Light seeped into the living room through the window, waking the man on the couch wrapped in a wool blanket. A sharp pain throbbed in his skull and he winced. He heard the sound of high-pitched humming, followed by water gushing out of a sink coming from the kitchen.
The man scrambled to sit himself up. There were multiple photos hung on the right wall; he couldn’t recognize anyone in them, but the place still seemed vaguely familiar.
“Finally awake! How was your sleep?”
A young woman stood in front of him, eyebrows raised. She was quite tall and had straight, brown hair that barely fell past her ears. In her hand, she was holding a square, wooden object that he wasn’t able to make out.
“Who are you?” the man said sluggishly.
“Mariah, your daughter,” she answered carefully. “And your name is Lee Arnold. Do you remember your name, at least?”
Lee stared at her, stone-eyed. “I know that. I’m not stupid.” He shook his head wearily. “You aren’t my daughter. My daughter…” The details seemed to cloud his mind for a short minute. “My daughter is seven.”
She moved closer, gently putting the object in front of him. The object was a mini photo frame, with a picture of Lee hugging the woman who claimed to be his daughter. He noticed similar features they had, such as the shape of their noses, their dimples in the exact spot when they smiled.
How was it possible? " That can't be," Lee began. "I was reading Lost Sheep with her just last night—or a few nights ago, perhaps, while she was in her pajamas. We were eating dinner together. My wife was complaining about how the Hendricks upstairs was always bickering at night. This was all from yesterday. My daughter is—”
“You’re rambling again, Dad.” Mariah sighed and went to the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it with cool water. She set the glass on the coffee table and plopped on the barrel chair next to him. “The doctors said it would take time for you to adjust to the pills...the photos used to do the trick."
“What doctors?”
“You don’t even remember the hospital,” she said, incredulous. “After an accident, you were transported to the hospital. They didn’t think you were going to wake up; you had severe fractures to your skull, and multiple injuries around your body. You were in a coma. You were discharged three days ago, and ever since, you woke up each night barely remembering who I was. But today was the first time you forgot everything…completely.”
Lee sunk into the couch, wincing from another sharp pang.
“Take a sip,” she commanded. “It’ll help with the headache.”
Mariah reached for the remote next to his half-empty glass and turned on the television. “We should take your mind off of it, Dad,” she suggested. “The TV always works.”
Looking blankly into his hands, he didn’t say a word. Chattering voices from the screen filled up the silence in the room. Mariah pulled her eyebrows together and kept pressing forward, until it showed a reporter on the screen. “I found it,” she announced excitedly.
The reporter was tall, with youthful strawberry locks falling to her shoulders, but had wrinkles on her cheeks. Behind her was a narrow road leading into what seemed like a field, with people surrounding the area Holding a solemn expression, she announced into the microphone, “We’re here at the scene of this tragic accident,” she began, but Lee didn’t hear. The camera shifted to the right, exposing an obvious wreckage of two cars. One of them was so decimated that it looked as if something twice as big as a truck had crushed it. Missing windows and a tire. The trunk completely wrecked. Everything was out of place.
“Three individuals were taken to the hospital,” the reporter continued. “Investigators believe this collision was caused by a suspected drunk driver, who had two other passengers in the car. The passengers are believed to be the driver’s wife and seven-year-old daughter. Unfortunately, their daughter did not survive when emergency responders arrived at the scene. The couple was immediately taken to the hospital, along with the driver of the other vehicle in the collision. Authorities want to share a message to the community, urging all drivers to avoid driving under the influence of alcohol…”
Photos of the scene were shown, along with a small footage.
“Poor girl,” Mariah said aloud.
Lee looked down. Shattered glass surrounded his feet. His body was paralyzed, numb from the neck down—he could hardly even feel his tongue.
“Do you remember? Anything at all?”
He turned his head slowly towards Mariah. Her lips weren’t smiling, but her eyes were bright. He finally spoke. “That isn’t real," he whispered, his voice thick and heavy.
“Is it not?”
“That isn’t real,” he repeated. “My daughter is not dead.”
“How do you know you were the driver?”
“Who are you? What was in the drink?"
“You remember something. You remember something new from that night,” she went on. “What a shame that your wife also didn’t make it. How does it feel knowing you could’ve prevented both their terrible deaths? How do you think your poor daughter felt moments before the crash? Can you imagine your wife screaming, pleading with tears in her eyes, already grasping her fate?
“How does it feel knowing what kind of person you were? Before we killed it?” She smiled bitterly. “Don’t stress thinking too much. You’re going to wake up and have to think all over again.” Her hand reached for a small rag on the side of the table, and she inched closer towards him. He could smell a whiff of warm caramel on her breath. But his facial muscles stayed frozen, his body limp against the couch, and all he could do was blink.
The rag was pressed into his face and he gradually shut his eyes; the last voice he heard came from his daughter, her wails echoing from the backseat—he believed he was dreaming.
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