Forgotten

I could hear voices. Only two of them. Had I ever heard them before? I couldn’t tell. The voices sounded very similar, and yet completely different. One of them was a man’s voice. He sounded old. Very old and very inwardly. I could hardly hear him.
The second voice was sweet as sugar. It surely belonged to a girl.
I opened my eyes.
I was lying in a bed. I couldn’t tell where I was. At my feet there was the girl with the sweet voice. She had an angelic face, soft features and still she had some sort of wisdom in her expression. Her hair fell in golden waves around her shoulders.
“Isabella?”
She seemed to speak to me. Isabella? Was I Isabella? I didn’t know.
“Where am I?” I asked. I thought it would be strange to ask “who am I” though that was the thing I wanted to know. Wait, I told myself, you’re not losing your mind, and you’ll remember any second. I looked around. The owner of the second voice I had heard was – like I had suspected – a very old man. His skin was as white as his hair. Another thing was irritating; they both had red eyes. Was that normal? People with red eyes? Of course it was. How could it not be?
“Where you are?” the girl repeated with a shocked look. I wasn’t sure if she was really shocked though. It seemed so… factitious.
“Don’t you recognize it?” She seemed a little suspicious suddenly. I shook my head.
“Well, you have only been here once, Isabella, and it was a long time ago”, the man said. I noticed his skin was really strange. Thin, like paper. Like it would break once you touched it.
The girl continued to talk. “Well, we found you on the street. You were unconscious, so we brought you here.”
She seemed to think about what she could tell or ask me, not sure if she could trust me.
“What is the last thing you know?”
I cogitated. What was the last thing I could remember…? I shook my head. “I don’t know. There’s nothing”
I felt horrible. Who was I? I had to have a past! Why could I not remember? I felt tears in my eyes. I felt so alone. What was wrong?
The girl saw that I was near crying. She came closer and hugged me. She smelled as sweet as her voice sounded. The scent was some sort of familiar… Maybe I had smelled her before. Her body was very hard and cold. Maybe I had fever.
“Jane”, said the old man “I’ll leave you two alone. I think there will be some work.”
He gave her a meaningful look. She nodded.
Jane, I thought. That was a beautiful name. And it really fitted with her whole looks.
“So, my name is Isabella?” I asked shyly. I felt really stupid for asking my own name.
Jane nodded. Again her eyes caught my view. I didn’t dare to ask about the strange colour though.
Anyway I was in a strange room. It was very old; the walls were out of big bricks. The bed I lay in was clean and seemed to be new though. Except for it, there was only a desk and a chair in the room. And the strangest: The room hadn’t got a window. All the light came from a little spot at the ceiling.
“So Isabella, I think it’s the best if you can sleep a little more”, Jane said and raised from the bed. “I can get you some books, if you like, to keep you from boredom.”
I just nodded, unable to speak.
Jane left the room. There was something missing in me. Like I had been torn apart, and the repair hadn’t been done carefully. I didn’t know what part of me was missing, but I was sure, that in my previous life, there had been something I couldn’t live without. I could feel tears again. I didn’t even try to stop them from running down my cheeks. I cried and sobbed until I fell asleep. Alone, miserable and with emptiness inside my mind.


I didn’t know for how long I had been sleeping. Time stood still down here, in this room without sunlight. I kept lying in my bed, not sure if I should get up. After a while - I didn’t have a watch, but it felt like half an hour at least – I decided to leave the room.
Carefully I opened the door. I found myself in an empty hallway. The walls were out of the same bricks as the ones in my room. There was no furniture, only a red carpet on the floor. Jane came around the corner.
“Isabella! You’re awake.”
I nodded. Jane looked at me for a second, obviously thinking about what to say.
“I think it’s best if you just stay in your room for a little while”, she said friendly and pushed me back soft but assertive. “Like I said, I’ll get you some books.”
I didn’t have time to say anything before the door was closed and I was alone again. Surely, she was worried about my health. I mean something had to have happened to me to cause a memory loss like this. Only very few minutes later, Jane returned with a couple of books in her arms. She laid them on the desk, smiling at me.
“Those should keep you occupied for a while”, she said and turned around again.
“Jane?” I still was a little confused, but I just had to ask, “Why doesn’t this room have a window?”
For a tiny little moment, so short that it never seemed to happen, her face showed a very annoyed, maybe even angry look. Or didn’t it? The expression disappeared to fast to tell if it even had been there. Then suddenly, she seemed sad.
“Oh, but Honey don’t you know?” she came a little closer “About the meteorite?”
Meteorite? I thought.
“The air outside is polluted since the meteor crashed half the country” Jane looked worried. “We have to live under the earth. But that was months ago.”
I nodded slowly. I had lived subsurface before?
“I’m sure your memory will return soon”, Jane said in a strange tone and disappeared.
After that, I sat on my bed doing nothing for… probably several hours.
Wait, I suddenly thought; Jane had said, they had found me on the street. What was I doing on a street if the air was so polluted? Maybe that caused my memory loss! But no, that couldn’t be true, because if it was, Jane would have got sick or something to by finding me. Probably the “street” was under the earth too.
After I couldn’t take the nothingness any longer, I took a look at one of the books. I wasn’t in the mood for reading at all, but I had to do something, so I started reading.


