Page 83 of Born in Fire
“Wrong area. And they found those folks.” Mike keeps glancing at me in the mirror. “You hungry? Thirsty?”
The question catalogs new sensations. Dry throat. Empty stomach. I nod.
He passes me a bottle of water. My hands shake as I bring it to my lips, but the cool liquid revives something in me. Words come easier.
“Where?” I ask.
“About forty miles east of Seattle,” Mike answers. “Near the national forest boundary. Hospital’s about twenty minutes away in Rockridge.”
The names mean nothing to me. Seattle. Rockridge. They should trigger recognition, but my mind remains a blank slate.
Hank’s speaking again, softly now, and casting furtive glances back toward me. “I’m figuring she’s gotta be one of those ‘tweakers’ or something, Mike. Look at that hair. That can’t be natural. And her eyes. Did you see her eyes?”
At his words, I glance in the mirror again, not sure what I should be seeing. Eyes. They’re… blue? Almost too pale to pick up the color, though.
What color should they be?
I squeeze them shut, trying to find a memory of my own features, but nothing comes.
The radio plays softly—twanging guitars and voices singing about lost love. The music feels both alien and familiar, like everything else. Through the window, mountains rise in the distance, their silhouettes stirring something deep within me. A pull. A direction that matters, though I don’t know why.
The hospital, when we reach it, is a low, beige building with too-bright lights that make my head pound. Everything is too intense—the antiseptic smell burning my nostrils, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes against linoleum, the beeping of machines whose purpose I somehow understand without knowing how.
“Found her wandering near our logging site,” Mike explains to the nurse at the intake desk. “No ID, no clothes. Doesn’t seem to remember anything.”
The nurse—her badge reads Wilson—looks at me with professional compassion. “Let’s get you into a room, honey. Doctor will be right in.”
Mike and Hank shuffle awkwardly. “We should get going,” Mike says. “Got deliveries to make. She gonna be okay here?”
“We’ll take good care of her,” Nurse Wilson assures them. “You did the right thing bringing her in.”
As they leave, I feel a momentary panic at losing the only recognizable presences in this new world. Nurse Wilson must notice because she pats my arm.
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.” She leads me to a small examination room. “Let’s get you a gown, and I’ll take some basic information.”
The questions are impossible. Name? Address? Date of birth? Medical history? Each inquiry meets the same void where memory should be. Nurse Wilson eventually stops asking and simply notes “Jane Doe, amnesia” on her chart.
The hospital gown is thin but clean. The examination table crinkles beneath me. I sit with unnatural stillness, my body somehow knowing how to exist in space despite my mind’s emptiness.
Dr. Martinez arrives with a tablet and a professional smile that falters slightly when she sees me.
“Hello there. I understand you’re having some memory issues.”
I nod, finding it easier to respond nonverbally than force words through the strange disconnect between thought and speech.
“Let’s start with some basic checks, shall we?”
What follows is increasingly bewildering. The doctor takes my temperature, frowns, takes it again with a different thermometer. She checks my pulse, blood pressure, reflexes, pupils—each test followed by notes and subtle expressions of confusion.
“Your temperature is… unusual,” she says carefully. “Running about 103, but you’re not showing other fever symptoms. And your heart rate is remarkably slow for someone in your condition.”
She draws blood, the needle sliding into my vein with a sharp sting that feels disproportionately intense. I watch my blood fill the vial—darker than it should be; somehow, I know this without knowing how.
“Are you in any pain?” she asks.
I consider the question. My body aches, but not in a way that suggests injury. More like the soreness of extreme exertion or… rebirth. The word surfaces unexpectedly, then sinks away again before I can grasp its significance.
“No,” I answer. “Just… wrong.”
