Page 80 of Fractured
Eventually, it calmed down.
Eventually, I didn’t think about as many things at once as I usually did.
In fact, I couldn’t remember what I’d been thinking about when my head had threatened to split open on my way here from…somewhere.
I was sure I’d come from somewhere.
And I was sure I’d come here for something.
But most importantly, I had known whereherewas.
Until now.
I couldn’t really explain it, not to my own self. It was like suddenly a veil had been dropped inside my mind, and I couldn’t…see. I couldn’t see my own thoughts or hear my own voice—and I knew they were there. I knew that what I’d been carrying on my shoulders for so long was heavy, but now it was gone. Not the weight of it, just the nature of it. The name.
Just like the name of the creature who walked beside me.
It was white and I knew that I knew that—Iknewthat I didn’t know. My mouth was wide open, and words werebegging to come out, yet I couldn’t remember how to say them.
I couldn’t remember why I was here.
Then something ahead of us moved.
My body froze, my feet suddenly glued to the ground. Something was moving, and the two small lights that continued to hover in the air a bit farther ahead showed me what it was.
Another thing that I had no clue how to explain. A shape, as tall as me, as wide as me, maybe. Covered completely with something that moved—maybe shadows, maybe black fog. I knew these names, all these different things, yet I couldn’t for the life of me figurehowor where I’d seen them. They were just there.
Just like the figure that kept disappearing and appearing again in the dark.
Suddenly my mind was chaotic again. I was trying to speak, trying so hard to find words, but I didn’t know which ones to use. I didn’t know whom to ask. I didn’t knowwhatto ask.
And my legs no longer held me.
When I hit the ground on my knees, I expected pain to shoot throughout my body, and I didn’t even know why. I expected pain, but instead all I got wasnoise.This relentless noise had gone off in my head and I couldn’t tell what the hell it was or where it was coming from or what it was saying. I was shaking from head to toe—that much I was aware of—and the figure ahead that still blinked in and out of existence, sometimes wider, sometimes taller, didn’t stop. It moved in rhythm with the noise in my head, coming and going in waves until I thought I might be screaming even if my voice couldn’t quite reach my ears.
But Iwasn’tscreaming. Instead, I was trying to break myown skull open so that the noise could get out of me, so that the pressure could release from me. That’s why I reached for my hair, to pull it right off my scalp until I understood. Until I remembered. Until I knew what my name was—because right now I didn’t.
Yet when I made to grab my hair, something fell in front of me—something that had been in my hand. Something small and made of glass, with white liquid inside.
Vial.
It was called a vial, and I knew I’d seen it before. I just didn’t know where. I didn’t know why.
I didn’t knowanything.
But my eyes remained on that small thing as the shape ahead continued to come and go, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes closer, and sometimes too far to make out clearly. And the white animal that was with me moved, too. To the sides and ahead, in circles, and then forward and back, blue eyes glazed over as it tried to see better but couldn’t. Eyes that were almost—almostfamiliar.
And the vial remained there.
Pulling at my hair wasn’t working—my head refused to crack open, and the noise wasn’t going anywhere. It wouldn’t stop, and it wasteasingme. It was reminding me of all that I didn’t remember, all that wasright therebut I couldn’t reach, and I still couldn’t scream.
Then the animal sat down to my side, near or far—I couldn’t even be sure. It wasn’t looking at me at all, like I thought. It was looking at the ground. At that vial that had been in my hands.
Why had the vial been in my hands?
My hands that shook now as I forced them to let go of my hair and reach for it. Maybe it knew what my name was. Maybe it knew what I couldn’t remember.
It didn’t.
