Taken

Chapter 9

Amyra read and then reread the small message. It wasn't that difficult to comprehend what was written, but apart from that nothing else was comprehendible to her. And what was more, everything about her reaction to it was strange. She had expected herself to start hyperventilating, panic and then probably start either crying or shaking in fear, but none of it happened. She felt alert instead. And confused. All of this because she couldn't recall anything more. She remembered many things of the past, yet many things she had forgotten. Don't we all do that? Teach ourselves to forget the useless small details? But Amyra knew it wasn't the useless, but the unwanted that she has willingly left behind. 

Memory keepers, one of the stories of mom. And there were some other things too, although she couldn't recall them anymore. "Memory keepers, who are you?" She mumbled although she knew that the answers were right there.

She knew that all that she needed to do was take a dip in the memory pool to gain it all back. But was she brave enough to do that? And moreover, did she even know anymore how to do that? It was all a foreign concept to her grown-up mind of an adult. Even as a teenager, she had been able to hold the hope of some things far away from this world, but she has left all those stories behind herself.

Surprisingly, instead of fear which she had unknowingly expected, what came on her face was a smile. Her mother was the greatest storyteller ever. And in a second that smile was replaced by a frown. These were just stories and she didn't even remember many of these anymore. And just like she had heard her mother earlier, this time she heard Vansh.

"How do you know, if it's a story or a recollection?"

Amyra licked her lips as finally what she would deem a fitting response in a normal condition to a situation like this came to her. Panic.

She didn't want to have these panic attacks again, but she couldn't help them. As the sweat beaded her forehead and her heart galloped like a racehorse, she did the only thing she knew that calmed her. It was instinctive, a childhood habit, something that Amu used to do when she was nothing more than a child trying to protect herself from the monsters under her bed.

She lied down on the floor right there curling up into a ball, pulled her legs up together against her chest and wrapped her hands around them. Pressing her forehead against her knees, she repeated the rhyme again and again:

As you hug yourself in the dark of night,

You'll see a flicker of the hopeful light.

It won't be the fairy, that'll save the day,

It won't be the angel, pray you may.

But take a dip dear, take a chance,

It's you who's there, just take a glance

With heart of flower, force of quake,

Snatcher and keeper, both you make.

In land of  memoir, with wraith of past

Keep your dare, and you shall last.

The poem would have lulled her to sleep in the days long gone, but at the moment it did a good job of keeping her sane and calm. But there was something else that she was now feeling instead of panic- it was a feeling of something coming to her with the force of sea waves. It was just a feeling, but so strong that she felt the force of it in every particle of her being. She could imagine a door, an invisible and weak door, which was keeping the flood of those waves outside for the time being. She could feel her body draining of energy as the door kept the flood away from her consciousness. Her hands closed in tight fists over her legs, she hugged herself harder against the cold floor, willing the door to stay closed.