The morning after

   The moment I opened my eyes, I had to closet them shut again. The ray of light falling on the bed ignited an instant headache. Besides, the amount of alcohol I had consumed the night before was piercing through my brain. Both pains made me stay there for a while, until I realized I was not at home. It was strange to notice it by just smelling the covers in the bed, but that was the thing that really made me wake up. I was completely naked on that large bed, in a very beautiful room that seemed particularly spacious.

 I got out of bed and walked towards the window. I was in an apartment building, probably in the seventh floor or so. I could see a park right in front of me: some people were walking the dog and others their babies. The sun was up there, in the sky, shining brightly with only a few clouds covering its warmth. It was probably around midday. Then, I realized I hadn’t gotten home. Walter, my cat, would be begging for food. I had completely forgotten about him the night before, because of the alcohol.

 I turned around and looked for my things: I found my cellphone on the floor, near the bed. But I couldn’t really see my clothes. I entered the bathroom and it was very big, the size of my room in my apartment. My clothes were nicely folded on the counter, just besides the sink. I took that as a sign to wash my face. Cold water felt amazing on my skin, it really help woke me up for good. I realized I had some breakouts on my face, no idea how the hell I had gotten someone to take me to their place looking like that.

 Then I realized, rather slowly, than someone had actually been there with me. I checked the garbage bin in the bathroom and, sure enough, there were two condom wrappers. I felt kind of bad in that moment but also good because even in that state I had been careful enough to protect myself. That was something. Now, I had to put on my clothes and walk the famed walk of shame towards my home. I really wanted the man I had been with to be out at that moment, I had no intention of talking to him.

 As I put on my underwear and my socks, I tried to remember what I had done the night before. I had met a friend in a restaurant and from there we had gone to a party filled with people. So many people, that I had felt I needed some booze in order to properly socialize. I have never been the kind to be great at communicating, so I know I had drunk some vodka or something. The party must’ve worked like a charm for me because I had woken up in a very nice place the next morning. I had no idea what I had done after I started drinking. No idea at all, which wasn’t a good thing.

 When I was fully dressed, I checked my jacket to see if my wallet and my keys were there. And they were. I also found some mints, which I must’ve grabbed from the restaurant. I didn’t really want to get out of that room, but it was necessary in order to get home. I had to find the main entrance fast and just run out of there, whatever happened. Walking towards the bedroom door, I heard something that paralyzed right there on the spot: someone was whistling very nearby, probably in the same apartment.

 I doubted for a moment but then I just opened the door and walked fast, looking around me: there was a small corridor with paintings all around and then the living room. There was no one there and the entrance was probably very near. I was looking for a door as I passed the dining room but then I realized there wasn’t a main door but an elevator. I pressed the button, all the while thinking that the rent for such a place was probably something I would never be able to pay in this life or the next.

 Then, another noise: the elevator rang a bell as it arrived. Just when the doors opened, a man appeared from the other side of the dining room. His hair was all over the place and he was wearing an apron with cartoons drawn on it. I noticed right away that he wasn’t wearing any else beneath the apron. The elevator doors closed again, as I hadn’t gotten inside. I was paralyzed looking at him, as he walked closer and asked me if I was already leaving. I felt, once again, like a complete piece of shit. I wanted to sink on the ground.

 I have to say that he was a very nice looking guy. He wasn’t a top model or anything but his body looked pretty decent behind that silly apron, and his hair was very cute as it was. What got me, almost surprised me, were his eyes. He had beautiful honey colored eyes. They seemed like the kind that change colors depending on how the person feels. For a moment, I forgot at what he had told me because of those beautiful eyes. How could I not remember them from the night before? How could that even happen?

He smiled and asked again. I told him I had to leave because my cat was probably hungry and I really needed to get to him. He smiled again and asked me to have something to eat before I left. At first, I told him I couldn’t but he insisted and I just couldn’t say no to those beautiful eyes. So I followed him to the kitchen, were he told me he understood my hurry. He whistled again, but in a different way, and out of nowhere a cat, white as snow, jump out and started doing turns around his legs. The animal looked at me with a certain curiosity, but didn’t get near me immediately.

The guy asked me to sit down on a high stool on the bar the kitchen had. I did, trying to conceal the fact that I had no idea who he was, his name, profession or, really, anything about him. Remembering was not really something I could do and even if I tried, my headache would grow in size. He then put a glass of tomato juice in front of me, saying it was very good for hangovers. I smiled at him and drank some. I had been a little bit too innocent thinking he had no idea I was severely drunk the night before.

