Fragments of Time

by Dawn Dagger

  “Um, hello, intercom?” I said loudly, looking towards the ceiling.

  ‘Name?’ I leapt off the sink with a cry of alarm as a voice in my head asked. ‘Name?’ The voice repeated.

  “U-uh, Clayton…” I stammered, looking all around, searching for the speaker.

  ‘Access granted. Intercom connected.’

  “Um, hi…” I said to nothing. “I, ah, I finished my shower.”

  No new voices sounded in my head, but after only a few moments the bathroom door opened, and the brown girl stepped in. “Ah, you’re looking clean. How wonderful. How was the water?” She asked.

  “It was perfect,” I said, walking up beside her,

  “Fantastic. Sometimes the system has hiccups, but it’s near perfect with its temperature predictions,” she explained as she lead me down the long hallways. My stomach growled viciously and I gasped, clutching it. She laughed. Her laugh twinkled, but was sharp. It was like aluminum flakes. “Don’t worry, we’re headed to the dining room now.”

  How long had it been since I had last eaten? My stomach hinted that it had been a while. Bang! Bang! Bang! I yelped and jumped sideways as the door beside me shook, something on the other side slamming against it angrily.

  A guttural screaming poured from the doorway and I felt my heart race. The woman sighed and gently waved me on. “It’s alright, Clayton. We are… trying to help someone, and they won’t let us. They think we’re the bad guys, but it will be alright. They will be okay soon.”

  I nodded with a grimace, following her. The screaming was so painful and anguished it drove bile into my throat. I hoped the person didn’t get hurt. I could hear a quiet din in the hallway ahead, and it was a nice distraction. The woman pushed through a set of double doors and we stepped into a cafeteria filled to the brim with circular tables and people in jumpsuits.

  Some jumpsuits were black, like the girl beside me. Some silver, some blue, and some people just in normal sweats, like myself. The silver jumpsuits looked familiar, like maybe a favorite TV show character might have worn one. I didn’t doubt it would come to me eventually.

  The woman sat me down at a table that was empty except for a little girl, about 12, who perched at the table. She wore her brown-blonde hair in tight braids, and gave me a squinting look with her green eyes.

  “Hazel, who’s this?” she asked.

  “His name is Clayton. You knew him before you both hit your heads, when we had to save you. Clayton, this is Amy.”

  “Hello,” I waved as I sat down. “I’m very sorry I don’t remember you.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she said, but then brightened. “But, I think we can be good friends, Clayton!” I folded my hands in my lap as Hazel walked away. I enviously watched Amy eat some sort of sandwich, rocking back and forth happily. “Oh, don’t worry!” she chirped. “Hazel is getting your food now! But, here, you can have one of my cookies for now.” She handed me a small cookie and I nibbled at it gratefully.

  I glanced around the room. No one paid attention to us. I was still basking in all of the light. I didn’t know why I loved it so much, but it was delicious. There was even some sunlight, just pouring in through the ceiling.

  “So, we, ah, we knew each other, the lady said?”

  Amy nodded excitedly. “Yup! We were adventuring! I don’t know why, but she said there were bad people after us. But, now we’re safe, and okay, because they’re going to take care of us!”

  I nodded, my palms patting across my thighs. I felt like I had misplaced something. As if I had lost something very, very important. There was something I should have remembered. What was it? What was so, so important?”

  “Amy… do you feel like… we’re missing something? Like something isn’t quite right?”

  Her brows furrowed and she swallowed another bite of her sandwich, before carefully saying, “They told me it was a part of losing our memories. Like, we know they’ve gone, but one day we’ll get used to them, if they don’t come back. I thought that, but once you came… I don’t feel like I’m missing so much…”

  I was worried, and it twisted my knotted stomach. Had they taken something from us? There was something that should have been tucked in my pocket, within reach. I knew it because my hand kept fluttering toward my breast. I shook my head. I felt like it was full of water.

  “Here’s your food!” Hazel announced, dropping a tray in front of me. It held a sub, a box of juice, and a small bag of chips. “Please, enjoy. If you’re allergic to anything, go ahead and let us know.”

