velvetdemon dot net

Void

“Who am I?”

Langley paused, smiled politely. “We’ve been over this before, Natasha.” He reached out, clad in his stale white coat, to pat one of her pale, white hands. “You saw your parents an hour ago.”

Her eyes, tight and narrow and pale blue, stood out eerily against her face; Natasha reached up to touch it, fingers dragging down her cheek, and she sighed. “No I didn’t, you’re making that up,” she finally decided. “I wasn’t conscious an hour ago. The accident happened an hour ago.”

“The accident happened five years ago, and your parents, however loving, are losing patience,” Langley said gently. “They’re tired of introducing themselves whenever they visit. They’re sick of you throwing tantrums when you can’t remember why they know so much about you.”

Natasha swallowed and glanced at the walls, which were as pale white as her skin. “I don’t throw tantrums. Tantrums are for babies and toddlers. I’m sixteen years old now,” she affirmed loudly.

“Try twenty-one,” Langley suggested, just as gently as before.

She went back to staring at him, his hair, as if trying to decipher code behind each grey strand. “Why won’t you let me leave?” she asked, quiet now.

“You have a new case of amnesia every two hours, Natasha. We don’t want you driving, and then suddenly not knowing how to drive, or where you’re going. It’s simple, really.”

Natasha went on, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I’m fine, the accident didn’t hurt me at all, so I should be able to leave. Mom should come and pick me up soon. I’ve got a ballet lesson later,” she added, cheerfully smiling.

Langley, used to this by now, smiled back. “Yes. We won’t keep you much longer, Natasha. Can you tell me the last thing you remember? Before the accident?”

She screwed up her face in comic concentration, ice blue eyes narrowing, the black pupil like a tar stain. “Mother was saying, ‘Don’t forget to tell Mrs. Kendle about the holes in your shoes. Ask her where to buy new ones.’”

“Were you going to buy new shoes after the lesson, Natasha?”

Natasha’s eyes widened back up. “We are going to buy new shoes. Otherwise I couldn’t dance, the hole would…” Then her eyes unfocused, and she blinked, like a bored fish at the bottom of an aquarium. Then she said, “Who are you? What do you know about my shoes?”

Langley glanced at his watch. Two hours. “There are holes in them,” he said.