Underneath the Moonlight

I wake up to the sound of something beeping. My eyes flutter open to see that I'm in a room, but more importantly, a hospital room. The source of the beeping is coming from a heart monitor, which is connected to my chest. I scan the room to find two people; a man and a woman. The man is sound asleep in the sitting area of the room, but the woman is wide awake. She hummed a soft tune while rocking back and forth in her rocking chair. She was looking at something small... maybe reading a book or some sort. The more I look at her, the more she is starting to look familiar.

"...Mom?" I say to her. She stopped what she was doing and instantly turned her attention to me.

"Hi honey." She came by my side. "How are you feeling?" Her face lit up with joy and happiness, but I could see in her eyes that they were filled with sadness.

"I'm not exactly sure how I feel..." I told her as I looked around the room again. "Mom, how did I end up in the hospital?"

Her happiness went away and was replaced with worry. We were interrupted when the man woke up. He rubbed his eyes open and looked at us, but mostly at me. He jumped up out of his resting area and hugged me.

"My sweet girl, I am so glad you're awake." The man kissed my head repeatedly. It was his voice that told me who he was.

"Dad?" He nodded to me and kissed my forehead as tears began to form in his eyes. My mom took a hold of his hand so that he could be stabilized a bit.

"I'll go get Chris. He needs to see this." My father said to my mother as he quickly ran out of the room. I look at my mother to see fresh tears escaping on to her face.

"Mom, what's going on?" I asked her. She took a hold of my hand with both of hers and told me that everything is fine. A few minutes later, my dad came back with a police officer. He was a lot younger than my father, but I could see their resemblance. He looked a few years older than me though. His smile gave him away.

"Chris?" I say with a smile on my face this time. He came to my side and gave me the biggest hug I could feel. Even with all the I.V. stuff attached to me, I could still wrap my arms around him. Our hug intensified as we braced each other for a few more seconds.

"I've missed you so much, Alaycia." Chris smiled at me.

"I've missed you too, big brother." I say to him and then looked at my parents. "All of you."

"Honey," my mother spoke, "We almost thought we had lost you forever. Your father and I looked for you non-stop. Your father used all of the connections we had to try and search for you. Chris even went all over the country to get help."

I looked at him. "You did?"

He nodded. "Police Headquarters, CIA, FBI, you name it. I thought I was going to have to call the BAU, if they even existed, just to find you."

I was still trying to put all of this together. "How long was I gone?"

My mother, father and brother's smiles went away right after I asked them. My parents both looked at each other with worry while Chris just looked down at his hands. All of this silence is making me feel uneasy.

"Will someone please tell me what's wrong?" I asked them curiously.

My father spoke, "Alaycia, what is the last thing that you remember before you woke up today? I know this may sound weird, but please do this for me, baby girl."

I gave him a weird look, but I did what he asked of me. I closed my eyes and I thought really hard.
I remember... I remember... I chanted in my head over and over again.

"I... don't know. All I'm getting are blurry images." I told them.

"Don't strain yourself too much. Just take deep breaths and relax." Chris consoled me as he rubbed my arm.

"Okay." I closed my eyes and calmed myself down. I tried to think again, but it was the same results. "It's still all blurry."

"It's probably because of your injury." Chris informed me.

"Injury?" My voice cracked a bit. I felt something weird around my feet as I moved a little bit. I pulled the covers off of me to see that both of my feet are covered entirely with bandages. I looked in the mirror next to me to see the bandage and gauze wrapped around the right side of my head. I touch it and I instantly felt a sharp pain as I winced at the feel.

I looked at my family. "Mom, Dad, Chris, what happened to me?"

My mother couldn't help it anymore. Tears started shedding from her and she walked out of the room while my father excused himself to go after her, which left me alone with Chris.

"Chris, tell me what happened."

"Do you remember your 15th birthday party? The one that the Martin family threw for us?" He asked me.

"Some of it, why?"

"Well, on your 15th birthday at the party... a group of people came... and took you."

" 'Took me'?" I repeated. "As in 'kidnapped'?"

He nodded his head. "Right from under our noses. I should've been at your side the entire time. I should have or none of this would've happened."

His hands were shaking really bad. I put my hand above his and comforted him. "Don't blame yourself, Chris. None of this was your fault."

He looked up at me. "Alaycia, you've been missing for about a whole year."

I was taken a little back by his words. "A whole year?..."

He started shaking again. "When they took you, it was like you just vanished off the face of the Earth. Not even the FBI could find even a trace of you.... We thought that you were killed."

I let go of my brother's hand and just sat there. I could hear my heartbeat start to pace a bit faster with the monitor going off in my ear. My breathing got really heavy too. I couldn't stay in here.

"I need air." I tried to sit up and get out of the bed, but Chris stopped me from doing so.