 The juice was delicious and then he served pancakes with lots of syrup and strawberries. I hadn’t eaten pancakes in a long time, as I never really had time in the morning to do such a simple thing. And the days I did have the time, I would just spent that time sleeping, trying to feel rested. As I ate, he spoke about cooking and I just stared, ate and nodded. I couldn’t really do anything else because I still had no idea who he was, what kind of person he was and what kind of person he thought I was.

 Had I been a very honest drunkard, telling him every single thing there was to know about me? Or had I been the type of drunken idiot that comes up with an alternate lifestyle out of nowhere in order to seem more interesting? He had stopped talking and apparently I was doing some funny face because he smiled again and told me it was a shame that I probably didn’t remember him. Right then, I laughed loudly. I just couldn’t help but feel relieved and the way to let it all out was laughing like a crazy person.

 I confessed I had no recollection of the night before and that I felt really bad about it. I was about to say a bunch of meaningless things, in order to make him feel a little better, but he interrupted me and said that he was very happy to have met me anyway, as he hadn’t met anyone so good looking and great in bed as me in a long time. I laughed loudly again, but he just looked at me, no smile or anything in his face. He had meant every word. I stopped and blushed like a high school girl. I felt so stupid.

 I finished my pancakes and told him I really had to leave. He asked if he could take me home but I decided against it because I needed to buy some things before getting home. After all, I had run out of cat food and I had just realized that. He smiled and asked if he could hug me goodbye. I said yes.

 You know what’s weird? I felt that hug in my soul. It made me warmer. I felt better after it and realized he was a really nice person. I pressed the elevator button again. I got in and right before the doors closed, I asked him his name. He smiled and winked at me, waving his phone at me. Right then, I got a message on my phone and the doors closed.

What was that?

   I don’t know if I hadn’t rested well enough or maybe it was the fact that I was using earplugs to block all sounds coming from my annoying roommates.  I had fallen asleep, like always, almost at three in the morning and wasn’t expecting to have nothing notable to tell when I woke up. But then, nightmares and dreams happen and apparently my brain is very active these days.

I know I had a very active dream first. I don’t really remember what it was about but I do remember when I woke up, covered in sweat, in the middle of the night. Something had scared me or made me run because I was panting and sweating and trying to breath. But, after all, I was still sleepy so I fell asleep again and that next dream I remember very well.

 It happened in an airport, just after I had arrived from somewhere to Brasilia. I have no idea if it was actually Brasilia. I have never been there myself but in the dream it was pretty clear that was the city I was in. I walked around the airport and remembered walking with one bag and looking at the incredible ceiling of the terminal and thinking that not so many people used the airport. My subconscious didn’t really add that much people to the dream, only some background “extras”. I walked a lot on that airport, watching the stores and just enjoying myself.

 Then, after many corridors, I arrived at what appeared to be a hotel reception. There, there was a woman who checked me in and joined me to my room, which had all curtains and blinds closed. Somehow, I didn’t think it was strange or weird in any way. When she left, I immediately lay down and rested for a while. Then, I noticed that it was actually very early in the day still and that I had to take advantage of whatever time I had in the city so I had thought of getting a taxi to take me downtown.

 But this I only thought of. Apparently, I couldn’t’ move from the bed anymore but I really wanted to. I didn’t want to waste any time of my trip, which was short I guess, but nothing could make my legs move. I could see the sunlight filtering through the curtains and somehow that made me even sleepier than I already was.

 I fell asleep in a dream and woke up a bit later, the orange light of the afternoon entering the room.  Again, I got worried I was wasting my time in Brasilia so this time I was able to stand up and go to the bathroom. There, I washed my face and started thinking that maybe I had no money to pay the hotel fee. I worried as I checked my bag and went around the room. But then I remembered I did have money so it wasn’t a problem. Curiously, I thought of a trip I was going to make in real life, as if the two events had some relation with the other.

 I went back to sitting in bed and thought of buying a low-cost ticket to Rio and check the city there, doing a favela tour and taking lots of pictures. But I never got out of the hotel room; I didn’t seem capable to do so. I woke up slowly, still thinking about the money. I was sweating a bit and my covers were all around the place. The cold wind of the night was freezing my feet and I had to fix it all to lie there more comfortably. It was late and I had cancelled my alarm clock, which I put on everyday to wake up early to write. I didn’t write a word that day.

