The Cost of Memory: Part One

From the Blackwater Files

I’m taking part in The Blackwater Files joint project started by

The Chronicler

! The fun thing about this is that I’m just writing, cleaning up a little, and then posting. I want to have fun with this and see where it takes me. How many parts will this be? I dunno, dude. I just work here.

Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s the post that started it all:

Project Blackwater

---

It was hard to trust her instincts when Anna knew her mind was broken. To be fair, though, the white bed, with all sorts of sensors and equipment hanging above it, looked objectively menacing.

The nurse said, “Welcome to Project Blackwater. We at Elysium are glad you chose to join our study. Please sit down so I can take your vitals.”

Anna sat in an orange plastic chair against the wall.

The nurse—what was her name? Anna snuck a peek at the name tag. It read ‘Melinda’ beside Elysium’s creepy eye logo. Why did it have blue eye shadow? Why would a pharmaceutical company choose an eye for a logo, anyway?

Melinda strapped a blood pressure cuff to Anna’s arm and an oxygen monitor to her finger. The nurse was wearing floral perfume.

After the cuff tightened enough to almost break her arm, Anna’s pressure was recorded. Melinda then went through all the usual questions about family history.

“I don’t know any of that,” Anna said. “Didn’t they tell you why I signed up for this?”

“They did. But I have to ask anyway.” Melinda smiled. She wore bright red lipstick, which Anna thought was an odd choice for a nurse on duty. She was even dressed in the sort of nurse uniform Anna had seen in old movies, complete with a white cap.

“To make sure I have the right information,” Melinda said, “please confirm the following. You have been a patient at the Hammondville Neurological Institute for two years. You suffer from retrograde amnesia. Your purpose for joining this study is to recover your memories prior to your initial hospitalization. Is this correct?”

“Yes.”

According to the advertisement, Elysium was looking for a cure for mortality. However, Doctor Sammons at the Institute thought a dream study could help her regain her memories. None of the medication or therapy had worked. Perhaps this would.

Melinda made a note. “Now, I need you to verbally affirm you have been off your medication for a month.”

“I have.”

It had been the hardest month of Anna’s life. No one had warned her the withdrawal symptoms included night terrors.

Melinda made more notes, then directed Anna onto the bed.

“It’s chilly in here,” Anna said, boosting up onto the bed. She settled back, the bed molding around her like memory foam.

“It’s supposed to be. Research has found people sleep better in a cool room. I can get you a blanket if you like.”

Sleep perchance to dream…

The phrase, spoken in a man’s voice, ghosted through Anna’s mind. She tried to remember who said it, mentally chasing after the words, but they dissolved like cotton candy in water.

Melinda was staring at Anna.

“A blanket would be nice,” Anna said.

Melinda took one from a cupboard and brought it over, unfolding it and draping it onto Anna. The nurse then began fiddling with the equipment.

Anna ran her palms over the blanket, letting the sensation of wool against skin ground her into the moment. “Will I meet the doctor?”

“Dr. Karasevdas takes a personal interest in all our patients. He’s observing from another room. Don’t worry.”

Anna wasn’t worried, ignoring the cramp in her gut. The whole facility felt weirdly empty, as if she and the nurse were the only ones there. It was a sensation that was almost familiar, as if she once regularly spent time in mostly empty buildings.

“How is he observing?” she asked.

“With this.” Melinda pointed to what looked like a small telescope aimed at Anna. “And with the medication I’m about to give you. He will be able to observe your dreams.”

“I see.” She didn’t but she didn’t need to.

Melinda gave her a waiver form on a clipboard with a pen. Anna signed it. She exchanged the clipboard and pen for a cup of water and a small white pill. She stared down at them. After a beat of hesitation, she popped the pill.

---

Anna opened her eyes. The last thing she remembered was watching a hologram. Dr. Karasevdas, looking like a plastic version of a man, talked up his study while pacing around his office. She didn’t even remember falling asleep.

She stood in the lobby of a hotel. It was tiny. The walls and ceiling were painted soft cream. An ornate brass chandelier hung above her.

In front of Anna was an archway that led into a lushly decorated sitting room, with red velvet and gold furniture. There were chairs to her right and the check-in desk to her left. Beyond the desk, keys on blue diamond-shaped fobs hung from hooks. Behind her was the front door and beside it one of those clock-in machines from a century or more ago. The kind that made an awful bang when it punched a timeslip.

“How do I know what sound that will make?” she asked.

She looked down. A red, blue, and gold oriental rug covered most of the floor. There was a stain in the center, a place of darkness. Anna knelt and prodded it with her fingers. They came up wet and clear.

Water. Someone had spilled water.

