Contessa

Log One

I sat up shocked back to reality with beads of sweat rolling down my forehead, my room was still dark, secluded, and full of emptiness. I looked around and scanned the room, taking in every inch from the empty chair next to my desk full of reports due by the next week to the window on the opposite side of my bed that was cracked just enough to let the gentle night breeze flow in.

It was a new place after having finally moved on my own. My foster parents had let me stay with them after I turned of age and the state could no longer financially help me. They weren't ever able to adopt me, but they were the closest thing to parents I had since I woke up in the hospital. They had no children of their own and having me around seemed to bring a smile to my foster mother's face. 

It was the same every night. The same voices and the same images. A dream I could barely remember yet always dreaded. It was a constant reminder that I had no idea who I was or where I came from. It was like fragments of a past I could barely see and understand. I could no longer decipher which parts were true, and which were fiction. The dream always felt real, but I also always knew it wasn't my reality. That it was all fake and I would eventually wake up. My life vanished into thin air as if it never existed as if I never existed. Who were the people that surrounded me in those dreams? Why did I know the voices, yet I couldn't even make out the faces? My mind raced with thoughts like this every time I woke up.

As I held my head for a few seconds, running my fingers through my hair, and pulling it out of my face, I let out a heavy sigh. I had been waking up like this for a week now and it was getting worse each night. Feeling the wetness from the pools of sweat that piled on my forehead on my hands I stared down at them and tried to calm myself.

"It was all a dream...no, maybe a nightmare", I buried my face in my hands as I whispered, "...or maybe it was both. A blissful sweet nightmare."

I noticed my vision became blurred as I looked up towards my window; tears began to fall as I pulled my quilt-covered knees up to my chest and submerged my face into them. My body began to tremble as if I had a chill.

"Sometimes I wish I could just remember or at least understand what I do remember," I muttered.

The warmth and kindness I felt while I dreamt could only be my mind trying its best to fill the void that always lay in my heart. After all this time I still couldn't just be happy with the life I have lived thus far. Always wanting more than what I already have. It's not that I am ungrateful for my life. I love all the people that have entered it and all those who have left it, but the nagging feeling that I have forgotten something or someone extremely important ate at me. The faint images of what I could remember played slowly as I cried. They played like distant memories I couldn't place. What could they mean? Why did I keep having the same things replaying over and over in a loop? Did it all mean something? Just maybe my mind, in my deep subconscious, dwells on memories I am not aware of, and it is trying to tell me what they are.  Who I am, and who I have forgotten.

A man with grey eyes who always praised me and a boy who always was by my side. A picture of a woman who had a smile like that of the Mona Lisa. Another boy was always angry at me. All such happy or unforgettable things playing over and over within my head. Only I couldn't remember the important parts of the dream. No faces, no names, no dates, everything was always blank.

"If that was true then my brain isn't doing an excellent job remembering," I thought.

I sat there and wondered if I went back to sleep would I return to that nightmarish dream? Or if a new one awaited me. A different dream would be welcomed at that point. Hopeful that I might get some relief from the overwhelming images of a life I was no longer familiar with, I laid down and hugged a pillow. I turned flat on my back and stared endlessly at the ceiling as the last few of my tears rolled down the sides of my face to my ears. Once again, I cried myself to exhaustion. I knew this only when my vision turned dark as my eyelids became heavy. My body slowly relaxed and I lay there in a trance between sleep and awake.

As I lay there drifting, I felt a cold numbness on my face. First on my forehead then moving down the side of my face and resting gently on my cheek. I tried to open my eyes and see what it was, but my body had passed the point of functioning properly.

"Beautiful..." I heard a hushed deep voice whisper.

I felt myself settle in my bed and felt the numbness disappear. Then I felt a light pressure on my lips, and I forced my eyes to open. I saw no one. My room is still the same as before. I let out a heavy sigh and rolled over to my side to face the window.

"You're tired, just go to sleep..." I whispered to myself.

I closed my eyes once again and felt the sandman working his magic to lull me back to sleep. The breeze that blew through my window hit my face and I heard a whisper cross my ear.

"I have missed you so much."

The voice felt warm, pleasant, and familiar. I couldn't figure out where I had heard it before, but it calmed me. Thinking that it was nothing more than my tired mind playing tricks I played the voice inside my head, until I drifted off further into my dream, hoping and fearing for my nightmare to return. If I could return to it, I could find out who the voice belonged to. 

Probably...