Damaged
It's rather convenient for your captors when you have brain damage. At least, I think it would be. Somehow, I still remember bits and bobs from before now, before this room, just enough to make sure I wasn't always in this room.
Retrograde amnesia, or anteograde amnesia? It is an amnesia of sorts, from blunt force trauma to the head. I must have been a doctor of sorts, to know this. Probably not a neurosurgeon, or else I'd be able to tell the difference, unless the nasty crack on my skull is also preventing that.
My vision is swimming and occassionally goes out. Blindness is strange, like seeing out your elbow or nose, or like differentiating between which finger is giving the sensation when you touch them together.
Toss in shaking limbs and bright red fluid on the times I am able to see and you have an almost confirmed diagonosis. I don't have any way to staunch the bleeding, but my hair catches the blood and lets it coagulate fine, preventing me from bleeding out. Blessings for small miracles, it seems.
I crawl to the middle of the room, swaying dangerously. It is similar to the sensation of being high on a ship, a memory I apparently kept. I'm just glad it's not full amnesia. I slump there, weak limbs unable to manage sitting up.
I wait. It's always a waiting game, for reports to come back, grades, people, food. Soon, I know, someone will have to come in here. It's disturbing to hear and not see, the sight having lasted conveniently for only the journey.
Footsteps are coming, echoing around the room, and the click of a door opening alerts me. An unconscious tensing of my body almost gives me away. Maybe it did, I don't know. It's the same way you know someone's not really sleeping.
Apparently my acting skills passed the test, or maybe I was wanted for something, some use. The footsteps come closer, circling until I think they're in front of my face. I crack my eye open, hoping for vision to be there. No dice.
Now or never, I suppose. As quickly as I can, my arm shoots out to where I think the feet are, managing to slam into it. The feet jump away, but it's too late; my fingers have grabbed the cloth, and I lunge, dizzy with no sense of the floor except for touch, both arms finally wrapping around.
"Get off!" a surprisingly deep sound comes. Male then, and I obstinately refuse. I claw my way up, leaning on him, clamming tight despite the pushing hands. I finally make it to his neck and I lean my weight on him. He staggers twice and falls, luckily on his back.
My hands reach his throat and tighten.
"I won't hesitate if you don't answer my questions."
He stops reacting and lies still. I listen for footsteps, and then, "Where am I?"
"You've been taken to a hospital."
Hospital? Of course not, this place couldn't be a hospital. The few times I saw were sterile white lights.
He takes note of my confusion, and continues.
"You were in an accident, blunt force trauma to the head resulting in retrograde amnesia, aggression, loss of vision and motor control, and a few other symptoms. We can treat most of them, if you let us.
It certainly makes sense. There's just something...
"Take me outside, then. Just for a few minutes."
He stiffens, and that's my cue. My hands tighten and he flails suddenly, until he slumps. His heart is still beating, thankfully, even though he would deserve it. I take off his shoes and I toss them in opposite directions. One hits the wall with a harder thunk than the other. I turn towards the soft thunk, and crawl.
My hands have accidentally touched a warm mess, gooey of congealed blood. Ech. I find the wall. If I had my sight I'd probably be very terrified of the blood everywhere. Head wounds bleed a lot, and judging from my dizziness, maybe too much.
I move left first, until I reach the corner. No dice. I move the other way, following the tracks of blood my hands have made with my fingers, until I reach the other corner. That's the door.
It's likely going to be a maze, and I won't have vision. Wincing, I tug at my hair to loosen the blood to let it flow, get it on my hands, and walk. The other hand I wipe on my shirt, gown, some kind of fabric. Perhaps a dress, toga, I don't know. I can't quite remember other than a sickly green.
Hand on the left wall, following the blood like that old story, the Minotaur of Crete. It's almost unfair how much I remember. Perhaps I was drugged instead of a head injury. It could be a trap for my profession, but maybe they used too much and I missed the part about moving under the effects of brain damage.
Why am I even certain I have brain damage? I'll have to figure that out later. I round the corner to an eerily empty building. fairly large if my footsteps are anything to go by. I refresh my yarn with a touch to my head and continue, hopefully placing my hand in the same spot.
I walk into a wall. Of course I do, I don't have sight, don't blame me. I reorient myself and keep going, almost falling as the adrenaline leaves my system, compounding the loss of motor control.
I hit another wall, but this time, it has a sort of penumatic hiss and a click as my body presses on the bar. My free hand pushes it open and I feel the unmistakable sensation of sunlight and air.
And there's still no one. No footsteps but my own... I pretend to misstep and stomp quickly. The echo behind me is all it takes. as I whirl around and take my hand off the wall. I jump back in, fall to the foor in dizziness, and grab the legs again.
Feminine voice this time. "Now that you've seen the sunlight, let us treat you."
This again? I do have to admit, it makes sense. Too much sense, too little, I don't know. But a real hospital would have people bustling around, not two or three people just looking after me. I tug the legs to the floor and reach for the walls, making sure to use my right hand, the clean one, to feel the blood. Not there, the other one then.
Unfortunately, that's all the time she needs to get a needle and stick it into me. I react violently, grabbing it and yanking directly, leaving some of the metal in my skin, and I stab her instead, somewhere fleshy.
I stand up, dizzy again from some sort of drug. Right hand, feel the wall, walk backwards, and the pneumatic hiss meets my ears. Thank god I went the right direction.
My head pounds and the non-vision grows fuzzy, signifiying the return of my sight. I stand in place a moment while it adjusts, my ears being my only sight, until I can see. I am outside of a big grey building, nondescript, and the heat I felt before was just a streetlight. It's night, which is why there is nobody.
The closest building with lights on isn't too far. I manage to make it there somehow, falling on my knees a few times. A hoarse voice comes out of my throat, screaming for somebody, anybody, I need help. Lights come on, and they find me.
I don't know much after this, as I've passed out.
------------------------------------
I was taken to a real hospital this time, one that treated me. They managed to restore sight fully in one eye, though the other comes and goes. The doctors and nurses all had other patients, and it was noisy, finally.
The memories have just been lost for eternity, but seeing as I wasn't missing many I cared about, I didn't really mind. Speaking of mind, I seem to be perfectly sane and healthy, except for the stitches in my head which will soon be gone.
The police found the building, found my bloody handprint, bootprints, but nobody there. Of course they packed and left, leaving only the room and a small cot soaked with my blood.
Physical therapy is hard, but I somehow took a liking to the exercising of unused body parts.
Sometimes I dream of things, of a pretty girl in white cooing about how good I was for letting them fix me. They're dreams, I tell myself, and I leave it at that.
