Twisted Dreams

Memory Loss

You awaken, and groggily lift your head. A bright, piercing light shines into your face, making you wince, head pounding. You look away, blinking back the dark spots in your vision.

Everything is thick with shadow, except yourself, the steel chair you're strapped to, and a circle at your bound feet. Your wrists and ankles are held by thick leather. Your chest and lap are strapped to the chair's back and seat, respectively, by thick, black cord. The chair is bolted to the concrete floor.

A low voice rings through the room, bouncing around in your skull. You flinch again, and squint up into the light. The ringing slowly fading, you realize you'd missed what the voice had said.

"Sorry?" Your voice and throat feel scratchy and unused.

"Your name." The repetition is more statement than question. You rack your brain. My name. Of course I have a name, everybody does. But... what is it?

"I don't know," you say after a few moments. You hear nothing. "I don't know."

"The last thing you remember." The voice is a rumble, like distant thunder. You think again. Rain. Cold and wet, washing it all away. Darkness, stars, clouds, a half moon. Concrete and puddles and streetlamps, pools of light. Rainy, nighttime streets.

You voice this, repeating yourself at times and rambling slightly, but the voice doesn't interrupt.

"Where you are right now." the voice says. You look around again, slower this time. But you don't recognize anything, and no discernable shapes emerge from the shadows. You don't remember arriving here.

"I don't know," you say.

"Why you are here."

"I don't know."

"Where you are from."

"I don't know. I don't know anything. I know I'm a human being, that two plus two is four, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. But I don't know anybody, anywhere, who I am, what year it is, anything. I'm sorry." Your eyes sting from more than just the burning light.