  That day, a Saturday, I decided to relax completely. I didn’t do my daily workout either and showered after 1 PM. The rest of the day was relaxing, except for the fact that an apparently important football game was going to take place and there was people everywhere, including my apartment, waiting for it to happen.

 Decided to avoid that, I left to have lunch and then wander around. I ended up exercising after all when I had to walk eight kilometers to my house just because I wanted to take a stroll by the ocean, which was covered by greyish clouds and seemed not to be in the right mood for anyone to come close. I had thought the weather would be better but it wasn’t. When I got home, my feet hurt and I was tired. That Saturday I fell asleep pretty late too, even though I was tired. Something always distracts me.

 I ended up having another dream. Or maybe it was a nightmare. It had different stages or levels or whatever you want to call them but they were all related: it was about me and my father and how we couldn’t really communicate with each other. We argued about thing I don’t remember in different locations that had absolutely nothing to do with is. I think one of them was the former house of my grandfather and another one looked like a market but one that I had never seen before.

 The dream was exhausting. Even being in it, I could notice my body wasn’t working correctly. I was breathing heavily and I couldn’t help thinking it was because I seemed to run after my father a lot in the dream. We moved around the scene like it was a theatre stage and it made me dizzy but I went on doing it exactly the same way because, somehow, it made sense that I did it that way.

 He was being very harsh with me. He insulted me in front of other family members and we fought and I wanted him to understand something but I don’t really remember what that was. And he called me a failure I think and then I realized I couldn’t speak. I tried very hard but couldn’t. My face felt drowned and I woke up then.

 But when I did, I strangely still dreaming because I kept talking or, at least, trying to talk. I opened and closed my mouth and reached for something or someone that wasn’t there and all of this happened in my bed. I had my eyes opened and I remember it vividly. I fell asleep right back and then my voice did work and I could speak and tell him what I felt but he didn’t seem to care about what I had to say. He was so mean and harsh that, when I woke up for good, I realized he wasn’t really my father.

 I had to recover myself from that dream, trying to slow down my breathing and walking outside to turn off that damn light the idiots I live with always leave on. When I went back to bed I felt my back being very wet and I wondered if wearing pajama pants had anything to do with that. After all, I normally slept in my underwear and without a t-shirt even and now I was wearing it all. Did that made me dream so much?

 It was 7AM, according to my cellphone. I still had some hours to rest so I decided to try and use them to calm myself down and breathe easily. I tried to think of places filled with nature and calm and I remembered two beautiful parks I had been in Amsterdam. Both day I had been freezing but I always liked to go to places were normal people went instead of the ones filled with tourists only.

 That apparently helped because I fell asleep for three hours but when I woke up, I gave myself some more minutes to relax, to keep my eyes closed and to breath in order to calm myself down.

 Two nights in a row my brain had given me reasons to run around and worry and try to solve problems that weren’t there. Or were they? What did those dreams meant, if they meant anything at all? I’ve never really bought into all of that psychological shit that says that if you dream about flying it means something. I don’t think the brain is that smart But I do think you dream from your memory and it curious why your subconscious uses certain memories to play around.

 Waking up in the middle of the night, or morning, sweaty and tired, is something that hadn’t happened to me in a while. Normally I don’t remember what I dream but this time it was like both times I had actually just been in those places. And maybe they were nightmares but I have no idea of telling because there wasn’t something obviously scary about them.

 I just decided to write it all down because I don’t want to forget anything about it. Maybe those dreams will come in handy one day. Or maybe writing them down will make them go away or at least change. Who knows?

Secrets & Nightmares

   I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. I had no idea what time of night it was but I remember the first thing I felt was his breath on my hair. It was warm and soft. He never snored. I knew that because I was very sensitive to sounds and I would have woken up if he was. When I felt his breathing I was relieved, because I wasn’t in the world of the nightmare anymore but on the real one, the one that recently had been very nice to me in many aspects.

 Some people say that if you are successful or happy is because you deserve it or because you have worked hard for it. I think it’s a combination of the two., mainly because I don’t believe in the concept of fighting for everything in life. People who believe that are the type of people that are very competitive and that don’t stop at nothing to get what they want, they believe everything in life is a competition and that’s simply not the way it is or at least not my life.

