Chapter One

Blank

The first thing she knew was that she was floating on water.

The sky burned a blinding shade of forget-me-not, smeared and pockmarked with clouds of the purest white: the kind that etched static orange afterimages at the back of her eyelids whenever she closed her eyes. Below her, cool water danced and shifted and slipped between her fingers and toes the way only water could. She had to exert much effort to keep her head clear of the water level, and even then it had started to caress her cheeks and flood her ears.

She was floating on a lake, it seemed.

Chelsea turned her head to the right, ignoring the water sloshing in her ear. A dark line of trees—most likely the beginnings of a forest—stood beyond the lakeshore, its reflection upside-down on the undulating surface of the water. Past the trees was an impressive range of craggy mountains with snow-capped, foggy peaks: natural spires warring to stab the sky the deepest. From somewhere, she heard the chirping of birds.

There was a strange numbness around the back of her head and at the joints of her elbows. Even her fingers felt very stiff, the tautness stark against the yielding lake. She tried wiggling her toes; they wouldn't budge. It was then that it dawned on her: she couldn't move anything but her head. In her mind, she went over all the reasons why this realization was not a favorable one, and although the list was long, she felt nothing—no trepidation, no terror, not even the slightest trace of boredom.

She could have stayed and floated on the nameless lake for all eternity, or until her fingers turned to prune and her skin all wrinkly, like an old woman's.

It happened in an instant. Everything vanished. The sky disappeared, and so did the lake. The mountains, the trees, the birds' chirping—they all disappeared, without warning, sucked into the blackness that now replaced the scene; as if a metaphorical tablecloth had been yanked away from underneath her and took everything with it, leaving her behind. The rough transition jarred her senses; it was, in a word, disorienting.

It took her a few moments to realize that she had only been dreaming. For a few more moments, she hung suspended in the blurry limbo that served as a near-sentient border between sleep and consciousness. Distantly, she wondered if she was dead, and that if this was what dying was like, why she had never thought of trying it earlier. There was something oddly comforting about being disconnected from her own body; indeed, she had all but forgotten that she couldn't move. The thought brought an ironic sense of freedom, if not poignantly appropriate.

The limbo itself took whatever she knew about time and space and distorted it to the point of insanity. She could taste colors expanding and bursting, leaving a bittersweet aftertaste at the tip of her tongue. She felt the scent of daffodils and dried leaves smoothing out and flattening, folding over itself into a wiry strand of perfumed lightning. In the distance, she could see the sound of church bells rippling the air around it, rousing waves of concentric circles expanding infinitesimally, curling at the edges like burning paper.

And then, finally, she woke up.

She could hear muted voices, hazy at first, hushed and whispering, coming from somewhere she couldn't see. Even the simple act of opening her eyes caused some pain: a tiny prickly sensation just under her eyelids, more annoying than unbearable. What she saw at first didn't quite make sense. Everything was blurry and swam in and out of focus; something bright seared her entire vision, save at the edges. She blinked.

She was staring at a white ceiling.

Oddly, she found time to ponder whether the ceiling was leaning more towards off-white or a very light blue-gray, then reprimanded herself for losing focus. She had to find out where she was.

Chelsea sniffed once. The dry air reeked of something sterile, mingled with the distinct tang of antiseptic. The gears in her mind turned painfully slowly—she could have sworn it actually hurt physically—before coming to the conclusion that she was in a hospital somewhere, or a clinic, at the very least.

She gingerly tried to sit up and immediately regretted it as a sharp bolt of pain shot through her skull. The feeling was so intense that it whited everything out for a fraction of a second, before her eyesight restored itself as if nothing happened. The pain receded as abruptly as it came, but the memory of it made her more than a little careful as she kept edging forward—she was not going to lie down for a second more, not if she could help it. The expression "stubborn as a mule" crept its way to her mind.

She felt a tingle of pride, uncalled for as it was, when she succeeded in bringing herself up to a sitting position. Directly ahead was a white curtain that blocked the source of the whispering voices. She reached up to touch the sore spot at the back of her head and felt bandages—which spoke volumes about the pain. How long had she been out?

She tried to call out but what came out was little more than an unintelligible croak. Nonetheless, the people on the other side of the curtain heard it and the murmuring stopped. The curtain was briskly drawn aside and in strolled a man who had… something strapped around his head, a pen in one hand and a clipboard in the other. There were three more people following in his wake, one man and two women.

"I'm glad you're awake, Chelsea," the man said. He wore a white coat, and a stethoscope was slung around his neck, swaying in accordance to his movements. "You've been out for quite a while. How are you feeling?"

