AMNESIAC

By Sam Kavich

It doesn’t feel like waking up.

She does not slip from a dream nor jolt from a nightmare.

Not even the fuzzy, dull sensation of waking from a dreamless sleep makes itself known.

One second, the girl is aware of nothing. The next, the floodgates are thrown open and the universe pours in, pooling in her senses. She’s drowning before she even opens her eyes.

“Renn!” A voice—light and male, pierces through the rush like a hand thrusting out of water. The world lurches when he speaks, disorienting the girl further as a female voice replies:

“I have her, watch the road!”

Hands clamp down on the girl’s shoulders—has she been thrashing?

“Hey, hey! You’re safe, do you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear my voice.”

Before the words register, the girl’s fist collides with soft flesh and the female voice grunts.

Her eyes open.

The world is unbelievably bright.

“Renn, you alright?” The male voice asks.

The owner of the female voice kneeling before her (presumably Renn) rubs her face. A bruise is blooming like a blush along her cheekbone. She opens her mouth to reply to the boy, but when her eyes lock with the girl’s, his question goes ignored.

“You’re awake.” She shifts forward, and the girl falls back on her elbows, startled. Renn’s eyes soften. “It’s okay, we’re safe.” She holds her palms out to the girl to show she isn’t a threat.

The girl’s eyes dart around their surroundings. They’re in the back of a caravan wagon—trunks and crates are stacked on either side of the mat she was laid out on, obscuring the view of the road. A colorful beaded curtain that separates the driver’s seat from the back is currently pulled to the side, and through it she can see the back of a man’s head.

She speaks around her heart in her throat, refocusing on Renn, or trying. Every bump of the wagon sends a jolt up her spine. She clears her throat. “Who are you?” Her voice is surprisingly clear, making her wonder how long she’d been out.

Renn reaches forward and presses the back of her warm hand against the girl’s forehead, frowning like a worried mother (though she couldn’t have been older than twenty). “You’re burning up. How do you feel?”

“Who are you?” The girl asks again, sitting up. Her bones crack in protest after sleeping on the hard mat.

Renn’s hand falls away, and she shakes her head. “Right, I’m sorry. I’m Renn, and that’s Arthur driving.” She jerks her chin towards the driver’s seat, where Arthur glances back with a little two-fingered wave.

“Hey.”

The gesture is unsettlingly casual. She gives Renn a hard stare, prompting the bashful girl forward.

“Sorry, sorry—I guess this is weird for all of us.” Renn laughs sweetly, like little bells. “We picked you up a while back on the main road, remember? You stopped our wagon? Gave us a scare, you were screaming. You told us your name, and that you needed to get to the city—”

“And then you passed out,” Arthur butts in from the front. “It was… dramatic. We thought somebody must be chasing you—”

“So we brought you onboard.” Renn finishes quickly. She blushes for real. “Hope you don’t mind. We couldn’t just leave you there, you looked awful…”

“My name…” The girl squeezes her eyes shut against Renn’s pitying gaze, trying to remember anything from before… but it was like cupping water in her hands and watching it run through her fingers. She can only recall a handful of fragments: a child’s laughter, a field of wildflowers, a printing press, but none of the pieces fit to give her any clue of where she came from… who she was.

The mat’s fabric gives away beneath her digging fingernails with a rip as she opens her eyes. The air is frozen in her lungs. “My name…” she murmurs over and over again, like it will make her remember. “My name, my name, my name, my name—”

“Morgan,” Arthur says. Her gaze whips to the front. His tone has taken on a hint of the concern that Renn’s eyes are swimming in. “That’s what you said your name was.”

Hearing her name on the stranger’s lips sends a jolt up her spine. “Stop…” she croaks.

“Sweetie—” Renn starts.

“Stop the wagon!”

At Morgan’s cry, the wagon unexpectedly comes to a halt. They’re both staring at her, like it’s the first time they’re realizing the consequences of bringing a complete stranger onto their wagon.

She stands suddenly and their eyes widen in unison. Arthur actually puts his hands up. “Look, if you’re some sort of con artist, we have nothing of value besides the wagon itself—”

“Artie—” Renn hisses warningly, but the suspicion in her voice when she speaks to Morgan is crystal clear. “He’s right. We have nothing… If that’s what you’re here for. But I don’t think it is.”

Morgan’s chest heaves. Renn’s head tilts slightly, her brow furrowing.

“You really don’t remember who you are?”

Morgan shakes her head. She was the only one standing, but she felt like a cornered animal.

“You didn’t hit your head when you fell,” Arthur says, frowning. His puzzled expression is almost comical. “We caught you before you hit the ground.”

“You should sit down…” Renn suggests, but Morgan only takes a step back.

“How do I know you two didn’t do something to me?” She demands. “You could have made that story up.” As she says it, the more sense it makes. She lifts her chin.

Renn and Arthur share a glance, and Morgan turns, ready to push open the wagon doors and jump.

“Wait!”

Morgan isn’t sure why she stops. Maybe it’s because she wants a definite answer. She turns back around slowly.

Renn looks lost, getting to her feet. She’s a whole head shorter than Morgan. “Look. I don’t know how to prove to you that you can trust us. But I can tell you that there’s nothing out there but desert for miles. Even if we give you water to travel alone on foot, the heat will make you sick within the hour. We’re traveling to the city to set up shop. We can give you a ride, and once we get there we can split paths and you’ll never have to see our faces again.”

For the first time, Morgan looks through the sliver of window and sees Renn’s not lying. The land is barren, with nothing but hills of yellow sand stretching towards the horizon. She clenches her jaw. “Fine.”

Morgan sits back down on the wagon floor, as far away from the other two as possible.

Renn eyes the seat up front with Arthur, but remains in the back with Morgan anyway. The warmth she had when Morgan woke up has melted off her. Morgan keeps her eyes down. Neither Renn nor Arthur appear deceitful, or like they’ve harmed her or want to; they seem as confused as she is, but she doesn’t know them. She doesn’t know anything—the only thing she’s sure of is the decision she’s making now, to not feel guilty for keeping her distance from these strangers, no matter how keen they are to help her.

Arthur starts humming a cheerful tune to fill the uncomfortable silence, and a chill runs down Morgan’s spine when she realizes she’s heard it before.

The wagon rumbles on.

Planting Roots Nicole Maneatis