tell because through the tears, hope bloomed in her eyes. He couldn't tell what color they were, not when they were filled with purple and red and yellow.

"Levi, I'm so so sorry. Do you remember me?" Her eyes bored into his and he just stared back. "Okay, okay, no, I'm so sorry. My name--" Her voice faded into white noise when his consciousnsss drifted away from him.

He clung to it as firmly as he could, because if he slept, he wasn't sure he would open his eyes. So he just watched her and she did the same.

More footsteps surrounded them, then their colorful silhouettes began to appear on the edges of his slowly but surely fading vision. The woman looked up at them and Levi followed her eyes, tried to make out each face through the colors.

She stood and cast one last pleading look down at him and disappeared into the ocean of hues. With nothing to focus on, Levi began to drift; the numbness in his body started to lay claim to his mind, and all he could really see was the ghost of the woman's face.

Questions were thrown around above him, maybe thrown his way. The noise started to overwhelm him, and the heat became ever-present, pressed on his vulnerable body. So he closed his eyes and let the colors overwhelm him.

They crashed and swelled and receded like ocean waves, pulled his consciousness deeper and deeper until the world disappeared. Time started to pass indefinitely; he heard sirens, nervous chatter, and everything dissolved into a hum.

Then, he had nothing left but the colors.