LEDGER

Max

"Good morning, Max."

The voice startles me awake and for a second, I know nothing at all. What am I? In that moment, suspended in confusion, I could be a speck of dust, drifting in a shaft of sunlight. But I am something a lot more tangible, much more complex. And I hurt, everywhere.

"Where- why?"

"It's alright dear." the voice says again, and hearing it again startles me. I hadn't expected it to stay, or to be real. Slowly but surely everything around me crystallizes, as fast as the confusion fades.

"Where am I?" I ask. And as I do I realize there are a lot of things I don't know. "Who am I?" I yelp, just as strange palpitations rock my chest. My heart is beating too fast, I am in panic.

Why do I recognize and remember this but not everything else?

"You are home, dear." the voice says, lower than mine, deeper. "You were in a really bad accident. We almost lost you."

"Accident?" I ask, pushing myself to remember something that is not there. Was a memory even there in the first place?

"That is the reason why you are probably in pain, right now. You were driving back home, here, when you got in a horrible car accident. You also probably don't remember anything. The doctors said that might be the case when you wake up."

I look around the room. The ceiling is low and lined with dark wood panes. Ahead of me from where I lie on a bed, there is a wall entirely made out of glass looking out into a beautiful garden. The right wall is covered in russet brown wallpaper, thinly framed paintings hanging from it. The floor is dark gray granite, some of it covered by a fluffy looking beige carpet.

The bed is soft, warm, the sheets silky. Calming.

My eyes drift to the left wall. There is a small pane of glass, darker than the dark forest green wallpaper there. A painting hangs next to the glass on the wall, and I can even name the painter. Jackson Pollock. But I still don't know my own name.

"What is happening?" I breathe, bringing my hand up to my forehead. The contrast of my cold hand against my mercilessly warm forehead ground me a little bit, makes the panic subside.

"Your name is Max Garland." the voice says. "I am Evan."

"Evan." I repeat, trying the sound. "What are you to me?" I ask, trying to support myself up on my elbows.

"A friend of your father's." Evan says. "He died a few years back. This is probably a lot to take in dear, why don't you just get up and explore your room, see if there is anything you can learn about yourself in there?"

"Wait, is this my home or yours? Where are you?" I ask, but I am met with silence. Evan, wherever he was talking to me from is now gone. I am left all alone, with nothing but the beautiful yet unfamiliar room around me.

After a few preparatory breaths, I get up, determined to expunge that feeling of strangeness. The carpet is just as fluffy as I thought it would be. My toes sink right in, flexing to get the feeling back in them. How long since I've used my feet? My entire body?

I ask, but 'Evan' is not answering. So I do what he suggested I do and explore my room.

The thing is spacious, with a few corridors branching off in different places. There is a walk-in closet and a bathroom, full of clothes my size, an office space, the desk having only a laptop on it, a door to the small garden, a kitchen, equipped with all sorts of things, some I don't even know how to use, and then there is an entirely empty cube of a room, encased all in glass. And very dark.