Stranger To Myself (Ongoing + R R R R E E E E A A A L L Y SLOW UPDATES)

5

Finally.
He's gone.

The wall in my brain has me feeling frustrated because I don't know how to break it.
He had asked me about everything a normal human being would know. Turns out they aren't even sure if I am human. I remember him mentioning a full body scan and a DNA test that had weird results.

Well okay, nice to meet me...
This is so strange...
I feel so lost...

I sit on my bed and stare at the door Mark left through while Sally prepares my bed and all those wires.

Suddenly she breaks the silence.
"You should go have a shower, eat something for dinner and then get some sleep. You might be conscious now but that doesn't mean that you have fully recovered. "

Well, now I know it's evening...

She gives me a motherly smile and leaves 'my' room, only to return a few minutes later, carrying a pyjama in one hand and a plate with sandwiches in the other one.
"Why are you still sitting there like a lost racoon in the middle of the Shibuya crossing?"

She pronounced 'racoon' in an unusual way as if she herself did not know what exactly she meant when saying the word.

"Shibuya crossing?", I ask, "You mean that one famous crossing in Japan, Tokyo?"

I blink. As my vision goes dark for a few seconds I see hectic people, noise, ads everywhere and I feel claustrophobia, loneliness, ...so lost...
There were so many people and yet I felt alone...a desert of flesh...

I shake my head, open my eyes again and try to focus on what Sally is going to say next.

That was weird.

"Yes, exactly, only that it's not only one crossing anymore but five..."

"Woah, five?! When did that happen? How long have I been asleep? "

"Well, as far as I know only a week", she says and continues speaking more to herself than me "but I don't know what you did before that..."

"Same", I reply, grinning.
And then I realise what she just said.

Sally's eyes show a little spark of shock but she gets it under control.
"Tokyo has... changed a lot but the five crossings existed since the year 2142", her voice drifts away as she continues, "and now it's 11 years later... "

"Oh, okay... But how do I not know anything about that? I mean, I feel like I have been there...", I whisper.

Now I have Sally's full attention.
"You can remember?"
She stands still while scanning me. It seems like I am a puzzle and she is trying to find all the missing pieces.

"Y-y-yes... I think I had a flashback when you mispronounced 'racoon' "

Now she is the puzzled one and her searching gaze starts to make me feel uncomfortable.

I save myself by grabbing my new pyjamas and heading to the bathroom.

I take a long shower, trying not to think about the events of the day.
Having decided to stay in the bathroom a while longer in order to avoid further conversations with Sally, I eat a sandwich, put on the pyjama and brush my teeth. When I return to my room, she still stands there but I ignore her, lay down and pretend to fall asleep immediately.
The last thing I perceive is Sally connecting me to those wires and instruments again.
____________

I'm lost, scared, lonely and I have no plan where my parents are. I can't see them.

"MUUUUUUUM!???
DAAAAAAAD!??
WHERE AAARE YOU, CAN YOU HEEEARE ME?! Where Are Youuuu? Where are you? Where are you? where are you? I'm so lost..."

The voice seems to come from my lips, I sound so young.
I am so small, too small to be alone in such traffic. I'm in the middle of a crossing, the crossing.
It's so noisy.
So many people.
So many people and no one smiles.
So many stressed people.
So many people and none of them are my parents.
So many people and no one sees the lost little girl.
Such a big city but so small space.

Someone stumbles over me and I fall to my knees. If I wasn't so stressed I would feel the pain.
As I stand up I don't feel the weight of my backpack anymore, it' s gone.
I have been mugged.
The last thing I see before my belongings disappear in the jungle of legs is the racoon sticker which dad had given to me because it was one of the words I learned first when I started speaking.

Racoon... Racoon... Lost in the middle of Shibuya... Lost...

It's gone, stolen, everything that was mine. I have nothing else.
A tear runs down my cheek, followed by more tears.

The crowd drags me on.

Lost...

I get stranded on the sidewalk and flee into a small street with fewer people.

Clutching against a wall, I catch my breath and normalise my racing heartbeat.

In the reflection of the shop window across the street, I see a little girl. Black hair, pale skin, rosy lips, rosy dress, terrified cornflower-blue eyes staring directly at me.

Suddenly, the door next to me opens.

A cold, strong hand covers my mouth and the other hand pulls me inside the building.

I freeze.

I want to scream, I want to breathe, I want that stranger to let me go, I need air, please let me breathe.
I look into the kidnapper's icy grey eyes, my soul's windows begging him to let me go.