A cooler fell over, scattering half-melted ice and cans of soda.

“Welp,” said the blond woman behind the counter. Her hair was teased into a halo. She wore a blue collared shirt. “Just rub it in. It’s only water.”

Anna trembled. She hadn’t had a flash of memory in months. Again, she chased after it, trying to recall more. But there was nothing else.

She stood and walked over to the check-in desk. It was the kind where a wall separated patron from worker, forcing the guest to talk to the employee through a window. Beside it was a doorway, accessed by a swinging half-door.

She pushed through the half-door. There was a chair for the employees to sit in. Writing pads, pens, pencils, brochures, and other detritus were scattered around. An old black purse sat tucked under the counter.

There was a door marked ‘Employee’s Only’. Anna tried the knob. It was locked.

She turned, intending to look in the purse. It was gone. She looked for a brochure, suddenly hungry for the name of the hotel. All the brochures and pamphlets were gone. The keys still hung from their hooks, but they only had room numbers on them, stamped in white.

Unnerved, Anna walked back into the lobby that was growing more familiar by the second. The clock on the punch machine ticked down the time. Wasn’t there supposed to be music?

At that thought, guitar music began playing over hidden speakers. It was quick-paced and felt at odds with her surroundings. Anne knew she was supposed to know the name of the piece but didn’t.

She sighed hard. The whole point of signing up for this sleep experiment was to recover her memory, not show her things she only felt she knew. Except the wet spot on the carpet. She glanced back at it in trepidation. No more memories surfaced.

Maybe there were answers in that other room. Anna turned toward it, only to stop. The archway was replaced by an elevator.

Everything in the room looked like it came out of the 1970s or 80s, but this elevator looked sleek and modern. Out of place.

What had Dr. Karasevdas said in his little introduction? That’s right. She was going into her subconscious. Into places she hadn’t known existed. The elevator must be the way.

There was only one button on the panel. She pressed it. The elevator opened with a ding. Anna stepped inside. There were five buttons on the inside panel: 4, 3, 2, 1, B. She pressed 2.

The doors slid closed, cutting off the music, and the elevator descended a single floor. That was strange. Hadn’t she been on floor one? Why was she going down? The elevator shuddered to a stop and opened.

A beach stretched out before her.

Anna stepped out, her feet sinking into the white sand. Salty, cold wind whipped over her. She shivered, folding her arms over her chest.

“I hate when it’s windy like this.” A woman in a pink maid’s uniform slapped her hands onto the red-checked tablecloth to keep the wind from tearing it, and their lunch, away. The woman had leathery brown skin and reddish hair that obviously came out of a bottle.

“Yeah,” said the other woman at the table. Plump. Jet black hair. “But it means it’s cooling off.”

Anna walked along the beach, her mind swirling. Who were those women? Why was she with them? Had she worked in a hotel once? One with a lobby like the one she just left?

Foamy, grey-blue waves crashed onto the beach. The whole ocean looked like a puddle of paint given sentience as it pounded against the land. In the distance, storm clouds gathered. A shrimp boat bopped along the horizon.

Anna looked around. There was a pier further down. Grasses swayed on the dunes. There should have been houses and wooden paths built over the dunes. But there was nothing.

She turned back to the water. A little girl stood at the edge of the water line, her back to the ocean. She wore a pink bathing suit. The wind whipped her brown hair around her face, obscuring her features.

“Hey!” Anna said, walking toward her. “Who are you? Where—”

Water exploded around the girl as an enormous wave crashed onto her.

“No!” Anna screamed, running forward.

The water receded. The girl was gone. Anna tried to spot the child in the water. There was no sign of her. Anna’s foot kicked against something hard. She looked down. A dark object poked out of the wet sand.

She pulled it out, brushing the sand away. It was a small pelican carved out of dark, dense wood. Water flowed around Anna’s feet and ankles, soaking her tennis shoes. She stumbled back, clutching the pelican to her chest.

Lightning flashed, striking the shrimp boat. It burst into flames. Thunder rolled through the sky.

Horrified, Anna stumbled back to the elevator. It opened as she neared. She fell into it, dropping to her knees, and dragged a deep breath into her lungs.

Carefully, she turned the pelican over in her trembling fingers. There were initials carved into the bottom: J.H.

A low growling rumbled behind her. Anna looked over her shoulder. A dark figure stood yards away on the beach, wearing a hooded black duster. The wind played with the ends of the garment. She couldn’t see the face.

The figure lifted its hand in a wave, slim fingers wiggling. It was the sort of wave an adult would give a child.

The elevator dinged, the doors sliding shut.

Click here to read Part Two.