Portrait of a Girl

Waking

A cool gust of wind billows through the window, sending the silky purple curtains dancing through the musty air, sending the sweet aroma of spring's first gentle breath flitting about the dank, crumbling room. Feeling the soft, gentle breeze ruffling her long golden locks, a young girl looks up from where she lay upon the moth-eaten faded red carpet. Her charcoal grey eyes dart about the dark decaying room. She furrows her brow, eyes knowing not a single dust coated object in this room, this once grand wing of some dying manor. And then, quite suddenly, they stop. Confusion and, perhaps, a hint of recognition fill her face as her deep grey eyes come to rest upon a small portrait hanging in a golden frame, somehow free from the thick layer of dust blanketing the rest of the ancient room. Within the portrait she sees, staring back at her with the same wide-eyed gaze and gentle charcoal eyes, a girl with long golden locks, standing in an endless green lawn, smiling brightly back at her.

But she continues to stare, not with shock or fear at seeing her own smiling face plastered so decadently above the great marble fireplace, but with curiosity. This is because, though in her mere moments of wake she does not yet notice this emptiness within her mind, she no longer has more than a faint recollection of who she is or how she came to be in such a strange room with her own portrait perched so high upon the red satin papered walls. Thus, she sees her own face staring back at her, and knows not how strange this is, for she knows only that she has seen this face before.

Shaking her head, curls bouncing slightly from the sudden movement, she tears her gaze from the eerily familiar portrait and stands up. She looks down to see a lacy black dress flowing down to the rotting oak floorboards. Suddenly, she realizes why the room with wide open windows covering every inch of the wall before her is so dark. Reaching up, she lifts a thick, lacy black veil from her eyes, see now the bright golden rays of sunlight gleaming through the windows. It is at this moment that terror slides its long and bony fingers out to grasp her fearful heart, as she realizes that she knows not even her name.

Horror flooding in, filling every crevice of her unknowing head, she begins to yell and scream and flail about the room. There is no place for composure at such a time as this, when one has lost one's whole life- every moment of every day, every thought, every hope, and every dream, to the cruel unruly clutches of forget. She strains her brain for anything, even just a glimpse into who she is, but she faces nothing more than the blank unending darkness of a starless night.

Suddenly,out of nowhere a stiff hand sternly grabs her shoulder.