Dangerous Illusions

Chapter 29

All was a blur. She felt nothing, as if she had no flesh at all. She saw only darkness, yet the darkness seemed to be moving, like a black cloud of mist. There was no smell, no feeling of warmth or cold, and an eerie silence that was finally broken by a heavy voice saying one word:

Awaken.

The voice echoed within her. It was deep and almost frightening, yet it was also young and smooth. Suddenly she began to see something in the darkness; something glowing. Something that began taking the form of a pair of eyes. Bright, glowing red eyes staring at her in the darkness, eyes that were both frightening and somehow alluring at the same time.

And slowly, very slowly, she saw a face beginning to form around those eyes. It was a young man's face, darkly handsome and a bit dangerous, with a mouth that was set into a grim, unwavering line. Stray strands of shimmering silver hair hung in front of that face that stared at her in the darkness. And then a hand rose into view, stretched out before him with the palm open to her and the spread fingers outstretched in her direction.

His mouth moved.

"Awaken."

Suddenly she began to feel as if she had a body. She felt a tingling sensation, starting with her head, spreading down into a neck and a torso, stretching into arms and hands and fingers, and then into legs and feet. She tried to look down, but she couldn't. Her body wouldn't move. At least not of her choosing. And still her body continued to tingle; and gradually she began to like the feeling. It felt good. Especially as it intensified between her legs. She began feeling an impulse to squirm about from the feeling of pleasure, but her body still couldn't move. She was trapped in a sort of prison, being treated to pleasure and unable to respond to it.

The figure of the young man before her began to glow."Awaken now."

The darkness began to swirl around her, and the young man's image faded from view. And as he faded, so did the pleasant tingle running through her body. She tried to whimper in frustration, but heard no sound come from her mouth. She wanted more of that feeling. She began gaining control of her body, moving her arms and legs about as she vainly struggled for something to hold onto in the infinite nothingness. The swirling black began to illuminate into sparkling silver lights—

Her eyes closed. She curled herself up, utterly at the mercy of whatever storm was surrounding her.

Then all at once there was solid ground beneath her. More specifically, she was lying on it, still curled up. Her eyes opened; the world around her was all a blur at first, but slowly as she blinked repeatedly and looked around, she began gaining clarity. She observed that she was lying in the mouth of an alleyway looking out at the street. It was night time, and evidently late, as there were no cars driving by. She shivered, and wrapped her arms around her as she also realized that she was naked. Her mind began filling with questions, as to where exactly she was and how exactly she had gotten there.

A door across the street opened and a middle-aged woman with short brown hair stepped out, and began walking toward the parked green SUV on the side of the street. She unlocked the car and opened the door and started to get in, when she stopped as she saw the girl sitting in that alley. "Oh my god!" she gasped, shutting the door and hurrying over to the girl. "Are you all right? Do you need me to call 911?"

The girl stared up at the woman, and her mouth opened and she started fumbling for speech. "W... wha... w-w-where...where am... w-where am I?"

The woman studied her, and then removed her coat and wrapped it around the girl's shoulders. "San Francisco. You're in San Francisco. Are you all right?"

"I... I, I-I don't know."

The woman took her by the hand and shoulder and helped her up as the girl shakily rose to her feet. "Maybe I should get you to a hospital. What's your name?"

"My name?" It felt like a hard slap to the face as the girl dug for an answer to that and came up blank. "I don't know."

"Wow, I'd definitely better get you to a hospital. Come on."

The girl awkwardly followed the woman, as if trying to remember how to walk. The woman guided her by the hand as they approached the car, and the girl climbed into the passenger seat. As the woman got in and started the car, the girl relaxed into her seat and closed her eyes.

An image flashed across her eyes briefly. It was just a blur at first, but she gradually made sense of it. It was a little girl's memory, running through her back yard, seeing her smiling mother coming out the back door offering her a plate of fresh-baked cookies. She could hear the tinkling of the wind chime and the chirping of birds.

Another image followed shortly after that. She was seeing the halls of a school; this was the memory of a teenage girl, talking with her friends outside of her locker. They had just left class and were on break for the moment; free to talk about... whatever it was they talked about.

Now she was seeing another image. She was on a date with a roguish-looking boy who made her heart go pitter-patter. They were at the movie theater, and he was buying the popcorn, and then he offered her an early taste before they went into the movie.

