Moonbeam

Ann

The first thing I have that I can call a memory is the color of his eyes. They were silver, like the rain that streaked past his face. He was above me, holding me down on something hard. Maybe it was a sidewalk, maybe a street. It could have been someone’s back porch; I could smell grass nearby.

The next thing is his hands around my neck. His knuckles were strong, and I could hear them popping quietly as they tightened on my throat. I looked calmly up at him, sure that he would come to his senses before he did any real damage. I didn’t know who he was, so what reason could he have for hurting me?

His dark hair loosed cold droplets onto my face. My body shivered in a long ripple, and I realized that he was on top of me. It was getting harder to keep my eyes open. What was that burning in my chest? I grimaced and tried to grab his arm, ask him what he was doing, but he shook me until I stopped. Now I was afraid. What if he didn’t stop? What would happen to me? Why was he doing this? Who was he?

Who was I?

He was shaking with sobs. I hadn’t noticed before, because the rain was spilling over his face. I heard his breathing heave and shudder. Behind him, the clouds seemed to darken.

My face was becoming warm. Stop this, I wanted to scream at him, but I had no voice. His grip was too tight to let a single word escape. I stared in his eyes and felt myself drifting away. This was all wrong. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. I wasn’t meant to be here, in this situation. He was going to kill me, and I hadn’t even lived.

Something glimmered down his cheek. As my vision blurred, I lifted a hand to touch it. I couldn’t tell if it was rain or skin that I touched then, but suddenly I could breathe. My throat grabbed all the air it could, shoving it into my burning lungs. I gagged on my own breath and started to cough violently. There was a small sound beside me, and when I looked I saw him standing. His clothes were soaked, and there was something in his hand. I tried to see what it was, but it came to meet me first. A sharp pain burst through the side of my head, and then, I was gone.



I opened my eyes and saw only one light above me. It was small, and guarded partially by a dark cloth. I narrowed my eyes and tried to see past it into the darkness, but I was held tightly in place by something akin to a snake. I tucked my chin and realized that I was tied – very strongly – to a chair. The floor around me was concrete with small flecks of white paint splattered randomly across it.

“Did they swipe your memory?” a voice asked me.

I tried to see again, but I only saw his silhouette. It was darker than a dead fire. “Um… what?”

“Do you remember anything,” he explained to me like I misunderstood. He sounded impatient with me.

“No,” I admitted, shaking the damp hair from my eyes. My throat stuck together when I swallowed. “Who are you?”

I heard his breath, and for a moment my entire face tingled with heated anticipation. “Clark.”

“Is that your real name?”

A pause. “No.” Another pause. “Do you know who you are?”

“No, I don’t know anything. What do you want from me?” I strained to see his face. He was right there, barely five feet from me, and I felt vulnerable with only his bright eyes visible to me.

He snatched the cloth away from the light, and I was momentarily blinded by its brilliance. “It’s Ann,” he told me as he disappeared into the shadows surrounding the small circle of light.

I didn’t know where he was. I attempted to look around the room for him. I listened for him, but it was silent. The only sound was that of the rain outside, knocking lightly on the walls for anybody home.

“Clark?” I said to the emptiness. It was all I had to call him.

His reply came from behind, making my heart skip a beat. “Yes, Ann?”

I didn’t believe that was my name, but bringing it up wasn’t important now. “Why did you choke me?” I whispered. That was what I wanted to know.

“Because you betrayed me,” he said curtly.

Tears sprang to my eyes. “But I don’t even know you!” I wailed, feeling utterly helpless. This stranger was going to do horrible things to me, I could already tell.

“Oh,” his hand landed on my shoulder, “you know me.” I was frozen in terror, shivers coursing through my body, as his fingers ran up the side of my face. I wanted to scream. His hand stopped once it was on my forehead; it felt like burning cinders on my skin. “You know me inside and out.”

Before my eyes, things changed. The light’s ring grew slowly, revealing more and more of what was around me. I stared at the edge of the shadow as it receded, and then it began to be grass. I gasped and pressed back into the chair. Something wasn’t right.

A flash of red flew past me. It slowed a few feet ahead, and I saw that it was the wispy silhouette of a girl with black hair. Her burnt orange dress fluttered in an invisible wind and disappeared around the edges. Something black lay against her back, but I couldn't make it out. I felt Clark’s fingers clutching my hair slightly. A moment later, someone stepped up to the girl. His face was distorted and darkened by the shadows that whipped around him, eating away at the definite shape of his body. His arms moved around the girl, and I heard trees dancing in the wind that I couldn’t feel.

“What is this?” I whispered, twisting my hands where they were tied to the back of the chair. Clark’s hand tugged on my hair, and I stopped struggling.

A soft voice rose through the air; it was Clark’s, but it didn’t come from him. It came from the figure holding the girl in front of me. “Ann,” he said to her, to me. “I love you.”

His hand disappeared from my forehead, and the images were immediately swallowed by the darkness. My breathing was irregular, and I was sweating. “What…” I couldn’t ask who those people had been, because I knew. The girl was… me. “What was that?” I said instead.

“That was a memory,” he told me from an unknown direction.

As he spoke, his voice became familiar in my ears. I frowned and stared down into my lap. My pants were dirty, and I could feel their wetness on my skin. My forehead knitted itself into a tight knot. Where was this room? Was it a basement somewhere? Was it a shack?

“What are you thinking?”

I lifted my head to see his silhouette, standing at the edge of the light. His arms were crossed over his chest. I could see his black boots perfectly.

“I wish I knew.”