 Anyhow, I was glad right then that I didn’t woke him up, because I knew he had problems sleeping and didn’t wanted to be the one to disrupt his night. I decided to try and close my eyes again and slip away into a deep slumber, hopefully without dreams. But, again, I fell right into a nightmare, a horrible world filled with the worst creatures I have ever seen, with all my fears parading around, rubbing past mistakes or their simple existence in my face. I had to wake up once again, this time really drenched in sweat.

 Thankfully, he had moved a bit away from me so I just separated my body from his slowly and went to the bathroom, to wash my face with cold water and try to relax a bit. I tried sitting on the toilet, pissing, even going to the kitchen and grab a bite. I also did some simple exercises in the living room and saw possibly five minutes of a TV show I didn’t even like. When I was back into bed, he woke up and asked me, between asleep and angry, where I had been?

 I kissed him in the lips, which made us both very happy and laid there with him. He fell asleep very fast and I stayed up for a long while, in fact not sleeping again for the rest of the morning. At that moment I did check my cellphone and saw it was five in the morning. We had to wake up in three hours and I couldn’t do one more of sleeping. I just used that time to think about it all, checking in my mind if everything was ready and found myself shaking a bit and my stomach growling.

 I grabbed his hand, which he had put over my chest, and squeezed it softly. He tightened his grip on me and I liked that. I felt safe and I guess that’s what I needed to feel.  If the alarm hadn’t gone off in that moment, I think I would’ve slept a bit. But I didn’t.

 The first thing he did when he woke up was kissing me, and then we showered together, hugging a lot and almost dancing beneath the water, When we were finished, we dressed up in silence and went to the kitchen to have breakfast. We both had cereal and talked a bit over it. He noticed I hadn’t sleep and I had to convince him I was ok, only a bit anxious about our day and that he shouldn’t worry. It was clear he was already worried but he didn’t go on with the subject, he just said he had to be at his sister’s in an hour.

 When he left, I cleaned up the place, changing the sheets of the bed to new ones I had bought secretly. I also pulled out some scented candles from a shopping bag I’d hidden beneath the sink, as well as other products that we would use for other purposes. When it was all ready I grabbed my kiss, gave the place one last look and went out the door. I had no car so I decided to walk to my mother’s house, which was an hour away by walking but I had the time.

 He had left before me because he said his sister could handle everything and that we shouldn’t do anything else than just show up at the right time. He was going to her place because that was the closest relative he had alive. His parents had died several years ago and since then his sister had been everything. She was a very organized person and had proposed to help us because she knew that the event needed a woman’s touch to be just perfect.

  As I walked to my former home, I thought about it all. I was nervous, obviously, but I knew the nightmares had been produced by something else. It wasn’t fear that had put them in my mind; it was something else that I didn’t quite understand. I mean, as everyone in the world, I have secrets and thing I wouldn’t like every single person to know, but that had never given me nightmares so what was this all about?

 I used my walk home to think about everything that would happen that day and I realized I was entitled to feel worried and maybe being a little bit scared. Marriage was not someone that I did everyday and it had been a question of “When?” for a long time and that time had finally come. I was sure about my affirmative response to it because I loved him dearly, beyond anything I had ever dreamed of. He was my prince charming and my bad boy, all in one. How corny does that sound?

 Thinking about him made me smile and many people on the street smiled me back. I didn’t noticed for a while but when I did I just laughed and thought that being in love was not as people described it but that it was good if you were ready for the long haul.

 In my mom’s house, my parents were dressing up, as well as my sister and her husband who had just arrived from abroad with their baby. She would have loved to have him carry the rings but he was still too young for that. Instead, my future husband’s youngest cousin was up for the job. She was a very nice girl and a bit mad for a seven year old, so she was right up our alley.  I also changed in a matter of minutes and decided to just wait in the living room for everyone to be ready.

 I dozed off and entered, once again, the dark territory of my nightmares. I recognized the feeling and the images and I could even feel my body sweat. I was in darkness, only able to see a light very far in the distance and the only thing I could do was walk towards it. Trying to grab it. But every single step I took was filled with pain, as if spines or small knives entered my every limb. Besides, and this was the most awful part, I felt hands in the darkness touching me, grabbing me to a place below that seemed liquid in nature. I knew that if I were pulled down there, I would die. And then, as always, I woke up before my head was submerged.

