I had lost my voice.
I was left with nothing but my terror of being in this place, knowing I would soon disappear and exist no more.
I bolted upright, a yelp half-formed on my lips.
I panicked and cast around.
I was surrounded by white walls, and the mist lay draped over my lap, consuming me.
I kicked at it and was surprised when I felt something solid.
It was a blanket, not mist.
Immense relief washed over me as I ran my hands through my hair.
It’d been a nightmare, nothing more.
I chuckled and shook my head and flopped back on the bed.
Somewhere over my shoulder, a machine beeped in perfect time with my racing heart.
I ran a hand over my forehead and a cold sweat dampened my fingertips.
I was alive.
I hadn’t been consumed by the white mist.
Then where was I?
I was in a hospital of some sort.
I tried to recall what happened for me to end up in this place.
I’d been…
Where?
What had I been doing?
If I was in a hospital, it must have gone wrong somehow.
Was I injured?
I ran my hands over my legs, chest, and arms.
I hissed through my teeth at the pain in my right tricep.
I gently prodded it and felt the same pain again.
I had a deep gash there.
It’d been cleaned and dressed.
Beneath the gown that felt like paper, I sported a dozen other marks and burns.
What was going on?
What was I doing in this place?
Had I been captured?
That didn’t seem right.
If someone had captured me, why would they waste good medical resources on me?
And where was the armed guard?
The room was small and plain, with a row of mismatched chairs along one wall, the blue leather worn from thousands of concerned asses.
I put a hand to my temple.
Surely I could remember what happened to me?
Surely this dull white mist that swept over my mind couldn’t be permanent.
I focused as hard as I could but not a single memory traced a gnarled finger over my mind.
I remembered the nightmare, but before that…
Nothing.
It was a terrifying thought.
I was a non-entity without a past.
How could I have any hope of having a future?
I moved to swing my legs over the side of the bed.
They felt weak and could barely brace my weight.
Then the door swung open.
Loud noises erupted from behind the figure standing in the doorway.
I spied long corridors and harsh overhead lights.
Figures rushed to and fro and some kind of speaker system rattled garbled announcements.
A trolley with a figure on top was rapidly rushed past nurses with frenzied expressions on their faces.
I blinked at that.
Nurses.
Yes, nurses.
That was what they were.
Just like the woman who had stepped into my room.
How could I know what they were but not know who I was?
“Ah. I see you’re finally awake,” the nurse said.
She had a pleasant smile and cradled a clipboard in one arm.
“You took quite a nasty blow to the head. We hoped it wouldn’t take long for you to wake up.”
“Why… Why am I here?” I said, surprised the words could even form on my lips.
“You were involved in an accident. You were in an airplane and it crashed.”
“Airplane?”
I racked my brain for any hint of an airplane but nothing came to mind.
“What was I doing on an airplane? Was I a passenger?”
“No, dear. You were the pilot.”
Pilot?
I couldn’t recall being a pilot.
“You crashed into Phoenix Lake out by Ashbourne,” the nurse said.
She shut the door behind herself and approached the foot of my bed.
“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?”