I could feel my stomach aching. I hadn’t eaten anything since I was here, so I got up and left my room. But again, as soon as I had opened the door, Jane was there. Coincidence?
I told her how hungry I was. She thought about it for a second, and then she asked me to accompany her.
We walked along the hallway, around corners, through one or two doors, without seeing anything but the walls and the carpet.
Finally, we entered a bigger room. It seemed to be sort of an entrance hall. Its walls were decorated with crimson curtains, although there weren’t any windows either. A young woman sat behind a desk, writing.
“Gianna”, Jane called her. The woman looked up. Her face showed a wide, fake smile when she recognized Jane.
“How may I help you?” she said in a clear and polite tone.
“This is Isabella. I’d like you to bring her something to eat”, Jane continued.
Gianna had an insecure look into my eyes. But then she smiled again.
“Of course.”
Jane gave me a wide smile, and then she left me alone. Strangely, I suddenly had a feeling that it was as fake as Gianna’s. But no, I was seeing things.
“Follow me please”, said Gianna in her strangely clear voice. Had I ever seen her before? She seemed some sort of familiar.
She led me to a small kitchen. There was only one chair at the small wooden table. Why did Gianna eat alone here?
I didn’t have to wait long, Gianna started cooking straight away and so ten minutes later a huge plate of spaghetti stood in front of me.
“I am back in the entrance hall”, Gianna informed me, “find me when you’re finished.”
I nodded, because my mouth was already filled with spaghetti. I felt like I hadn’t eaten for weeks.


When I had eaten up, I returned to the hall, like Gianna had said. She sat at her desk, writing like she did before.
“Ah, Isabella”, she said when she saw me, “Jane told me, you need something to do. You can help me here.”
I smiled and nodded. At least I wasn’t sent back to the boring little room.
I passed some hours with Gianna. I had absolutely no feeling for time – it didn’t matter, I guess.
I addressed envelopes, sorted files and typed things into an old computer – Ordinary secretary works. I didn’t know what this was all about though. Gianna made sure, that I didn’t read anything… Anything that shouldn’t be read by me. More and more, I felt that they didn’t trust me. So I started to ask myself if I could trust them.
Hours became days. When I was tired, I got back to my room to sleep; when I was hungry I went to the kitchen to eat something.
Sometimes, other people came to the entrance room. I had no idea where they came from. Wasn’t the air polluted?
I did see Jane sometimes, and also the old man who had been to my room when I woke up – I found out his name was Aro.
The work I had to do was more or less boring. With little exceptions. Every once in a while, I could feel some trembles or rumbling. I wondered if that was normal, but Gianna didn’t react to it at all, so it had to be.

But the strangest thing I saw was this: I was sitting at the desk with Gianna, like everyday. Then woman entered the room and this woman blew me away. She had the most gorgeous face I had ever seen – as far as I knew. Her long legs in tights under a mini-skirt and her violet eyes blinking charmingly. Gianna called her Heidi. But she wasn’t alone. She was accompanied by a big group of people, all of them talking with excitement in foreign languages. She led them through another door.
A rosary.
The thought suddenly flashed through my mind. Why did I think of a rosary now?
Maybe she’s having hysterics.
Another flash of words. Where did they come from? My previous life? Did I actually remember anything? I concentrated. Who was I?