 My dad noticed when I woke up, because apparently I had let out a scream. He said that the best way not to dream bad things was either not to sleep or trying to make sense of whatever the dreams were about. I know my father wasn’t into Freud or anything, he just thought that if something was bothering it would translate into annoying nightmares and it was. I knew that was the case. Bu t it wasn’t just easy, it wasn’t just about letting the air out. It was harder than that.

 When everyone was finally ready, we jumped into the family car and drove towards the venue, a small banquet hall not far from there. When we arrived, every single guest was already there and I could notice he had already arrived too. So I was the one who had to go second, as per the rules. They started right away with the music. Then his sister escorted him to the altar, then me by my mother. I when I see him, my body let out one single tear. I say that because I had no control over it.

 The notary started talking about the law and citing many aspects of marriage that he found funny but also very important, so that the audience and us took it into account. He told us it was a very important thing to sign a paper and say “I choose to live my life with this person”, and that he personally admired those who did. We signed, me crying more and more, and finally kissed to the cheering and joy of our families and friends. As we kissed, I realized it was time, so covered by the wall of sound I whispered in his ear, took him by the hand and walk the carpet back into the main hall were food was being served.

 We didn’t discuss it until after the party, that went on for quite a while. He liked the candles in our room and the new sheets but he went straight to my confession as we sat down in the bed. I started crying and he held me, in love with me. He told me that he would do whatever I wanted, whatever made me happy. I smiled at him and then told him, clumsily, that I really needed to know where my only son was and what he was like. He grabbed my hand and kissed me.

Wake me up

   Martha Grayson woke up. The first thing she felt was the morning wind and its chill. In a second, she realized she wasn’t at home, as she was meant to be. Her eyes opened slowly due to the glare of the sun, which was just above the tree line. She could smell the humidity of the grass and could also hear the quaking of some nearby ducks. She realized, as soon as she opened her eyes, that she couldn’t move. She felt weak and overpowered by her own weight and by something in her head that acted as a restraint. Attempting to move her legs or arms hurt her but as she did, she realized another fact about her condition: she was fully dressed and covered with a big overcoat.

 She inhaled slowly and exhaled in the same way. Martha did this for a while until her legs and arms became responsive and she was able, very slowly and with pain, to seat on the grass. As she sat down, she felt tremendously dizzy and very thirsty. Her mouth felt very dry and needed to drink water badly. She realized that the humidity she had detected came from the grass, which was covered in sprinkles of water. Rain had fallen the night before. And, not very far away, there was a small pond were the ducks she had heard were swimming. But then something else kicked in: she realized she didn’t know the place she was in. It seemed like a park, with tall trees all around and no people. She felt the urge to vomit but held it in order to better understand what was going on.

 With the little strength she had inside, Martha was able to stand up and walk towards the trees. She stumbled against one of them but leaned on it and inhaled deeply, as if she was about to swim. Her mind was becoming clearer but only to think, not to remember. She tried but when she did so there was nothing there. She couldn’t say how it was that the last thing she remembered was lying down in bed in her Boston apartment and now she was in some park that she had never seen. Breathing slowly, she started walking and crossed a lot of lined trees until she reached a larger pong but this one had a particular shape and she realized she did know this place but from movies and pictures. She had never been there before.

 Martha was standing by a pong that had the shape of a cross. She was on the point of the cross and, on the other side; she could see people walking by. It was a bit misty but she could distinguish a palace beyond the people and some stairs. Anxious, she almost ran, passing some people who looked at her worried. She reached a big fountain where many people were taking pictures and looked up the stairs. Her head felt about to explode but once again, she decided to breathe slowly and move on. Martha went up the stairs and was faced to a magnificent building. Yes, she did know what building it was. It was a palace and she was in Versailles, in France.

 Again, she had the urge to vomit but contained it. An elderly woman and her husband came near her and spoke French. She had no idea what they said but the woman offered her a bottle of water, which she drank hastily and almost completely. She apologized in English and asked them where the exit was. They seemed to understand because they pointed towards the palace. She thanked them and left rather fast. She ran past some tourists and through a gift shop and a few moments after she was running down a square but she stopped suddenly, realizing she had no idea where to go. She checked her pockets and realized that she had no money, bank notes or coins. Nothing.

