The first thing she noticed, miraculous under the circumstances, was the buzzing of electricity coursing through fluorescent lights.
The fourth thing she noticed, once her eyes adjusted to the blinding luminescence and she pushed herself up to an awkward lean on the uncomfortable hardwood table, was that
she
was all she was.
Her name never came to her.
The room was unfamiliar, a cross between an office conference room and an auditorium, though how she knew what those were at all also escaped her. There were four solid walls, and no door. Her clothes were appropriately form-fitting, but completely foreign. Her dark hair curled past her shoulders in a way that seemed intentionally manipulated, but by whose hand she couldn't recall.
Her heart raced.
"Hi there!"
She startled, looking every which way for the voice's source. No obvious person or device revealed itself. It sounded feminine.
"You must be confused. But I promise, everything will become clear if you just answer a few simple questions for me, okay?"
"W-who are you?" Her voice quavered. It had a quality to it, an edge of uncertainty and unease that she didn't like. She decided she hated her voice. "Where am I?"
"Question number one. Who are you?"
The voice, whether person or machine, ignored her completely. She stayed silent. It stayed silent.
The buzzing grew louder in the absence of conversation.
"...I don't know." She caved. "I'm really confused. Can you ple--"
"Question number two. In which state or territory were you born?"
"I'm trying to tell you, I don't know! Can someone--"
"Question number three. Can you name any state or territory?"
She clutched a hand to her chest. She was starting to hyperventilate. The buzzing grew louder.
After a long moment, the voice continued.
"I can see that now is a stressful time for you. I'll ask again in an hour or so--"
"NO!" She shouted. Her hand pressed down harder. Her heartbeat was erratic. The thought of being left alone terrified her. It would be worse if she were abandoned, of that she felt certain. "P-please don't go. I'll answer. I-I j-j-just need a s-s-second."
It took her nearly five minutes to calm down enough to continue.
"California. That's a state. Right?"
"Are you sure?"
She swallowed hard. She was a little afraid nobody would answer her back.
"Yes, I'm sure. California."
"Question number four. What would you not mind from Mr. Roads?"
"Who is.. I don't know who that is." The panic and dread, which had settled down to manageable levels, was ratcheting right back up.
"Question number five. What is or what was the color of your mother's eyes?"
"I don't know. Why? Why don't I know that?"
In lieu of a verbal answer, a litany of metallic sounds filled the room. A section of the wall swung open, revealing a door. A middle aged brunette woman in a rich blue blouse and matching pants walked through. Her smile lit up the room, not quite distracting from the two larger men standing behind her.
"Sorry about that, hun! We have a procedure here, and regardless of how many times I tell management that this is
not
an easy or comforting way to handle the split, they refuse to listen. But what do I know, right?" Her smile grew even larger, as if she were telling the funniest inside joke there was, and she offered a hand. "I'm Katherine. You can call me Kat."
The confused woman cautiously reached her own hand out to shake.
"Like I said, you must be incredibly confused. Don't worry. I'll explain everything right away -- or, rather, you will."
Cryptic message aside, the amnesiac was beginning to feel a little more at ease. Seeing another person attached to the voice provided her some measure of comfort, however uncaring Kat sounded during her questioning. Convincing yourself you were stuck in a room talking to maybe a robot, maybe Hell's receptionist, made finding another person feel like meeting a long-lost friend.
Still...
"Why are they here?" She gestured to the two large men, who hadn't left the wall-door. "Where am I?
Who
am I? Why can't I remember anything?"
Kat's smile didn't waver. "Who, them? They're harmless. Sometimes, new arrivals get violent -- understandably so, seeing as how Suha corporate apparently wants us to
traumatize
our intake clients -- and they're there to discourage or break up any physical altercations. As for your other questions, like I said -- well, I'll just show you."
Kat about faced, walking back to the doorway she entered from. The amnesiac held firm at first, but when the older woman didn't stop, she reluctantly followed.
A dark room filled with screens and microphones greeted her. Her eyes scanned the monitors, but could find only the empty room she'd just left. The urge to investigate hit hard, and she took a step towards the panels.
"Ahem."
Jumping a little, she quickly turned around and continued to follow Kat, under the admonishing gaze of the two unnamed bodyguards. The younger woman was escorted into a much longer corridor, with doors lining either side of the hallway.
"Welcome to Suha!" Kat said, confidently bounding down the hallway. "A service provider company established in..."
The woman was barely listening, her head on a constant swivel as they passed by different corridor intersections. Each side hallway led to large, cuboid rooms filled with inexplicable oddities.
One room boasted walls made of varying materials -- large cushioned padding, gritty, sandpapery wallpaper, and a more typical painted wall. Another held what appeared to be hiking equipment, with boots, long coils of rope and water bottles being sorted by several nondescript workers, all of whom barely glanced up at her before returning to their tasks. A third room featured a series of empty tables, with surfaces not dissimilar to the walls from the previous room, though more numerous and diverse.
Down one particularly long stretch of hallway was a door with a transparent window, leading to a staircase. A neon red EXIT sign hung above it.
She stutter-stepped, glancing at the door, then behind her at the two bodyguards. They weren't particularly close to her, but she was under no impression that she could outrun them if they wanted to grab her.
I don't even know if I want to leave yet.
Reluctantly, she shuffled forward, catching up to Kat as she wound down from delivering her rehearsed speech.
"And here's my office! Come on in.
All will be revealed
." The last line was delivered with false gravitas, again with a smirk that made it seem like quite the inside joke. Nobody laughed.
Inside, a couple of comfortable looking armchairs stood on either side of a small desk, which itself lay bare save for a computer monitor, keyboard and mouse. A large artificial plant stood in the corner of the small room, the only splash of color in the otherwise bland office.
Kat gestured for the younger woman to take the seat in front of the desk, while the brunette swung around to occupy the chair behind it. A few swift taps and clicks unlocked the computer and pulled up a video. Kat spun the monitor around.
"Ready to find out why you're here?"
In the video thumbnail was the amnesiac's face. Her clothes. A smile that had been absent since waking up.
Her nerves started fraying again. She glanced behind her. The two men, thankfully, were nowhere to be found. That pacified her worries a bit.
She nodded. Kat hit play.
"My name is... actually, I don't think I want them to know our name. You can call me what you'd like. I'm making this video roughly two hours before it will be shown to me."
A voice, offscreen, spoke up. "Please state your name for legal purposes. We can edit that out of the video sent to your innie."
The amnesiac -- though she appeared to be quite aware of who she was in this video -- nodded. After a quick jump cut, she continued.
"I have, of my own free accord, elected to undergo the procedure colloquially known as severance."
"Tell us a little bit more about why you're here."
She -- other her -- nodded. "I've always been something of a... prude. For the longest time, I'd always dress up in really baggy clothing in hopes that nobody would look at me and even
think
about sex. I would consider it too fast if people were so much as kissing in public before they were married. Religious kid shit. Catholic guilt. Et cetera. You know how it is.
"Sometime around my mid twenties, I had this really intense dream." She began to squirm. "I was walking home from work one day, and for whatever reason, I couldn't find my way home. The streets were getting longer. It was getting darker. I was starting to get scared, and my phone was dead. Or like, not a phone. Dreams are weird. Anyways.
