Page 1 of Help Me Remember

CHAPTER ONE

My first thought upon waking was to wonder what that foul smell was. Whatever my second thought was going to be, it was quickly lost when I opened my eyes, and a lightning storm of pure pain lanced through my head. Groaning, I clenched my eyes shut and slapped my hands over my forehead, holding tight as successive waves of pain crashed over me.

It was several seconds before I became aware of the rest of my body. Besides the agony in my head, my chest was throbbing with a deep ache that demanded attention. Between the two, the rest of the aches and pains in my body were drowned out.

I finally dared to open my eyes slowly. The pain in my head sharpened, and I stared at the ceiling above me. It was dirty and punctured with holes, none of which stood out more than the giant human-sized hole right above my head. Another hole gaped in the floor above it, and I could see another one just above that.

Groaning, I managed to put my hands under myself and sit upright. The room was in no better state than the ceiling. Stains marred the torn and decaying carpet, and holes scarred the walls. There was enough drywall, glass, and wood littered about the floor that I wondered whether someone didn’t know how to renovate correctly or had a fit and tore the place apart.

“God,” I moaned, flinching at the sound of my own voice. It was raspy and deep and sounded utterly foreign to me.

Reaching up, I touched the side of my head where it hurt the worst and found it not only sensitive but tacky. Pulling my hand back, I blinked at the crimson smeared on my fingers. At least the pain made sense now I could see I was injured, not that bleeding from my head was a great comfort.

Moving carefully, I pushed myself up from the filthy floor. It was hard to breathe, and I had to lean against the nearest wall to keep myself upright. Touching a hand to my chest, I felt a stiffness that made no sense. That was until I pulled off the ragged shirt I’d been wearing and found a black vest covering my entire chest and stomach.

“The fuck?” I muttered, touching my fingers gently to the dent in the center and jerking when I felt cool metal. My thoughts swam, and all I could think to do was to reach in, curl my fingertips around the metal and give it a sharp jerk. The object was crumpled and mashed, but even in the haze of my pain-filled thoughts, I knew it was a bullet.

The more I discovered, the worse I felt. Well, not physically, since removing the bullet had eased some of the tension in my chest. Nevertheless, it took a couple of minutes of fumbling before I figured out how to remove the vest, letting it tumble to the floor.

“T-take a minute,” I instructed. “Take a breath…or thirty.”

I wasn’t sure if talking to myself would help, but at least it made me feel better talking through the steps.

“What…what am I wearing?” I asked myself, choosing to focus on that. “No shirt now, but…jeans, boots…probably socks. Jewelry? No, no jewelry. And the shirt’s a bit dirty but useable.”

The idea of raising my arms above my head again was daunting, so I decided to wait until I had a better understanding of my situation. I was in the middle of what looked like an abandoned building, and I’d clearly hurt my head and been…shot? Why had those things happened, and why had I been prepared enough for the possibility to wear a bulletproof vest?

“Shit,” I muttered, running my hand over my face as I searched the fog of my thoughts for answers. I froze when I felt the stubble on my face and realized…I didn’t know what color the stubble was. Hell, I didn’t know what color my hair was, or my eyes, or the shape of my nose or jaw, or…

What is my name?

The questions went unanswered, and the cramp in my chest grew tighter. All at once, the confusion in my head was overwhelming, and I could feel my legs threatening to buckle under me. Only the fear of hurting myself further kept me upright and steady against the wall.

“Breathe,” I told myself again, this time through clenched teeth. “Find…get a good look at yourself.”

Right. I needed to make sure I wasn’t going to keel over at any minute and bleed out on the nasty floor. Then I could figure out everything else. The thought was enough to steel me against the rising panic threatening to choke the air from my lungs, and I looked around.

One of the doors leading into the room was wide open, and through it I glimpsed another room where I could see tile. It seemed as good a place as any to start, and I slowly made my way there. My boots crunched on broken tiles as I stumbled into the small space toward a half-broken sink.

Leaning against the wall, I had to fight with the filthy window beside me. The wood squealed as I gave it a shove, forcing it open. There was no screen to block the outside world, but there was light, and it poured in. It didn’t do much to improve the sight of the room, but at least I could see as I rubbed a hand over the grimy mirror.

A beleaguered face peered back at me, paler than the skin I could see on my arms, chest, and hands. An ugly bruise was forming along the left half of my face, spreading down my cheek and toward the jawline. If I ignored that and a few cuts on my brow, it wasn’t an altogether bad face. The jaw was well-defined without being blocky, and my eyebrows were a little bushy, but they worked pretty well with my slightly wide nose and eyes. The eyes themselves were dark green, which seemed to go hand in hand with my pitch-black hair.

Reaching up, I ran my hands through the close-cropped hair and down over my uninjured side. I didn’t feel the faintest flicker of recognition as I stared at myself. There was a scar on my upper lip, and I had no idea where it came from. There were two small crows tattooed on the inner part of my left upper arm, but even that I had no recollection of.

I might as well have been staring at a stranger.

A stranger who was battered, bruised and looking sick enough that anyone seeing me would probably head for the hills or the nearest doctor. Half my face was bruised and coated in blood, I was covered in cuts and scrapes, and given the paleness of my face, I was probably ready to keel over if I wasn’t careful.

“Whoever you are,” I told my reflection, “you have some of the worst luck…or you pissed off the wrong person.”

Suddenly, nausea rolled through me like a gray wave, and I doubled over as the first heave struck me hard. Holding on to the half of the sink that wasn’t shattered, I let the contents of my stomach spill onto the floor. There wasn’t much to puke up from the looks of it, but all that meant was my stomach heaved and clenched painfully. The ache in my chest and head doubled, and I let out a pained groan as I fought to get my stomach under control.

A soft, whimpering laugh bubbled up from my throat. “Right. Headache…head wound, confusion, nausea…concussion? Yeah, I know what a concussion is, but I don’t know who the hell I am.”

Unexpectedly, tears sprang to my eyes, stinging as I blindly reached out to flip on the water. It took me a moment to register when nothing happened before I let out a grunt, this time of annoyance. I don’t know why I thought water would flow through a building that clearly hadn’t seen a living soul in years. It made complete sense not to expect it, but the annoyance took the edge off the panic and fear.

I gazed out the window, where I realized I could hear the sounds of cars and people shouting something I couldn’t make out. Looking further, I could see the rise of tall buildings clustered on the horizon. I had to be in a city of some sort, and from the looks of it, I was in an apartment building.

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