You are surrounded by signs, she said

–Ignore none of them

( ; Steve Erickson )

Before her eyes cracked open to reveal nothing but darkness she had one thought bouncing around in her seemingly empty brain; now of course that's a bit of an overstatement because her brain was full to bursting with memories like the starry night sky, the heavily accented cold of rain, the smell of pie, a home, a bike, cars, she could remember everything of a life that wasn't really hers because there were no names, no faces no nothing… not even her own name was amongst the knowledge she seemed to have, but the one thing that never ceased to cross her mind was the word Una. She knew it meant together in Latin, and she knew even better that Latin was a language and that she had extensive knowledge in this language, and in the English language and in the language called Mandarin but how on Earth was she multilingual when she couldn't even remember her own damn name?

But when the darkness did replace her dream state she began to move, first slowly as she felt the steel cold walls around her with shaking fingertips, the draft creeping up her spine as if a bug was making its way to the base of her neck where the hairs there began to stand on end in response. When she built up enough courage she tried to stand up, only to hit her head off another metal wall, or roof would be the more appropriate term, and have her knees buckle underneath her as she fell back to the identical metal floor. At that exact moment the box lurched upward, she guessed it was up anyway because the vertigo she experienced at that moment in time punched a hole in her stomach and had her retching in the corner of the box that she was currently trapped in. It took her maybe five minutes to rid of anything that might have been in her stomach before she found herself with half a memory, and only when her breathing slowed to a regular pace once more did she strain herself to begin counting down the seconds that passed.

Five minutes went by and the box didn't stop, didn't slow down nor did it speed up and this pace kept up for another twenty minutes, straight up and she idly wondered how far underground was she originally, and how on Earth did the lack of air pressure not crush her? But then she thought there she goes again, thinking of something so intricate like air pressure with no memory of who she was or where she learnt about the concept of air pressure. Nothing made sense to her, and though she should have been screaming for help, crying out, banging her fists on the walls and doing her best to escape something deep in the recesses of her mind told her there was no use, she'd just have to wait for the box to bring her to wherever it was taking her; then she could figure out a plan, then she could do something even mildly productive… hopefully.

When she came onto the forty ninth minute of upward coasting the box suddenly jerked her to the left, and she went flying with the momentum; basic physics she inquired idly, An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force; and the momentum the box was exerting on her lower center force was the unbalanced force acting upon her. All this information running through her head wasn't necessarily going to help the pain shooting up her right shoulder however, when she hit the side of the wall. She called out at the contact, cradling her shoulder with her hand gingerly as her eyes subconsciously cast upwards where she noticed after squinting a whole lot there was a crack running the length of the roof of the box, and through the crack she could see the slightest dimming of light. This should have sent a shock wave of pure joy through her body, but all she felt was pain and confusion as she continued to squint through the shadows, not wanting to lose sight of this small sight of hope that there was an outside to the prison she'd found herself in.

Finally, thankfully the box came to a complete shuttering stop, hopefully its last stop. She couldn't hear anything but the groaning of its cables, and creaking of its metal that must be bending in response to the unusual spike in temperature that she felt crawl across her skin, she guessed that had to do with the light on the other side, it must be warm. With sheer curiosity and the inability to stay still any longer her fingers reached upwards towards the crack and before they could actually feel the split they were opening, revealing a blazing light that momentarily blinded her, her mouth hanging open in surprise and shock as she shielded her eyes with a hand. The moaning and creaking was replaced with whispers, human whispers, and a sort of buzzing but soon she came to her own conclusion that the buzzing was coming from her own ears because the human whispering wasn't whispering but loud shouting that had her totally confused and it was unbearable, because she couldn't hear properly nor could she stop shaking and when arms grabbed her biceps and began pulling her from the box she hoisted herself up with her own momentum, but not without having to scramble for a foot hole; falling to her hands and knees in front of a group of human figures standing around her in a semi-circle.

Blinking back the black spots that where swirling in front of her vision she came to see faces, male faces all around her, some smiling, others frowning – especially the dark skinned boy who stood directly in front of her, but the majority just seemed confused, mouths hung slightly open in shock just as hers was. Mustering the courage that broiled in her stomach but could hardly bare to surface she stood slowly on shaky legs, hands clenched by her sides as her bottom lip sucked in so she could chew on it as she thought, which she figured must be out of complete habit.

The words she heard next scared her, caused her to jump in surprise after the hush of the crowd had almost calmed her to a sort of serene thinking process,

"It's a shucking girl."

Then and there the word Una slipped from her mind, basic laws of physics and air pressure fled her thoughts, the pain subsided into a dull throbbing and the only thought that slipped past her consciousness was,

What the hell does shucking mean?