  I nodded, mumbling a “Thank you.” I began to unwrap the sub, my hands trembling. I took a small bite. Hazel tilted her head, watching me intensely. The more she looked at me, the more uncomfortable I got. She was beautiful, but like fire might. She was too intense.

  “You all right?”

  “I think…” I mumbled. My stomach growled gratefully as I downed another bite.

  Hazel sat in the chair beside me, giving me a pitying look. “Feeling like you’re missing something?” I nodded. She patted my arm, smiling gently. “You hit your head,” she explained. “When you arrived here, that is. Your head understands there’s something missing. You’re missing memories. You’ll feel better soon, though.

  “It’s like losing a limb. You have a ghost limb for a while. You reach out with it. You know it’s missing, you just can’t understand why you feel it there.” She squeezed my shoulder and stood before I could ask anything.

  She began to walk away, but I lunged for her arm and grabbed hold on her hand. “Wait!” I gasped, my head pounding. She stopped and looked at me, tense. I could see an emotion thinly veiled beneath her dark brown eyes. She was scared of me. “Where’s my mother?”

  Hazel pulled her arm from my hold. “She’s all right. Don’t fret yourself. Eat.”

  And with that, she was gone.

  I turned around and obeyed, continuing to eat my food. She was… scared of me. Why? What had happened? What had I done?

  What have they done to you? My consciousness whispered. I tried to ignore the implication.

  “Um, Amy. What’s your favorite color?” I asked, pulling a question out of my worries and focusing on it.

  “Purple!” she chirped. “What about you?”

  “I like…” I struggled, squinting. “Yellow. Wait, no. No. Someone else likes yellow. I like green. That’s right! Green is like life.”

  She nodded, grinning. “What about animal? What’s your favorite animal?”

  Birds. “Hm… I dunno! The little… the little animal ropes.” She gave me a strange look. “With the little feet and the beady eyes and the tiny teeth? They’re lil’ brown and white thieves?”

  “Ohhhhh, ferrets!” I nodded. “Yeah, they’re cute,” she agreed. “I love jaguars best.”

  I suddenly felt as if a gun had been shot off inside my skull. I struggled to breathe. My mind tried to escape my head, spinning the world, then coating it with white. My ears rang. I gripped the edge of the table to steady myself.

  Jaguar. Edward.

  “Clayton? Clayton, are you okay?” Amy asked, snapping me out of my shock.

  The world sharpened and the ringing in my ears slowly faded. “U-uh, uh yeah…” I pushed my tray away from myself. “I don’t feel good.”

  “Should I tell Hazel?” She asked, starting to stand.

  “No, no, finish your food. I’m okay,” I mumbled, pressing my forehead tight, against the cool table. I felt suddenly like I was burning. Yellow? Who likes yellow? And birds? It’s like… sunlight. They need sunlight. They’re a flower. It isn’t my mom… Where is my mom?

  I stood up and took a shaky breath. I didn’t feel okay. I felt like I was panicking, with no reason to be. My sandwich was threatening to vacate my stomach. Something was wrong. Really, really wrong. What was wrong?

  I started to wander out of the cafeteria in a daze. I tried to keep my back straight, my shoulders back despite my trembling. If I looked like I knew what I was doing, everyone else wou
ld believe it too, right? I just had to walk out of the room… It would be okay…

  No one stopped me as I passed through the double doors, back into the hallway. It was empty. I wandered down the long halls, pressing my shaking fists into the pockets of my sweatpants. What is wrong with you?

  “Help me!” I heard a distant, wailing cry. My heart wrenched in my chest, and I hurried my steps toward the sound. “Oh, please! Let me out! Someone help me! Help! Please!”

  I ran until I reached the door the noise was coming from, feeling like I might throw up. It was the door that was being rattled earlier. It was the person who was trapped, who thought the people around me were trying to hurt them. Were these people actually bad?

  No, these people can’t be bad guys… an intruding voice in my head whispered. It didn’t even feel like my own anxious thoughts. No, they aren’t the bad guys. I clapped my hands over my ears. “Shut up! Get out of my head!”