 She decided to approach some tourists and asked them in English to help her with some coins as she had lost her husband and wanted to call him to his cellphone. Of course, the story was a fake but many people, seeing the state she was in, decided to help her and in no time she had at least five euros in her pockets. She thanked her last helper and headed for a store but then she saw a sign pointing to the nearest train station and realized it was best if she got to the city, to the embassy if necessary. She didn’t want to overthink her situation, but it had to be something the authorities of both countries would be kind enough to discuss. So she headed for the station and bought a ticket for downtown Paris.

Martha didn’t have to wait much for the train. It was almost empty, as it was too early for anyone to go into the city. Tourists were just arriving and she was the only foreigner leaving the small town. She sat down far from anyone else and, as she saw the French village and some buildings, she tried to remember. Her name was Martha Grayson. She was thirty-four years old; she had a fiancée called Michael Gregson and a dog named Larry. Her parents had died several years ago in a car crash and she worked in a back as an accountant. The last day she remembered in full had been a great one: Michael had invited her to a very nice restaurant and had asked for her hand in marriage. She had cried and they had celebrated with champagne.

 But then, when she tried to remember what had happened after she had arrived home, she realized that nothing was there. Martha knew she had come home, called her best friend Ellie and then went to bed early in order to wake up early in order to go shop with Michael for their rings. But if that had happened at all, she had no idea. The next thing she remembered was waking up in that park, with different clothes that the last day she remembered. The train went into a tunnel and the lights flickered, which made her come back to reality and think about what it was she was going to do next. The smartest thing was to go to the local police and tell them she had been abducted… or something like that.

 The train stopped at Invalides station, which seemed to be an interchange. Martha supposed the police would have a post there or something. But maybe it was too early or she had made a wrong turn because the next thing she knew was that she was on the street. She started walking towards an avenue and tried to talk to people but they seemed much less receptive than the tourists in Versailles. If she was correct, it was a weekday and Parisians were getting to their jobs. So there was no wonder about way they were being so aggressive and not helpful. She tried to find a cop but there were no security agents nearby. She decided to cross the Seine and look for the embassy by herself. She supposed it had to be near all the central places and she thought she was just there.

 But as she crossed the Alexander II Bridge she saw someone that made her head hurt more than anything else before. It was a very blonde and tall woman and she looked lost too, even more than her. She felt she could remember her from somewhere but the memory had apparently being lost. Trying to focus on the moment, she walked towards the woman but before she did the blonde collapsed and was surrounded by scared people and then the police finally arrived. The only thing Martha was able to see was the fact that the women had some sort of foam coming out of her mouth and was convulsing before she finally stopped all movements. It was the most horrible thing Martha had ever seen.

 Shocked but scared, she walked to a cop and tried to make him understand. He didn’t know English but his partner did and she asked him, or better yet, begged him to take her to the embassy. She was so worried that her head began to turn wildly and blood started coming out of her nose. The next thing she remembered was waking up in a hospital bed, as weak as before. She looked at the window and realized it was night. She was scared again, thinking she might have been kidnapped again or that maybe it was all some sort of dream or a sick joke. Then the door flung open and a young woman entered, smiling at Martha.

 She sat down slowly and didn’t stop smiling. When Martha tried to talk, she was the one to speak first. Her name was Linda Hamilton and she worked with the American consulate in Paris. They had been called by the local authorities, which told them a woman who claimed to be an American national had fainted after witnessing the death of another woman. Then, Martha started telling her story and Linda didn’t stop her. She just listened and registered every word Martha said, as if she was a computer. She didn’t say a word until Martha was done and a nurse came in to check her pulse. Her heart was pounding and the nurse injected something in her IV. Martha calmed down immediately and Linda smiled again.

 The woman then told Martha that they had checked her identity. She had been reported missing three days ago in Boston. The woman she had seen on the bridge, and was now dead, was a Latvian national who had died from a compound also found in Martha’s blood but in a much smaller dose. Linda told her that police were suspecting of a serial killer that worked in an international level or maybe some sort of women trafficking ring. But she assured Martha that she had no signs of sexual assault. Linda left and Martha was left alone to rest. But she couldn’t. She had been dumped by someone in a park on the other side of the world and, now that she had woken up, she remembered something more that frightened her: she neglected to tell Linda that there was a face and a voice in her head and she knew who they belong to.