“A young woman was driving by at the time and helped you from the water. She called the emergency services and that’s how you ended up here.”
I crashed?
In a lake?
A young woman rescued me?
I remembered none of it.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I said. “I need to go.”
I couldn’t understand the reasoning behind that statement but I sensed on some level I was right.
I really shouldn’t be there.
I should be somewhere else…
But where?
“Honey, you’re not going anywhere,” the nurse said. “At least not for a while.”
The nurse pressed me gently but firmly back into bed and pulled the sheet over my legs.
She approached the bank of beeping monitors and hastily made notes on her clipboard.
“Do you notice any dizziness? Any nausea?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“That’s good news. Do you remember the flight that led to the crash?”
I shook my head again.
“Do you remember which base you took off from? Why you were flying?”
“No.”
This time, the nurse frowned.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
The dream.
Only the dream.
It felt private, personal, and I didn’t want to share it.
Maybe because it was the only memory I had.
“Do you remember anything from before the crash?” the nurse said.
I focused on that white mist that’d taken up residence in my mind.
I felt certain if I waded into it far enough, I might see something on the other side of it.
But I didn’t know how long that journey would take.
So, I shook my head.
“I can’t remember anything.”
The nurse was slow in covering up her look of concern.
She smiled, though it took some effort.
“I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll go get the doctor and we’ll see what we can do to help you.”
She turned on her heel and marched from the room a lot faster than she had come.
I focused on wading through that dense mist.
Maybe if I kept going, I could reach the far end and uncover at least a hint of the memories that should have been available at the forefront of my mind.
I stopped moving and stood stock still.
For the moment, I was an island, floating in an enormous empty ocean.
In that situation, the best thing you could do was to stay put.
“You have amnesia,” the doctor said.
He had a long face and a mole on his cheek that needed surgery.
He’d taken me from one machine to another, forcing me to drink various liquids and consume various pills in order for them to work effectively.
I saw a great deal of the modern equipment and experts working tirelessly to piece together the puzzle of what happened to me.
Now the verdict had come back and I wasn’t surprised.
“Will I recover?” I said, feeling the bite of anxiety at my heels.
“It’s hard to say. Amnesia can be a very slippery opponent. Sometimes it only lasts for a few hours, other times a few days, and sometimes…”
He let his meaning hang.
It can become permanent.
I tried not to dwell on it too much.
I bit down on my reservations and fixed him with a look.
“How can I help myself recover?”
“Memory exercises. The pathways are still there but you’ve lost access to them. If you keep trying to walk down them, eventually, you should pick up on some breadcrumbs. But really, it’s up to your mind how you recover.”
I would be okay, I decided.
I would regain myself piece by piece.
So long as I was surrounded by medical professionals, I had a chance of making a full recovery.
“Is there anyone we can call?” the doctor said. “Someone who might be able to help?”
He caught himself a moment too late, remembering I couldn’t remember anyone or anything.
“What I meant to say is, you have no forms of identification. No dog tags, no wallet, no ID. It’s like you suddenly appeared out of nowhere.”
“If I’m a pilot, there must be some way to track down where I came from. Someone would miss a pilot and airplane going missing, right?”
The doctor nodded noncommittally.
“We haven’t heard anything yet but we’ll let you know as soon as we do. In the meantime, we’d best find you somewhere for you to recover.”
“Can’t I recover here?” I said, growing a little panicked.
“We need the bed, I’m afraid. And it will be much cheaper for you to stay elsewhere.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Trust me. Things should come back to you.”
He issued an order to a nurse and wrote out a prescription.
“Ensure the patient receives everything he needs. And find him somewhere to rest for a while. He’s going to need time.”
The doctor gave me a comforting smile and then whisked out of the room.
So far as he was concerned, I was no longer his problem.
Then I felt something tug on me.
Not a physical thing—though it felt like it could have been.
I had a feeling buried inside my gut that had nothing to do with my memories but some instinct hardwired into my cells.
The tugging led my eyes down the hallway to another part of the hospital.
Something was there, I thought. Something I was meant to see.
To find.
To explore.
All at once, I felt at home.
I was warm and desired more than anything to discover what that pulsing light pointed to.
The nurse handed me some medicine and I took it without hesitation.
“So, it’s my job to find you somewhere comfortable to stay for a while,” the nurse said. “Do you have any preferences?”
I handed the small paper cup back to her and glanced in the direction of the pulsing light.
“Well?” the nurse said. “Any ideas where you want to stay?”
Yes, I thought. But I wasn’t sure the person on the other end of this spiritual hotline would entertain such an idea…
To save her from the Shadow he must claim her for himself.
Isabella is attracted to her possessive alien warrior but every time he’s about to claim her, they’re interrupted. She tries to help him remember who he is but the only thing he can think about is how drawn he is to her.
Will Ras remember he’s there to claim Isabella before it’s too late? Or will Ras’s Shadow get to her
