Unwritten

PAST

"What happened to me?"

I woke up and I was alone. It seemed like ages ago when this room felt so crowded. Suffocating me as I struggled to piece whatever memory I have, if that's what it was in my head. At least I can remember that. That's a weird sense of comfort knowing what I've lost and holding on to what I now have.

My chest tightened. I slowly breathe in and out. I put my arms across my face to wipe off the puddle that's forming around my eyes. I bit my lip as it started to shake, to stop myself from sobbing. Let out a cough to release that lump in my throat.

"You can do this!" I silently whispered to myself and let out a big sigh.

"Good morning Ellie."

I smiled. "Yep that's me. My name is Ellie." I've decided I will accept everything that comes with this. I don't want to be put to sleep again. I'll face this head on with a clear head and calm heart.

"How are you and what's your name?" I sheepishly asked.

"I'm fine thanks for asking. And my name is Irene. Now, since you're up I'll call your doctor to speak to you. I'm sure you have a lot of questions. Would you like me to call your family?"

I thought for a second. "No thank you." I want to do this on my own. At least for now. I just want to be by myself.

"Ok no worries." She smiled at me and I can see she hesitated to turn her back on me as she paused before taking her next step back outside "This must be hard for you and I can't say I know what you're going through. But I know that we have the best doctors here in this hospital who will do everything to help you."

"Thank you Irene. Appreciate you saying that." I looked away as soon as I said this cause I feel my chest tighten again and I don't want to cry in front of anyone. "Before you go, is there any books or magazines around that I can read?" I looked at her again trying to read her face if she thinks it's ridiculous for someone with amnesia to ask for something to read. She might know if they can read or not. She didn't look doubtful or worried at all so that's good.

"Sure. I think there might be something at our station. I'll bring you some."

Oh well, I'll soon find out if I can read. I started to draw letters in the air. A - B - C.. my air handwriting seems decent and I can remember my alphabet. E - L - L - I - E. I'm pretty sure that's how you spell it.

I gasped! I can spell, that means I can read! Don't get too excited! Spelling and reading could be on different sides of my brain the same way my memories must have been stored somewhere else from my "common knowledge" stuff. Let's wait for the books and magazine to confirm. I carried on writing in the air and spelling every object in that room.

M - A - C - H - I - N - E.

C- L - O - C - K.

T - I - M - E.

My heart leapt as I I tried to read the time. 9:07. Yes! I can tell time! I know numbers! 13 - 6 = 7. Great! I can do Maths.

If only I can remember something from the past. I closed my eyes and again I see flashes of peoples' images. No one familiar but their voices sure feel warm..

"Hi Ellie. I'm Dr Choi. How are you feeling?" She cheerfully brought me out of my trance.

"I'm feeling better." I hesitated for a bit. "I hope you have some answers for me. What happened to me? Before all this. Why was I here and why can't I remember anything about me or my family but I seem to know about the world and stuff. I know what you are, a doctor. I know I'm in a hospital. I know amnesia! What happened?" I'm sounding increasingly frustrated so I tried to calm myself again. "I really just want to know what happened so I can somehow make sense of this and move on."

"I appreciate that and I do apologise if we haven't been able to answer these for you before. We had to take precautions and make sure we stabilise you first and not agitate you. We are now in that place so definitely we should discuss this now."

She took a breath.

"You were taken to this hospital as you suddenly collapsed. You had a terrible migraine. Your flatmate said you called her to help you get up to go to the loo. When she went to your room you were on the floor unconscious. She didn't move you cause she was scared you might have hit your head or broke something."

She was studying my face as she spoke.

"And that's really good. So they called an ambulance and after securing your head and neck you were brought to the emergency room still unconscious but breathing. Let me know if any of this rings a bell."

I shook my head.

"You were assessed and confirmed nothing was broken but we can't figure out why you're unconscious. You had an EEG and it came back normal. We admitted you that day and that night you had a seizure and from then on you have been in a coma until you woke up a few days ago. With amnesia. Because we don't know why you've gone into coma it's proving difficult for us to confirm a specific reason why you have amnesia. We can only point it towards you having seizure. Seizure is a disruption in your brain and cause a lot of issues to an already compromised nervous system. The extent and which part of the brain it has affected appears to be in your memory bank where your experiences are stored. We need to assess you further to investigate the extent of your amnesia. I know it's still unclear and vague but we're working on it."

She looked at me and in that moment I was just floating.

"No that's great. At least now I know what happened."

"I appreciate that this is a very confusing and might even be a scary time for you. I'd like to refer you to my colleague specialising in neurology to help you. He is currently doing a study on patients with amnesia to help understand it's cause and as some patients eventually gain their memory back in differing degrees the study is aiming to find out if there is a way to assist in recovering the patient's memory. If you want I can ask for you to be one of the subjects. I can have him discuss this further with you and you can decide if you want to be included or not."

"Sure why not. I'm not going anywhere." I chuckled. I wanted to lighten the mood. I was feeling like the room has gotten dim and small and I was feeling suffocated with all this talk about amnesia.

"That's great. I'll ring him up and let you know when he'll be in for a visit. Do you have any questions for me?"

"Hmmm.. so you said I had a migraine prior to collapsing. Did this happen before?"

"Well from your medical history you do suffer from migraine but you've never collapsed from it before. You have no other medical history so in all accounts you're a fit and healthy 28 year old."

"Oh ok so I'm 28." I grinned.

"Yes you are. Your family has brought you an album with photos with your friends and family. There's also a box of your keepsakes. They were hoping it can help."

"Wow that's so kind of them."

I had this sudden sharp piercing in my heart. 

Guilt. 

I don't want them here. I don't really feel any longing or attachment to them but that might hurt them if they know that I feel this way. I don't want to make anyone feel unloved but I'm not sorry for wanting to find myself and be true to what I feel right now. 

And that doesn't include them. Not just yet.