Every Second Counts

Chapter One - The Girl In The Dark Room

Today - Friday night

BONE CHILLING WHIRLS OF THUNDERY CLOUDS whip around me as I spin deeper and deeper. There is no light. There are just swirls of various gradients of darkness. Down and down I go. And then a hand appears from nowhere at the same time sheets of brightness illuminate objects. No, not objects, an orange shirt...dark hair, is it a woman or a man? I'm shaking. Frightened. I try to speak but I hear another voice. 'Athena.' It's my mother's hand and she comes into view, sparkling blue eyes, locks of golden curls. 'Don't cry my little warrior,' she says as she cradles me. I open my mouth again but she says, 'Hush,' and kisses my forehead. 'You came back for me...' I whimper. She puts her finger over my lips. 'No, you haven't seen me, Athena. Whatever anyone asks you, you haven't seen me.' And then she leaves me and walks toward the darkness. 'Mama,' I cry out. 'Don't leave me.' But she does. She gets smaller and smaller until she fades into the bone chilling whirls of thundery clouds.

I can't help it. I start to cry and the memory of when I was a little girl, disappears.

'What do you remember?' the girl in the dark room asks me and immediately I come to the present...sitting at the table in front of my computer in Red's apartment .

'Nothing,' I lie. I will not tell her what I think happened to me when I was six years old. I'm hell bent on taking that repressed memory to my grave!

I hear her take a slow breath. 'Open your eyes,' she orders.

I obey and my heart goes out to the girl in the dark room. I hold my breath for what seems like eternity, all the while letting my inner emotions knot into horror, knives stabbing my very soul. I still can't get used to the link I set up months ago. I'm staring at the screen on my laptop, looking into a murky dungeon-like chamber. Something out of the dark ages. A spiral of grimy water trickles down the sullied bricks on the far wall. In places I can see a build-up of green slime. I can virtually smell the dank odour it secretes and feel the chill air. But, I cannot see her. I never see her!

I wonder for the 100th time, how my messed up head thought it was a good idea to become involved with the most unusual web-site called Four Steps To Retrieve Your Repressed Memories. Sort of a self-help for head-cases. When I stumbled upon the website several months ago, I read every detail and I have to admit it scared the living crap out of me. But, there was a list of testimonials all claiming it had worked for them.

In short, if I could actually handle the trauma of setting it up and going through the sessions, I believed it could actually work for me, although there was a serious warning that for those with an over-active imagination there could be serious side-effects and they listed clinical depression as one of them. I took no notice of the warning, but as soon as I decided I'd give it a try, it was as if my whole body was the receptacle for a witches coven...their long jagged fingernails stabbing me from all angles and my mind screamed 'This. Is. A. Very. Bad. Idea!'

But, that is all in the past. I have to keep going, no matter how traumatised I become prior to my weekly sessions with the girl in the dark room, during my weekly sessions and after my weekly sessions. It's serious fucking mental! And...so am I!

But at the time, and even now, I believe my sessions with the girl in the dark room is the way to the truth and to discover the killers of my parents.

'Go back to that day. What happened to your parent's?' she asks. 'You're stronger now than you have ever been. I can sense it. You are ready. As you remember it, tell me as it happened.'

I know I have to do as she asks. So, back I go to that fateful day. But, as soon as I'm there, I know she's wrong. I am not ready.

My body takes on a life of its own, writhing in tormented apprehension. I see it clearly, 'I'm in the back office of my father's Chemist shop. I'm updating his computer system. It's slow work and I want to leave, go back to my parents cottage, enjoy my mother's company. Floppy is in the office, licking my ankles. "Get out," I tell her. But she cannot. My father has shut the door, he doesn't want a dog hanging around in his shop while he stacks new drugs onto the shelves.'