These were her memories; she knew they were. They were her memories, fighting to the surface. She just couldn't reach them yet. Who was she? It was like her life was something she could see in the distance, but a bar was blocking her from being able to reach it.

They finally pulled into the dark, mostly empty hospital parking lot. The digital clock on the dashboard read 1:04. The girl awkwardly got out of the car and entered the hospital with the woman's help. "Anybody here?" the woman called as they stepped into the lobby.

A nurse appeared and came running down the halls. "What have we got?"

"I found this girl lying naked in an alley. She doesn't remember who she is."

"All right, we have an open room, come with me." The girl was starting to regain the feel of walking, no longer needing her hand held to move around as she followed the nurse. She was guided into one of the examination rooms, where the nurse switched on the light and instructed her to sit down on the table. The nurse produced a digital thermometer from a drawer. "Open up please." The girl obliged, putting her lips around the tab as the nurse hit the button. She took a look at the readout... and her brow furrowed. "Well this can't be right."

"What?" the girl said. "What is it?"

"Well according to this your body's only at room temperature. There must be something wrong with the thermometer." She went back to the drawer, trading the digital thermometer for a fluid one. "Let's try this the old fashioned way." She inserted the tab into the girl's mouth and said, "You wait there; I'll get the doctor." She moved to the door, stopping to pick up a hospital gown and hand it to the girl. "Why don't you put this on while you wait?"

With that the nurse walked out and the girl was left alone, with only her growing questions.First I wake up naked in the middle of the city with no memory of who I am, and now someone tells me I'm not producing any body heat? What's going on here?

There was a mirror on the wall, which the girl moved to look into after slipping on the hospital gown. The face she saw was beautiful: long platinum blond hair with bangs above her light blue eyes, and an athletic, sexy figure. The face was vaguely familiar, but it didn't jog her memory the way she hoped it would. It was still like looking at a stranger... well, maybe not necessarily a stranger so much as a distant relative she hadn't seen since childhood. Still, it was a flawless look; one that any girl would love to have.

The door opened and the nurse returned, with a balding man in glasses and a white coat in tow. "This is our Jane Doe, doctor," the nurse said.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Walt," he said, shaking her hand.

"Mm, hi," the girl said awkwardly, holding the thermometer in her mouth.

The doctor laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry. Let's take a look at that." He took the thermometer from her mouth and looked at it. His look instantly turned to puzzlement as he turned his head to the nurse, and with his eyebrows raised said, "Room temperature."

"Well that can't be good," the nurse said.

"Are you sure you can't remember your name?" Dr. Walt asked.

"My name..." The girl put a hand on her head and closed her eyes, straining to remember... she thought back to the memories that she'd flashed to before. "My name..."

"Leila! I baked some cookies!"

"Hey Leila, who're you taking to the formal?"

"Want an early sample, Leila?"

"Leila. My name's Leila."

The doctor nodded and smiled slightly. "That sounds like progress. All right Leila, why don't you sit down, and let's run some of the usual tests."

Leila nodded, and seated herself on the table again. Dr. Walt put the earpieces of his stethoscope on and stepped up to her, pulling the collar of her gown down and pressing the cold piece of metal to her chest. He held it there a moment... his face suddenly took on a look that made her especially worried. He shifted the tool around, his look never changing. "What the hell?" he said sharply.

"What's wrong?" said the nurse. Dr. Walt responded by removing the stethoscope and putting it on her. The nurse repeated what he'd done, pressing the metal instrument to her chest and getting the same bewildered look. "I... can't find any heartbeat at all!"

"Neither could I!" Dr. Walt said. "If she wasn't sitting in front of us, I'd say this girl was already dead!"

Leila's mouth hung open. "Already dead," she repeated in a shocked whisper. Something about that phrase made her feel like there was something else she should be remembering—

She suddenly gasped and her muscles clenched as she felt the sharp pain of a knife stabbing her in the gut. It wasn't happening now; there was nobody in the room with a knife, but she could feel it as if it were. She felt it again, and screamed. She felt herself being stabbed again, and again. And again. Dr. Walt and the nurse stared at her in horror, and she dropped off the table to her knees as she felt the sharp blade piercing her once more. She collapsed to the ground...