"I—"

There were questions, so many questions she wanted to ask. If there was one thing she hadn't expected, it was to be asked anything. A stray thought streaked through the forefront of her brain, and caused a bubble of panic to rise unbidden. She forced it down, arguing that whatever happened, she would not break down in front of strangers. The bright lights made it difficult for her to think clearly; she was still groggy from the prolonged unconsciousness and it somehow warbled every sound. She winced—the pain in her head struck again, although not as intense as the last one.

"Chelsea?"

The doctor was staring at her, and so did the three people behind him. One was a woman whose blond hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. She looked so nervous, Chelsea almost pitied her. The other woman, a brunette whose face had a soft, friendly quality to it, carried a clipboard of her own—a nurse, maybe, or the doctor's aide? The last one startled her: he was a man, tall and scowling, with an intense expression in his eyes as he watched her. They were strangers, the lot of them, and they were looking at her as if she was supposed to say something. But what was there to say? She remembered the doctor's question and decided to begin with that.

"I—" She broke off sharply. The knifing ache in her head bled away to a low, muted throbbing, the beats rolling out in waves from the back of her head spreading out to encompass the entirety of her skull. It was more manageable, but no less daunting. She saw the people shift uncomfortably.

"…my head hurts," she said finally. It came out frail and hoarse, her voice rasping with disuse. And then, deciding that she had earned the right to ask a question of her own, she added: "Who are you?"

She felt rather than saw it: everyone in the room tensed. There was a sudden hush, and if she looked closely, she could see the little things that proved it: the doctor's sharp intake of breath, the blond woman's nervous fidgeting, the other man's jaw working furiously, the brunette's eyes darting around. It was as if she had cursed the very core of their essence, as if she had mutilated an infant and laughed about it. Their faces made her feel like a student all over again, caught sneaking out of school by the schoolmaster himself.

She had said something terribly wrong, and for some reason, she didn't want to find out more.

The doctor was first to recover. "Tell me, do you remember anything?" he asked in a clipped, professional tone that managed to sound friendly at the same time. He drew nearer and bent over her. He seemed to be checking the bandages on her head—she wasn't sure at all.

The stray thought came back in full force. The only difference was that this time, she was forced to accept it. She prodded her mind, swiped inquisitive fingers at suspicious corners, inspected nooks and crannies for possible misplaced memories—names, faces, numbers, locations, anything—even going so far as to try and recall the date and place of her birth, but there was nothing. Her mind was a dark chasm, yawning indolently at all her efforts, with only her name bouncing around it and echoing in the void.

"No." She almost choked at the word.

She heard a feminine gasp from one of the women. It hit her in the face—she was supposed to know these people. They knew her, whether on a personal or a professional basis was not at all that difficult to discern. It was glaringly obvious from the hopeful expectation and trepidation in their eyes.

The surge of panic returned and clawed its way to her throat, where it lodged itself firmly no matter how much she swallowed. She found it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. Blinking back tears, she grabbed the blanket twisted around her legs and drew it to her, as if it could protect her from the harsh reality and the bemused stares of the strangers around her. If only.

The doctor didn't seem to be fazed by a panicked patient. He must have faced worse, she thought.

"Nothing at all?" He wrote something down on his clipboard and checked her pulse. "What about your childhood?"

She had to curb the urge to shout at the doctor in great frustration. She couldn't even remember, try as she might, where she currently resided. How could he expect her to remember her childhood? The question almost sounded like a taunt, sticking its tongue at her while wagging its fingers behind its head. Still, he was the doctor; he was the expert, and she, like it or not, was his patient.

She began by forcing her lungs to take deep, even, breaths. She figured no one, not even the most intelligent person in the world, would be able to think clearly through an almost panic attack. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It helped more than she thought it would—it managed to slow her heart rate down, for starters. The shock and fear of remembering nothing still lurked in there somewhere, but its presence was markedly more subdued.

"No." She saw the strangers wince collectively.

The doctor's brow furrowed for a moment. "Do you recall anything from our earlier exchange?"

Chelsea wasn't sure what he was asking. She looked at him warily and asked, "You mean just now?" When he nodded, she replied, "Yes, I remember everything that happened after I woke up, if that's what you're asking." Part of her—the acerbic part, she figured—politely wished for a glass of water, please, if it's not too much to ask. Wisely, she didn't say as much. She paused, waiting for the doctor to stop writing and tell her she got the question wrong, but he simply nodded again and said, "Hmm."

"Is—is she going to be fine, doc?" the blond asked. The note of tremor in her voice spiked up against drone of the air-conditioning unit in the background.

"We have to run more tests to be sure," replied the doctor, pressing the stethoscope against Chelsea's chest, "but initial diagnosis is that she has retrograde amnesia."

Chelsea couldn't really say she was surprised. What was it—retrograde amnesia? She had no need for fancy medical terms to be able to pinpoint the fact that her mind had been wiped clean of memories. Yet hearing it from the doctor crystallized the matter into something so real she could almost reach out and close her fist on it, something almost tangible that made it perfectly clear that this was not just a suspicion; it was the cold, hard truth.

