~ The Coming ~

Book One of
Found and Lost


Prologue

“Did you give her the shot?” a man who looked to be in his thirties said.

“Yes, Mr. Jemhora,” the woman whom he was talking to replied. Her sharply angled face, framed by short white/blond hair, was twisted into a scowl.

“Now, now, Saren. Must you really act so pessimist about this all?” the man said reprovingly.

“Why don’t we just get rid of her? We’ve done all the experimentation we can on her!”

“You know why we are doing it this way. If she forgets everything, then she will be like putty in our hands. We can reshape her, remake her, into what we need her to be. She is our best. We can’t lose her when we have other options!”

“She’ll remember. This is bound to fail! I’m sick of treating her like she is a queen, and pretending to be sympathetic when she is shocked because of her own bad behavior. She’s getting smarter. She’s sure to plot against us. Everything that we taught her, she’ll remember it. You heard what they said. It only erases some of the memory. All the ‘fact knowledge’ that you seem to be so proud of her for, she’ll remember it all. She’s too smart, too independent. We can’t change her rebellious nature. Laurence, she’s practically one of them! We need to get rid of her while…”

“Saren,” the man interrupted impatiently. “She will be the most powerful of them all. She has shown signs of power and she is nowhere near the age she should be. We can’t lose the most important experiment of all. There is no way to repeat what we have in her. Or would you be willing to create another of her kind yourself?” he asked, a faint smile on his lips.

Disgusted, the woman scowled and said, “No, of course not.”

“She will go far,” the man said, a satisfied look on his face.

“She will destroy us all!” Saren insisted.

“Ms. Cassidi, please keep in mind who is in charge here,” the man said coldly, a disapproving look on his face. The woman’s face flushed. With anger or embarrassment, Laurence Jemhora didn’t know. It didn’t really matter anyway. “Saren, you are a brilliant woman, and one of my few completely trusted employees, but you must remember not to overstep your boundaries.”

“Yes, Mr. Jemhora,” she replied through clenched teeth.

“Good, now…” the man started, but was interrupted by the crackle of a voice on the two way radio on his belt.

“Sir?” a voice said.

Mr. Jemhora sighed at the interruption, but unclipped the devise anyway, and said, “Yes?”

“She’s escaped.”

“What?” Jemhora said sharply.

“The girl, she’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“She blasted her way out.”

“Blasted her way…” he said, unbelievingly. “What? How?”

“We’re not sure. They gave her the sedation. Lots of it! We don’t know how she could have used her powers like that… she’s…she’s…”

“Well?” the man interrupted angrily. “Why haven’t you caught her yet?!”

“We have nearly everyone on the squad after her, but she’s disappeared.”

The man, Jemhora, glanced over at Saren, who had a smug I-told-you-so look on her face.

“Well find her!” he yelled.

“Yes sir,” the security guard said, trying not to sound frightened. But they had all heard of what Laurence Jemhora and Saren Cassidi had done in the past, with the company’s welfare in mind. He hoped that he would not somehow be blamed for this.

“Where did she get out?” Jemhora barked into the two way radio.

“North side, level one, very end.”

Jemhora clipped the device back on his belt and strode to the door. Saren followed, still wearing her satisfied half smile. They reached the north wall in minutes, and were soon in a crowd of security guards and men and women in lab coats. They were all staring at the rather large, jagged, hole in the thick steel and concrete wall. It looked like it had been blasted and melted with a combination of a grenade and a laser. Jemhora swore and turned around and made his way through the crowd, back to his office.

“How long before the injection takes effect?” he snapped at Saren, without even checking to see if she was following him. She was, of course.

“About two hours.”

Mr. Jemhora swore again, and starting pacing around the office that they had reached. Two hours. Would they find her if she had so long to run?




* * *



Chapter 1
Waking up


I opened my eyes slowly. I was in an empty room. It was rather dark, despite the window that let in dim light. I tried to think.

Where was I?

And…and…

Who was I?

I became scared as I realized I didn’t know. I tried to slow my breathing, which was growing rapid, breaching the sharp edge of panic. And I started to remember some facts. My name was Ava. I was fifteen years old. I looked for more, but found only an empty void of black nothingness. No other memories at all. What was wrong with me?! Who was I? What was the matter with me? Memory loss? Wait… memory loss?

Could I have… amnesia? But how could I remember that? How could I remember what amnesia was, if I had it? I racked my brain for more information. To my surprise, I found some. It was strange, one minute I didn’t know what amnesia really was, and the next I’m drowned in facts. There were two kinds of amnesia. There was the Anterograde amnesia, which was not knowing what happened after the event that had caused the amnesia. And then there was Retrograde amnesia was where you forgot your past. Somehow I recalled that both forms of amnesia could occur in a person at the same time, and it could be caused through sickness, injury, or even drugs.

That didn’t explain why I knew these things though. But wasn’t there a kind of amnesia where you can remember things, but you don’t know how you knew it? Source amnesia or something?
But still. Did normal people know random facts about amnesia? It was all too confusing.

