The Cold Prince

14

Word Count: 2039

~Avila

I settle into my seat, looking at the two unfamiliar people sitting before me.

Roel has called them in to gather information on me. It's in the pursuit of finding out why this has happened to me.

I've been told I can back out of this at any moment. Still, I'm nervous.

What if something bad is uncovered?

"Thank you for speaking with us today, Avila. This is an interesting case," Marie, the female researcher says with a pinched smile. The others introduced themselves to me as Jeremy.

"Can you help me find out how this happened?" I ask, clutching the arms of the chair as if I might fall off.

"We are hoping to." Marie exchanges a look with her colleague. "We have been told that you are experiencing different tastes in foods, different interests etc since coming back to life."

I swallow past the dryness in my throat. The term 'come back to life' is a little daunting to think about.

I mean, is that really what happened? Was I ever dead?

"I have flashbacks of being good at art, and yet I try now and I'm miserable," I explain to them. "I hate all the food I used to like, and people tell me I was mean and yet I don't feel the need to be that way."

"Interesting," Jeremy murmurs.

They both scribble all this down on their notepads. Roel claims he trusts them, that they won't share this information with the public.

"So you have flashbacks often?" Marie asks.

I nod. "Sometimes."

"Nightmares?"

"No."

At night, my mind is blank. When I sleep, I tumble into an endless void of inescapable darkness. It's disconcerting, actually.

"Anything trigger these flashbacks?" Jeremy asks, looking between me and his notepad.

"No. They are random and quite vivid."

It's almost impossible to explain to someone who isn't experiencing them. I'm not going to bother trying, because by the looks on these people's faces, they think I'm strange enough.

I mean, I offered to sit with them in the formal living room, but they immediately shook their heads, asking for an office, like they wanted to put a whole desk between them and I.

"When you woke up in the tomb, what did it feel like?" I'm asked.

"I felt like I was waking from a normal sleep." I haven't thought much about that day since it happened. "Like a sleep where I was laying in a weird position all night and was stiff when I woke."

They take a few moments to write that down, like it's the most interesting thing they've heard all year.

"So you had no perception of time?"

I pull my bottom lip into my mouth, thinking. "I don't think so. It's hard to understand time when you can't remember the last time you were awake. You just know at some point, you were."

"And you have absolutely no memory?"

"None."

They look at each other again, and I swear one of them nods. I frown, trying to gather as much information from their expressions as I can, but they conceal what they are thinking expertly.

"If we are unable to find an answer for how this happened, will you be satisfied?" Marie asks carefully.

"I...I don't know. I'm scared of that," I admit.