"I can't let you do that. Doctor's orders are that you stay in bed until all of your injuries." Chris told me as he laid me back down in bed. "Hey, I know being in here blows, but you have to get better, so whether you like it or not you're gonna stay in this bed. Understand me?"

I let out a sigh, "Fine."

"Look, I'm going to go check up on Mom and Dad, okay? I'll be right back." Chris kissed my head and left the room, leaving me by myself. My eyes scanned the room once more. I didn't feel comfortable at all, not in the slightest bit. I don't know if it's because I don't really feel okay with being in hospitals, or if I'm just annoyed with my horrible memory.

"A whole year..." I repeated my brother's words as if the words played themselves over and over in my head and just stayed there. My train of thought interrupted when I heard a knock at the door. I looked up to see a woman in scrubs with a clipboard in her hand. By the way that she looked, I'm guessing that she is my nurse?

"Hello there, I'm glad to see that you're finally awake." The woman said to me as she came in and all I could do was give her a weak smile in return. "How are you feeling today?"

"Truth, So-So, or Lie?" I asked her, trying to make it less awkward.

She walked by and let out a small laugh. "I think I'm going to go ahead and pick Truth on this one."

"I'm feeling a bit uneasy at the moment, to be honest." I said.

"Is there something wrong?" She asked as she checked my I.V and stuff.

"Well for starters, I wake up not knowing how I got here in the first place, I have injuries that I don't recall how I got them, and on top of that, appearantly I've been missing off the face of the Earth for a whole year and I can't remember anything!" I ramble uncontrollably to her. "I'm sorry, I guess you can tell that I'm a bit annoyed."

"It's alright. The doctors and I have come to the conclusion that with the head injury that you have," She pointed to my forehead bandage, "that with the kind of damage showing here, the impact to your head might have caused you to have some fort of amnesia, hence why you can't remember a few things."

Amnesia.... I mentally said as I placed my hand on my head where the bandage is at. The nurse offered to take off the gauze and examine the wound to see how it was, and I let her do so. As she unwrapped my head, my eyes wandered again. I saw all of the boutiques of flowers and cards from people that surrounded my room. A few things surprised me as I looked at them. I grabbed one thing that was within my reach; a small brown teddy bear with a pair of yellow tulips tied onto it with a white ribbon. There was a note in the bear's lap. I open the small note and it read:

"I couldn't find the ones that you really like, so I hope that these will do. Laci, you have no idea how happy I am to hear that you're back home safe and sound. I was so worried about you, that you have no idea. I was so scared thinking what might've I'm just relieved to see you're back. Hope to see you soon, Laci.

Lov Izzy"

"Izzy..." Even with my sucky memory, I remember the silly nickname of my bestest friend of all time. There's no way I can ever forget him, never in a million years. I took the tulips in my hand and gazed at how pretty they looked. A tiny spec of a smile creeped onto the side of my mouth as I put the yellow flower to my face and inhaled its scent. It smelled so fresh for one that's a few days old.

I stopped what I was doing when another knock came to the door. I looked and it was Chris this time standing in the doorway. "Mom's calmed down a bit. Her and Dad are just taking a breather for a bit, that's all. How does she look, Ms. McCall?"

McCall? Now that name sounds really familiar. I thought to myself as I listened to them talk.

"Well, her vitals came in normal, so that's a good things. Nothing was found in her system when she was brought in, which is also really good in her case" She told him as she examined my head, "Her head is healing remarkably well, considering the impact it must've caused."

"What about her umm..." Chris pointed his finger to the side of his head.

"I'm not qualified in that type of field per se, but according to her doctor, we have no clue if her memory will come. Memories are very tricky to deal with and we are not sure how they exactly work, but we always hope for the best." The nurse said.

"So how long do does she have to stay here?" My brother asked.

"Her injuries are getting better, aside from the amnesia, but she can be authorized to leave in just about 2 days." She said with a smile on her face as she looked at me. It was her smile that triggered some part of my past.

"You're Scott McCall's mom, am I right?" I asked her.

She smiled got wider. "Yes, I am. Scott's mother. My son is actually the one who found you in the woods and brought you to the paramedics. God knows what he was doing in the woods at night in the first place, but he found you so I'll let him slide on this one. He and his friend Stiles actually came to visit you, but you were still sleeping. I told them that you would see them some other time."
I heard something beeping coming from Ms. McCall's hip. She pulled out a pager and looked at it.
"I'm sorry about that. It's another patient of mine. I'll be back soon, Alaycia." And just like that, she left the room.

"I can't wait to leave this place and go back home. I've never liked hospitals in the first place." I told Chris when it was just us again. Chris laughed as he looked around the room.

"A lot of people must've been worried about you. This entire place smells like flowers, it's messing up my nose." Chris said as he sat down next to me and wrinkled his nose. His eyes averted to my head and he placed his finger where my injury was. I winced at the touch of it.

