Et tú, Clarissa?

Chapter one

Present Day (England, Britain)

An extraordinary feeling tingling through my limbs and I feel how I gasp for air. I need to breathe and that one missing element I have not had the pleasure of feeling in quite a while, helps me raise my chest and open my heavy eyelids. My dry eyes who are no longer used to that bright light shining down at me aches because of the effort it takes for me to try to adjust. After a while, all my other senses start to come back to me as well and I hear someone talk.

"I think she's starting to wake up. Get Doctor Armstrong!"

Doctor Armstrong? Where am I?

Suddenly the endless blur in front of my eyes starts regaining its contours and I see a brown-haired woman over me. She is completely dressed in white and it makes her beautiful skin even darker. A sudden panic grabs a hold of me and I look around. Odd things surround me and there are people everywhere with big eyes looking at me like I was a miracle. Pictures of a woman with pitch-black hair and just as dark eyes looking at me like that too, appear in front of me, and that same gaze belonging to a man in proper clothes and eyes like stars.

I find my way back to reality and see three more people running into the room through the white door.

"Where am I? What do you want with me?" I try to sound certain, but the panic slips through the words I speak and give me away.

I cannot say my unsuccessful tries to escape and the people holding me back to my bed makes me look any more confident. A man comes towards me and looks at me with calm eyes.

"Calm down, love," he says with a voice that I somehow recognise. "I'm Doctor Armstrong. We're all here to help you."

I gaze at the people outside the transparent walls and follow Doctor Armstrong's every step towards my bed. A knowing smile bends his lips as he sees that I have him under total surveillance. In his arms, he has some kind of a journal and as he sits down next to me in a chair, he opens his mouth.

"We have had a really hard time ID-ing you. I would love it if you could tell me your name."

Due to some reason, even that question that should be pretty obvious forces me to really think.

My name...?

"Clarissa, I think," I say with my voice revelling how unsure I am regarding the matter. "Clarissa Lockwood. Why am I here?"

The doctor writes something in the journal and looks at me for a while before he continues.

"You've been in a coma for quite a long time. Do you remember anything?"

It would be a lie if I didn't tell you that the emptiness filling my head did not have me worried, but I try to hide it as I slowly shake my head.

"Family, friends, home?" he tries, but I can't come up with anything.

It is totally blank. Odd.

I study him for a while and look around once more. There is not a single thing that I recognise or find the meaning of.

Where am I?

Doctor Armstrong clears his throat and I look at him.

"How did I get here?" I ask him to not make it obvious that I am creeped out by not knowing where I am or what people are holding me.

"That is still kind of a mystery to us how exactly you were found, but you were brought here by a young gentleman who was pretty shocked by the fact that he had found someone that close to death like you were."