Comatose

Revelations

Chapter 10

Once Angelica finds herself back inside the misty white world she begins to pace while trying to sort through her thoughts. From the corner of her eye she can see the seething black mass sitting like an open maw in the all-white world. Ignoring it the best that she can Angelica tries to formulate some semblance of a plan. The problem was she didn't know exactly what she could do while being stuck inside her own mind. A prospect that she might have once found intriguing now was a hindrance as she remained entombed away from the rest of the world. Pacing absentmindedly, she went over all the memories she had encountered so far. Each one was at a different stage in her life so naturally she would be different in each one as well. More mature perhaps. As much as she tried to convince herself of that she couldn't help the sensation of wrongness it brought with it. Brushing the thought aside for the moment she tried to think of what she had experienced inside each memory. The invisible barriers were removed for one thing. When looking at the memories objectively she had found hidden things within each one. Things that she would have had to see at the time but had overlooked. Is it possible that in her later memories there were more hidden gems she only needed to look for? She was also able to enter into a memory by merely thinking about that specific point in her life. When she had wanted to stop the memory to study it, each scene had frozen for her. Could it be that she was the one controlling the memories and not her subconscious as she had originally believed?

"Bravo! Now we're getting somewhere." Her doppelganger clapped enthusiastically as she walked out of the mist around Angelica.

"It's me isn't it?"

"Technically I'm you too. So, even if I had been controlling the flow of memories to start with it was, in a way, you the whole time." The twin image shrugged carelessly.

"So, what now? What do the memories have to do with any of this?" Angelica asked bitterly thinking over the ones she had seen.

"And here I thought you had finally made a breakthrough. Come on Angelica it's not that hard to figure out." The woman goaded angering Angelica in the process.

"I want to get out of here. I need to help my family." Angelica cried out.

"And how are you planning on doing that exactly?"

"I don't know!" Angelica yelled in exasperation. She hadn't gotten that far yet.

"Yes, you do. What good will it do you to wake up when the answers you're looking for aren't out there. If they were don't you think the authorities would have found them by now?" Angelica was ready to argue back when she stopped to think it over. She had already made the connections with what she could do with her memories. The detective had said earlier she could have run into this person at any point. Sighing in resignation she realized her doppelganger was right. Angelica couldn't do anything in the real world, but from within her own mind she could go through her bank of memories and hunt her would be killer that way. Angelica's subconscious smiled at her as the thought ran through her mind. She was definitely on the right track. But where did she start? At what point in time did she look at to find the person she needed too? What Angelica needed was a starting point, a sense of direction.

"Have you figured out what you lost yet?" The woman asked her nonchalantly while examining her nails. Angelica rolled her eyes at her.

"No, but you knew that already." Angelica pointed out glaring at the other figure.

"Then I would say you start there."

"How's that going to help me find who did this?"

"It'll help remind you of things you have forgotten, things you'll need to move forward." Angelica stared at her aggravated by the thought that it would take her longer to find her killer that way.

"Might I suggest compare and contrast." Angelica looked at her in question not understanding what she was getting at. The woman rolled her eyes in exasperation before continuing.

"Do an earlier memory then a more recent memory. It should help you figure it out faster." Angelica mulled the idea over testing the merits it held. If she could ignore the factors that naturally came with maturing into an adult, it might just work. While she was in the recent memories, she could look for clues as well. Although if she wasn't sure what to look for in the first place Angelica couldn't tell how well that would work out. There was no harm in trying it out though. Maybe if she just looked for things that didn't belong in her everyday routine, she might stumble across something.

"If I want to check in on my family is it the same as when I call up memories?" She asked curious as to how it worked. She didn't recall having the need to check in on them before she found herself at the lake every time. If anything, she had been wanting to avoid it, so she didn't have to face what kind of a man her husband truly was.

"I guided you back the few times you went. There were things that you needed to hear for yourself." The woman admitted.

"Is that the only way to get back there? Or, is there another way to ensure I don't miss anything while I'm running through memories?" Angelica pondered half to herself and half to the twin apparition sitting in front of her.

"There might be. You're always so concentrated on your body which is why your mind manifested the lake in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

"How do you physically feel when you're there. Not emotionally but physically." Angelica took a moment to recall the sensations she experienced.

"Weightless, detached, even a little inhuman."

"Exactly. Your mind tried to concoct a way for that to make sense to you in the only way that it could. If you hadn't been so set on trying to feel your physical form it would have been more like this." The figure snapped her fingers at the end of her statement. Angelica looked around trying to see if anything had changed. At first, she missed it because she was trying to see with her eyes. In her defense, if her mirror image would have been a bit clearer on what to expect it wouldn't have taken so long for her to notice the change. Instead of the world around visually changing it was like someone somewhere had turned on the radio. Disembodied voices filled the space around her repeating the conversation she had just seen earlier.

"You mean to say I could have experienced it like this the whole time?" The woman shrugged at her waving her hand to make the conversation stop.

"You have been so hung up on feeling your family and seeing what's going on that you caused the lake mirage yourself."

"Why aren't you just some disembodied voice then?" Angelica asked genuinely curious.

"You process me better when I have a form. Someone you can interact with even though you're essentially just talking to yourself."

"Couldn't I dream up forms for them then?" The woman looked deep in thought as she pondered the question.

"I don't see why not. However, be careful when you do. As you uncover things in your memories it's going to color how they appear here." Angelica nodded but actually gave little thought to the warning. She was in hurry to get started on the task at hand. A fact that was apparent as the other figure stood meeting her in the eyes.

"Then let's begin."