"Yeah, that rock really did you justice, Laci." Chris said to me as he took his hand back and looked for something else. His attention then went to the desk beside me and picked up something: my necklace. Chris must've seen me look at it because he handed it to me. I took the silver shiny piece of jewelry in my hand and examined it, as a glimmer ran across it. It then hit me.

"Chris, is there anyone at the door?" I asked him. He got up and looked around and shook his head no. "Can you close it for me too?"

"Yeah, but can I ask what's up?" He looked at me as he closed the door.

I looked around my bed until I found the tray of food that the hospital staff left for me and the cup of water with it. I then found a boutique of yellow roses that was addressed from the Whittemore family. I took two of the rose heads and crunched them up into tiny pieces.

"Chris, I think I have a way of getting back my memory." I said to him as I put the tiny bits of roses into the water.

"Really, how?" He asked as he looked at what I was doing, and then put it all together. "Are you thinking about using your..."

"It's worth a try. If this doesn't get my memory back, I don't know what will." I said to him and then placed my attention to the rosy water. I hovered my hand over the water as I felt the power run through my entire body. As soon as I felt it, I spoke the incantation.

"Lorem innocentiae ad furtum mihi restituantur." (Water of innocence, return to me what has been stolen and be restored.)

As the incantation went, the water glowed brightly as the roses dissolved in the water, later turning the water into a vivid yellowish liquid. I looked at Chris as he stared at the cup.

"Well, bottoms up." I said as I tipped the cup to my mouth and started drinking. Gulp after gulp, as soon as the last drop left my lips, I could feel it. Picture after picture, I suddenly became overwhelmed with memories. I could feel my body trembling as I watched everything that went on in my head.

Full moon nights, a group of strange looking people with glowing crimson eyes, snarling and huge canines, enlarged claws, chains and restraints, blood stains, an explosion, fire everywhere... Everything came too fast.
I could hear voices, most of them not my own. I saw each one of their faces, heard all of their voices, know each and every action that they did, everything thrown into one huge nightmare. I wanted it to stop, to make the nightmares go away but I needed to know the entire truth.
After what felt like an eternity, I came back to reality and saw that Chris was holding to me tightly. He let go when he saw that I was back.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"I should ask you that. As soon as you were done drinking that stuff, your eyes started glowing, then you started shaking like crazy. You began talking during your trance but it was all too fast. It looked like you were having a seizure, so I got scared." He told me, wiping the look of worry off of his forehead. "But did the drink work?"

I let out a deep breath as I let my heart calmed down. "Yeah, it worked. I remember everything now. Everything..."



I stayed in the hospital for those last few days before I was scheduled to go back home. I told Chris only what he needed to know, and that was it. While I was stationed here, more police officers came to ask me questions about my disappearance. Even the private detectives and some of the FBI that my parents hired came to talk to me. I only gave them the answers that I've told them before, 'I'm sorry, I still don't remember much.'
At least they bought it. No one else should have to know what I've been through, all the torture my kidnappers put me in. I know it was hell going through it the first time, but having to remember it all back was even worse. I still have nightmares about everything that's happened.

Right now, I feel like my brother is the only one I can trust right now. He's the only one in my family who knows my secret, and it's going to stay that way. If either one of my parents found out what I am... what I really am, they would think that I'm some kind of freak. They would try to get rid of me or worse... I'm just glad that Chris was able to handle my situation well. I thought that he would label me as a freak too, but he didn't. He still sees me as his younger sister, and now he's even more of my protector to think of it. I'm glad to call him as my big brother.

Two days have passed and my doctor has cleared me to leave, so my parents and Chris came to pick me up. It was early in the morning when they came, so I was still a bit tired. After all the paperwork was filled out, my family took me out of the hospital and drove me away. I took a little nap in the car until we arrived at my brother's house. My parents are rich and own a huge mansion just a few minutes worth of here, but I asked if I could live with Chris once he had gotten his own place. They hesitated at the idea at first, but they agreed to let me live with him if they could pay for my living arrangements and that I would stay with them on the weekends.

Once we arrived at the house, my dad carried me carefully up the stairs like I was a very expensive piece of material that would break at any given moment. I watched as we went up the stairs, entered my room and he laid me carefully on my bed. My mother pulled the covers over me and kissed my head telling me that she'll see me soon. My father did the same as he said his goodbyes and left with my mother. As they left, Chris came by my side right before I dozed off.

"Don't you worry, flower. You're home safe and sound now. No one is going hurt you ever again, not as long as I'm alive. That is my sole duty, as your big brother and a sheriff's deputy in this town. I love you, Alaycia. Welcome back home." He kissed my head goodnight and left me alone with my thoughts.

Home. I'm finally back home...