"Is it serious?" the woman asked again before Chelsea herself could.

"It depends." He shone a flashlight in her right eye. "Usually recovery takes place immediately after the trauma, with the oldest memories remembered first and the most recent ones last."

"Why doesn't she remember us?" It was the man this time.

The doctor shifted the flashlight to her left eye. "Temporally graded retrograde amnesia targets the patient's most recent memories. That's why she might remember things and people from her childhood, but not those she had encountered more recently. Recovery is usually swift, though, generally lasting from a week to a month. A year in severe cases, but since the damage is already healing, we can safely say that this isn't a severe case."

He straightened up and scribbled something in his clipboard. "The concussion at the back of your head is healing fine, Chelsea, but I'm afraid we still have to put you through a few more tests before releasing you. Be sure to get a lot of rest today—we'll start the tests tomorrow."

After an exchange of a few whispered words with the blond and the other man, the doctor strode away, back straight, closely followed by his assistant. Their receding footsteps echoed crisp and clear against the tiled floor.

Awkward seconds, gravid with the sound of shifting clothes and air being exhaled through the nose, slowly dragged by, each seeming to outlast the one before it without breaking the rules of the universe. Neither of the strangers seemed eager to talk, and neither of them appeared to know how to begin. To some extent, Chelsea understood the plain awkwardness of the situation, but she wasn't about to roll over on her back out of pity with her paws in the air and start easing the tension—she just had her memory wiped out, for heaven's sake, and the lurking panic in her throat was threatening to jump out at any second, take her by the shoulders and shove a knife in her skull. No, she was not going to be the one to break the silence.

It was ironic and more than a little annoying that she had a million of questions just minutes before, and now she stubbornly kept her mouth closed. At least it showed her part of her personality, even though the only thing it showed was that she was stubborn and borderline childish.

The woman looked as if she was on the verge of tears. She kept pushing strands of stray hair away from her face, tucking some behind her ear, but they fell back obstinately the moment her fingers left them. She glanced at the man, who was stolidly watching the space above Chelsea's left shoulder. Chelsea realized with some amusement that the man's hair color was a very light gray, like the color of a bright full moon. She wondered how she hadn't noticed it before.

"Um," the woman hesitantly said, finally breaking the silence. "How… how are you feeling?"

That's what the doctor asked me earlier. Care to call him back here and ask him what I said?

Chelsea bit back the undeserved harsh retort and said, "My head hurts, but I'm fine." She even tried to smile a little in an effort to put the woman at ease.

"That's good." The woman glanced at the man. She pursed her lips when he ignored her yet again. "I'm Julia—" she placed a hand on her chest, "—and this—" she gestured towards the man, "—is Vaughn."

The man—Vaughn—gave the tiniest of nods, although he still looked very angry at something. Or maybe that was just the way he coped up with stress. Chelsea narrowly caught herself from saying "nice to meet you," thinking that she had already met Julia and Vaughn before, only they remembered it and she didn't. Something about it made her head spin. To have done things she couldn't even begin to recall… rediscovering herself vaguely compared to digging for gold in a minefield: uncover one good memory at the risk of uncovering an entirely different one that will set others off in a mental version of a chain reaction.

"My name… it's Chelsea, isn't it?" she asked, feeling ever the more foolish by the second. Of course it was her name; it was what they have been calling her all this time. Besides, of all the memories she lost, only her name remained.

"Yeah," Julia said.

Silence dragged on for a few more seconds. Chelsea had hoped Julia would keep talking, if only to alleviate the inevitable stretches of awkwardness that would fill every silence. Unfortunately, Julia seemed to have run out things to say, and Vaughn was still busy being as responsive as a doorknob.

"So," Chelsea said, more in haste to keep Julia talking than in real interest to know, "are you two—well, are you married?" She realized too late how much her chosen query was assuming, but it was the first thing that lit her head up and she could only hope it masked her real intention: distraction.

Julia gave her look that blended startled and incredulous with a few drops of disgust thrown in.

"No." Vaughn's jaws were working as he spoke, the muscles clearly bulging and shifting in the light of the fluorescent lamps. His voice was low and dark, inciting images of charcoal and cigarette and the smell of wood smoke. "We're married." The tone of his voice offered no misinterpretations—it hid an ultimatum squirming beneath the benign words; either she accepted it or she didn't. She didn't even bother asking if he was serious: his hard stare made sure of that.

It was too much to take in. She hadn't counted on being married, especially not to this stranger. He certainly didn't give the impression that he even cared about her wellbeing. What was next, children? Grandchildren?

She promised herself she wouldn't cry in front of them, so she laughed instead.