  The wailing cut off sharply, and I heard a sniffle.

  “Clayton?” A voice whispered from the other side of the door. Their voice was husky, and hollow from screaming. “Clayton…?”

  “Wh-who’re you?” I asked, placing my hands on the door and pressing my ear against it. “How do you know my name?”

  “Clayton,” the person sobbed. “It’s me--! It’s--”

  “Clayton! What are you doing?” Hazel’s voice boomed behind me. I jerked back from the door and saw her marching towards me, looking alarmed. “What are you doing?! I told you, that person is scared and dangerous! She keeps hurting people!”

  She?

  “Clayton? Are you listening to me? Don’t talk to this person! Don’t even look at this door!” I swallowed and nodded. She? Hazel gripped my arm tightly and began to drag me down the hallway. The person began screaming again, begging. “C’mon, I think there’s someone you should see.”

  18

  As soon as I walked through the door, into the room smelling of chlorine and blinding white, I keeled over and threw up into a nearby trashcan. I had been wondering if the person sobbing behind the grey door’s favorite color had been yellow, when Hazel flung open a tan door, revealing a person in a hospital bed.

  She was just as beautiful as the day she had disappeared.

  My mother looked small in the hospital bed, her olive skin almost white, and her long, black hair falling all around her. Beeping machines pumped her with liquids. Her face was serene, her eyes closed.

  Hazel helped me to sit in one of the chairs beside the bed, and gave me permission to hold her fragile hand. I sobbed as I clutched it, afraid it was going to turn to ashes and sweep away from me.

  I didn’t know how long it had been since I had seen her. I just knew it had been long. I had been so worried about her. I cried into my hands for a long, long time, relief pouring from my body. Hazel stood beside the door, watching me cry, until I was finally quiet, when she stepped forward, murmuring, “she’s asleep. She doesn’t wake very often, but you can visit her tomorrow. For now, though, you need to sleep.”

  I nodded weakly and rose. She led me back to my room, then opened the door for me. I lay down on the cot, which had been freshly made, and she closed the door without another word. There was a number of suspicious clicks, which I didn’t recognize until I was half asleep.

  I’ll check if it’s locked in just a second… I thought to myself.

  But I did not. Instead, I fell asleep.

  The next day I woke up and dressed in the clothes left at the end of my bed. It was a black t-shirt and a pair of black pants. I dressed quickly, then there was a knock on the door. Hazel lead me to the cafeteria, where we had a breakfast of eggs and pastries, and I did not see Amy.

  After breakfast, I sat quietly with my mother until lunch. After lunch, Hazel began to show me around the place. She explained there were different schooling lessons I could take, there was a gym to train in, and, if I got horribly bored, there were jobs I could do.

  That night, as she led me to my room, I asked, “when do I get to go home?”

  She did not respond.

  When I checked the door after I had been sent to bed, I found it was locked.

  I lay back down in the cot, my heart beating hard against my ribcage. I felt bile rising in my throat. I was locked into my room. Why was I locked in? Were these people really dangerous?

  I heard a sudden, soft rapping of knuckles against the door. I sat up suddenly, worried I had imagined it. “Hello?” I called in a wavering voice.

  “Hello?” a sing-song voice twinkled.

  “Um, you can, uh, come in?” I stammered, crawling out of the bed. The door clicked and the knob twisted, then the door popped open. I walked over to it, rubbing my eyes against the bright light. A girl leaned in the doorway, a lazy smile crossing her pale lips.

  I felt the breath escape my lungs. She had porcelain skin and blush-brushed cheeks, and her fiery red hair poured across her shoulders in gorgeous curls. She batted her jade-green eyes at me, sending butterflies into my stomach.

  “Hi! I’m so, so sorry to bother you, but I just heard there was a new person here, someone my age.”

  “Um, you’re all right.” I yawned.

  “My name is Alice,” she held out her hand. It was thin and delicate, with pretty, pink nails. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

  I was half afraid of shaking her hand, worried that it might break apart in my hand, so I instead opted to do the first bashful thing that came to mind. I gave her a gentle kiss against her cool skin on the back of her hand. “Clayton. Nice to meet you.”