I tried to dig deeper in my mind for more facts about myself, but couldn’t find anything. I opened my eyes again. I was lying on the floor, I realized. Why was I here? Where was here? I tried to get up, but the pain stopped me. It hurt to move. Why did it hurt to move? I didn’t really want to know. I could feel something warm trickling down my forehead into my hair. I started to panic, but calmed myself before it came to the overflowing point. It was going to be fine. If need be, I’d call for help, but I was pretty sure that I’d be able to get up myself once my strength was gathered. Why was it spent though? My mind attacked me with more unwanted questions. I looked for something to distract me from my confusion, and looked out the window. I noticed that something wasn’t right. It was dim, but not as if it was almost the end of the day. More like there was smoke in front of it. Wait, smoke? Then my eyes grew wide. I could hear sirens faintly. Something was on fire. Then with a sinking feeling, I felt the heat coming up, unnaturally, through the floor. This building was on fire! I had to get out! I struggled to get up and almost did, but dizziness overtook me, and I collapsed.

The world went black, and when I came to, I heard a man’s voice. I couldn’t see his face because smoke made my eyes tear up. What was he saying? Finally it came more clear.

“…are you okay?”

I nodded, even though it hurt. I struggled to get up, and he grabbed my arms and helped me up. He let go as soon as I was standing, and I took a step…and collapsed. He caught me before I hit the floor and threw me over his shoulder. I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to help my condition, but I didn’t have time to think about the pain before black mixed with the orange yellow and red that surrounded me, until the black took over completely, and I went unconscious.


“We need to get her to a hospital,” a voice said. It was the same voice of the man – no… not man, boy, I was pretty sure. Well young man anyway- that had thrown me over his shoulder. So I was still alive? I tried to open my eyes and sit up, but couldn’t. Maybe not quite alive yet.

“The ambulance should get here any second,” another man said, this one definitely older. “I better go help get that fire out.”

I heard heavy footfalls hurrying away. I tried to open my eyes again, but still couldn’t.

I relaxed again and rested for a moment. There were running footfalls all around, one of them came close a few seconds later and another person said,“How is she?”

“She seems okay, but I’m not a doctor,” Was the reply.

“Hmm, from the looks of that bandage work, you’re pretty close. Where did you learn all this stuff anyway?”

“My dad was a doctor. Used to teach me about this kind of stuff.”

Under normal circumstances, the fire fighter would probably have wondered why the other person had used past tense just then, and asked about it if only to be polite, but the fire fighter just said, “Hey, thanks kid. Ambulance will be here in a few minutes,” and ran off. I guessed that the fire must still be going full force.

I struggled to open my eyes again, even harder this time. Finally I did, though they felt like slabs of leads instead of skin. I was lying on a blanket, or coat or something, because the hard concrete all around me didn’t hurt my back as badly as it should have. I looked around. Over to my left, I saw that I was beside a fire engine, in the shade that it created, and I could see the building that was on fire over to my right. There were men running everywhere, in fire fighter uniforms. They were all yelling over the loud crackle and roar of the fire. Every few seconds, one or another would glance over at me. Only after a few moments did I realize that someone was sitting behind me. I couldn’t see the person, but I heard the quiet breathing and saw the shadow of the person. I started to sit up, but strong hands held me back.

“Maybe you shouldn’t get up quite yet,” said the same voice that had asked if I was okay in the burning building.

“I’m fine,” someone said. It took me a second to realize it had been me who had said it. My voice startled me. It was raspy and rough from breathing in smoke. So was his, I noticed.

The person hesitated for a second, then let go. I struggled to sit up, and the hands helped me from behind.

After I was sitting up, the person got up to sit facing me. It was a boy, who I guess was my age (at least the age I was pretty sure I was) or maybe a little older. He had dark hair, and bright hazel eyes showing through his hair that hung in his face slightly. He looked lean and strong. His eyes were strangely intense, but not uncomfortably so, and stared at me with curiosity. For a quick moment, I felt like I recognized him, but of course I didn’t, and the feeling went away as quickly as it came.

“How do you feel?” he asked after a moment’s silence.

I considered the question. ‘Like crap’ would have been the best answer, but that wasn’t the strongest feeling I had right then.

“Confused,” I finally said, wincing as my brow wrinkled in confusion. I felt my forehead, and found a bandage wrapped around it. “What happened?”

“Well, you’d have to tell us,” the boy said.

“I’m not sure,” I said, rubbing my eyes, stressed.

The boy looked at me, eyebrow raised, but instead of asking me what I meant, he seemed to sense that I needed some sort of answer. He said, “I found you in an empty room, in an empty building, that was on fire. I brought you here and we bandaged you up best we could with what we had.”

“You got me out?” I asked confused. Wasn’t that was firefighters were supposed to do?

He seemed to read my mind. “I live across the street, I was outside and I heard a scream. The fire fighters weren’t here yet. I got you out before it got too bad.”

“I screamed?” I asked, unsure. It all seemed a bit in a haze.

“Well sort of. I barely heard it, but when I saw the smoke, I assumed the worst.”

“Thanks,” I said uncertainly.

“My name is Daron,” He said smiling slightly, looking a little embarrassed, but pleased. He held out his hand.

I took it and said, “My name is Ava…I think.”

He looked at me puzzled.

“I can’t remember who I am. Only my name?” I said that last part as if a question. Did he know more about amnesia than me, his dad being a doctor?

“You can’t remember anything about your past?” He asked, concern showing slightly through his attempted calm voice.

“No. Nothing.”








Copyright © 2009 by Clare Cianflone