Am I Alive?

I woke up.

Fuck! I thought.

As soon as I woke up, I felt the shivers running wildly through my body, ripping my every fiber to

shreds.

Where am I? How the fuck did I get in this room?

I began to panic.

I woke up in a new bed, in a strange room. It seemed as if I had been asleep for some time, and yet no more than a fraction of a second had passed in my head. Confusion cluttered my mind like brick blocks, clouding my judgment as their height increased, ready to collapse. I was paralyzed by fear. My palms were sweaty, and as much as I tried to wipe the perspiration off my forehead, I only managed to get it wetter. The numbing feeling of fear soon dissipated as I realized that I was in no immediate danger. Moving my head left and right, up and down, my confidence grew, thus giving me the opportunity to inspect the room.

My body was shaking hysterically, as if a gallon of frozen water had been dropped on my head. My hands were rubbing my shoulders, hoping that the cold would vanish. In my attempt to heat up, I jumped out of the bed. My eyes checked the room. Almost immediately, I realized that I had never been there before. The walls were a light blue, and down lower, my bare feet felt the rough scratches of a worn carpet. The smell of old furniture permeated the air—a combination of wet wood covered in a few inches of mold filled the room with a cloud of moisture that made me ache for a breath of fresh air.

Meanwhile, a female voice rang out from the cluster of pillows stacked on the bed.

Was she calling my name? Maybe she just mumbled something in her sleep.

She was lying motionless, engulfed in that old and smelly quilt that I had woken up

in.

I must have slept with her. Or beside her. Maybe even on top of her. My thoughts were racing, but even so, I still had the energy to consider sex.

I slapped myself, twice, yet no memory surfaced. An empty blackboard, that’s how I’d describe my mind in that precise moment.

What is going on? My eyes checked every corner of the room, hoping that a clue might clarify things for me. I was immersed in emptiness. No mother, no father, no sister or brother. I was me, in a room, with a girl sharing the space.

Did I get drunk? Did I do drugs or something? My mind was swimming with questions, with no answers. No inner voice decided to help me. I was on my own.

The room wasn’t familiar. The girl, covered with the quilt, didn’t look familiar in any way.Through all the chaos swimming in my mind, I still had time to ask myself if the girl was naked under the sheets. Not that it would change anything, but the thought still seemed important enough to consider.

The room itself was dirty and unpleasant. I had better standards, so I knew that I’d never live in a place like this. I felt sorry for the man who called the filthy space home. The apartment looked worse than a pigsty.

Nothing in my surroundings gave me a clue about where I was. A chair that looked more like a stick and a wooden desk were facing the only window available. A dusty closet towered over most of the furniture. The only bed was the pull-out couch I had woken up in.

My attention turned to the body I inhabited. After a moment of analysis, I soon realized that my hair was black and my eyes were blue. Light blue. Actually freakishly blue, similar to an albino. A mirror on the back of the only door in the apartment provided this information. My nose looked more like a hook than a potato; it made me think of an eagle. The cheeks were decent, with only a minor trace of a previous acne problem, whereas my lips were as straight as a line, as if I never had reason to laugh in my entire life. This face didn’t look familiar. I was looking at someone I had never seen before.

Fear haunted me like a shadow that kept an unrelenting eye on my every move.

What can I do?

I’d never been in such a situation. I had no template to read from. No guide had been left on the commode, and there wasn’t any note with instructions to read. I was inexperienced with such happenings.

How am I to manage this? How can I cope with what is happening?

If there was an obvious message that could explain my problem, I couldn’t find it. I was in the dark. And as darkness took over, my body simply couldn’t take it anymore, and I felt myself collapse to the ground.

Suddenly, I was blind. Thinking back, I remember that I could see, yet at that moment, everything faded into a misty background. Maybe fear blinded me, or I was in shock. I know, though, that my eyes were wide open, yet couldn’t see. That’s when it came to me.

My body felt alien and unknown.

It’s not that I have no idea of where I am, it’s not only that. I am not me.

My soul was detached from my body. Two separate entities. By clenching my fists, I realized that the hands weren’t mine at all. I hit the floor with my heels, in hopes of triggering a reaction or a feeling from this weird body, but I got nothing, I saw and controlled the legs, yet processed no feeling whatsoever.

That’s when I began experiencing cardiac arrest.

The heart was pushing itself out of my chest with every beat. How sinister that felt. Instinctively, the hands enveloped the entire area of my sternum, with no effect. This body was really damaged—not only did I feel the heart bursting, but breathing was also a challenge. I struggled to inhale deeply, but all I could do was frantically fill my lungs with air. It didn’t work—I was suffocating. My vision narrowed considerably. I began seeing a blackened area around the edge of my eyes, growing with every breath I struggled with. I fell deeper into an abyss of darkness. I didn’t know what to think. When death is creeping up on you, the mind focuses on living. In that continuous moment, seconds become minutes, and one breath becomes an age-long battle for survival. Voices flash before your eyes, and faces whisper in your ear. Yet nothing that could pull me out. I have never felt a lonelier moment, as the echo of my heart was the only living thing in that room. Then I knew. I was going to die.

Panic. That was the best word to describe my situation. Utter panic. I couldn’t regret dying, since I didn’t remember anything to regret in the first place. With no memories, the only regret I could conceive was not being able to find out what had happened to me. I would die a curious man.

Suddenly, the girl from the bed shouted a name. I couldn’t hear it, as my condition limited my senses

She shouted once more, getting up, disoriented, but still rising. Pushing the quilt off of her. To my amazement, she was totally naked. There was no sign of any thin lingerie. The girl was as naked as the day she was born.

I didn’t really notice that the seizing in my chest ceased I was too shocked by her nakedness.

She was shouting. I could only hear mixed sounds of what should’ve been my name. What followed was ridiculous. I actually managed to check her body, as she rose and walked the length of the room in one single step, landing in front of me. Her breasts were big enough to dangle as she moved her slim, pale body. Her dark hair was messy enough to conclude that she just woke up from a long and deep sleep. The dark hue in her brown eyes hypnotized me with the seductive power it held.

“Aren!” she called.

Her legs were long and slim, like a pair of laces linked in a knot of a ribbon, which could easily be her waist, but what did I know about women?

She grabbed me by the shoulders and, with barbaric strength, forced me up. Thinking back, I did wonder: How can she be so strong?

She was so thin, it seemed a blast of wind could send her flying away. Even so, she had the power to get me up, waking me in the process.

Her voice was soft and sweet, as if honey poured out of her mouth every time she talked. “Aren, are you all right?” She shook me twice.

“I-I . . . ” The moment I heard my voice, I went into shock. It sounded weird and different from the voice I thought I had. It was nothing I knew. Gruff and heavy, like some old piano.

Before I could say anything more, I fainted.