  It was at that moment I looked down from her eyes and realized she was wearing nothing but a pale pink nightgown. It was very short, decorated with ruffles and ivory buttons, and semi see-through. I felt my face burn, suddenly uncomfortable. It fit her body shape well, and I wished she would walk away, or get dressed in something more appropriate.

  She gave me a charming smile. “Can I come in and talk for awhile?”

  I swallowed thickly, tearing my eyes from her soft curves. “Uh, actually, I’m really… uh, I’m really tired. We can tomorrow morning! For sure!” Once you’re dressed.

  She gave me a small pout that sent my stomach and heart into a flurry, then shrugged and nodded. “Well, okay. Goodnight, Clayton.” She spun on her heel, raising the skirt of her nightgown, and began to sashay away, giving me a gentle wave.

  Had she winked at me before she tossed her hair? Had she called me ‘Clayton’ or ‘handsome’? My heart thumped in my chest and I swallowed again, trying to shake off the weird feelings. I ducked back into my room, closing the door. At least now it was unlocked.

  As I crawled back into bed, I realized it was still hard to sleep. This time, though, it wasn’t normal restlessness. My head was buzzing, plagued with funny thoughts. One of those thoughts was, someone I know would not like her very much.

  I was willing to give Alice a chance. It was nice to see someone my age. But the idea that a person I knew would not like her made me wary about liking her. Whoever it was was obviously someone I respected the opinion of a lot.

  Just give her a chance, I thought to myself. I rolled over and buried my face in the pillows. The lingering scent of her perfume settled into my nostrils, and I couldn’t burn the shadow of her figure out of my mind’s eye. The perfume did not constrict my lungs. It was nice. Just give her a chance...

  19

  “Amy, there’s something wrong here,” I said, after a week of eating and sleeping and walking and sitting with my sick mother, who was never awake when I visited. I had not seen Alice in all that time.

  Her head jerked up from her salad, her eyebrows knitting together. “Whatcha mean?”

  “I mean…” I leaned closer to her, lowering my voice. No one was watching us. “There’s something wrong here. Don’t you feel it, Amy? First, they lock us in our rooms at night…”

  “Yeah,” she nodded, “I don’t like that.”

  “And, and what was our adventure? We were ne
ver told! When do we get to go home? And the girl! The girl they have locked up. I think they’re hurting her.”

  “Girl?” Amy repeated, tilting her head.

  “Behind the grey door! It’s a girl. They won’t let me talk to her because she's ‘dangerous’. But, they’re keeping her locked up! So, how do they know she’s dangerous? I’d try to get out too!”

  Amy’s eyes were wide. “What? It’s a girl? They told me it was a monster!”

  I shook my head. “She knew my name. Her favorite color is yellow, I know it. It just makes sense, y’know?” Amy did not understand. Her green eyes glittered with confusion, but she nodded anyway. “C’mon, let’s just go exploring, Amy! We can find our own answers, without anyone holding us back.”

  I stood up and Amy followed suit, looking worried. We quietly crept out of the cafeteria, once again without anyone noticing us. Once we stepped into the hallway, I felt like I could breathe again.

  “Where do we start?” Amy asked nervously, clutching at my arm.

  “Let’s go talk to the girl,” I said firmly. “She may have answers.”

  We wandered through the hallways for a long time, so long I worried lunch might be let out and we would be discovered by the people swamping the halls, but it was just worries. We found the grey door before anyone could find us. There was no noise behind it today.

  I glanced around. No one. I couldn’t even hear distant footsteps or conversations.

  I leaned against the door and knocked softly. I heard a quiet shuffling. Amy stood a few steps back from the door, looking worried and frightened. She bit her knuckle. “Hello?” I whispered, into the crack in the door, pressing my ear against it.

  I heard a soft gasp, then something thumped against the door. “Clayton?” a tearful voice whimpered.

  “Yeah, it’s me! And.. and Amy, too. Do you know Amy?”

  “Oh, Gods, Amy is okay?”

  “Yes! Yes, Amy’s great. Amy, come say ‘hi’.”