Pieces, Part 3 - Mess

EDIT: After some consultation from our dad that the story like it was written in the afternoon wasn't very good. That's why I changed it a little in the evening, because now it simply works a lot better, makes more sense. Instead of there being a lot of people having come over, there's just one.
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Something hit me in the stomach and I leaped up, crouching into a defensive position. I looked around, alert, and noticed the cat frowning at me (as much as cats can frown) from the floor next to me. It had been the thing hitting me in the stomach. Or more likely jumping onto my stomach. I relaxed, and heard laughter from the table in the corner.

"Well, good morning, Nemo. Did Vesper wake you up?" Rosa asked, still laughing a little. I winced a little at my new-given name. Sleeping on it hadn't exactly made me like it. It still felt weird.

"Uh..." I said. It was becoming a habit. "Yes, I think so," I said, trying to find more confidence into my voice. I didn't strike myself as an insecure person. Not that I could really know. I had been quite determined last night to get out of the forest, though, like I knew what I was doing. Like I was used to keeping it together in weird situations. That didn't necessarily mean much.

"Well, come eat something," Rosa called from the table. I pulled on the pants she had brought me the previous night that I hadn't worn to bed and walked to where she sat at the table. I realised I was hungry again, even though I had just eaten before going to bed. I wondered absently if it was normal for me to eat often or a lot, or if the hunger was a reaction to... whatever had happened to me. I shivered a little as I thought about it.

"Granny went to pick some winter berries. We grow some really good ones out back in the garden," Rosa went on as I sat down at the table. There was some bread, which smelled warm, as well as honey, and milk, and some apples, though they'd started to wrinkle already. And there was an enormous cheese that had only had a small slice eaten. I guessed it was supposed to last for the entire winter, and they hadn't wanted to cut it in pieces so it wouldn't dry.

As I thought about it I didn't know what time of the year it was. It had been snowing last night, but there wasn't any snow on the ground, so I had assumed it was early winter, but I didn't know where I was. It might be this was as cold as it got here.

But no, there were spruces outside. Spruces and birches. They grew in areas that had snow in the winter. I wondered briefly how I knew such a thing.

My train of thought was interrupted by my belly growling, so I cut myself a slice of the yes, still warm bread, and took a piece of the cheese to go with it. As I chewed Rosa looked like she was about to say something, but the door opened and Ulula came in.

"Good morning, boy," she said warmly, "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you," I said.

"His name is Nemo," Rosa said and Ulula stopped on her way to the table with a basket in hand.

"He remembered that?" Ulula asked, doubt in her voice.

"No," Rosa said, "I gave it to him."

"Of course you did," Ulula said and walked to me, eyeing me carefully. A small, sly smile spread on her lips. "It's a good name. Oh, if he had remembered his name, that would've been the first."

"About that," I said, a little uncertain again. Annoying. "You said yesterday I was one of them. What did you mean? Do you know something about me? Are there others like me? Am I..." I trailed off, not sure what to ask. I just wanted to know what they knew. The other two glanced at each other and then turned back to me.

"She came a few months back," Ulula said. "She was like you, showing up late at night and not knowing anything about herself."

"You don't know where she came from?" I asked, suddenly too nervous to eat.

"No," Rosa said, "And neither did she. She apparently woke up somewhere in the forest, and started wondering around trying to get... well, somewhere."

"We showed her an abandoned house a little ways towards the town, so she would have somewhere to stay," Ulula continued.

"I want to go there too," I said. I needed to see the other person like me, needed to see if she knew anything. Though it sounded like she didn't, I still had to try.

"Of course," Ulula said, "But first you have to eat something. And you have to try our berries. They are very unusual. They are just starting to get good now, when all other berries have been eaten or rotten out months ago."

"And they are so good. So eat," Rosa said, smiling. I nodded and started on my bread again. I ate some more, with the cheese and honey, and tried one of the apples. It tasted better than it looked. And of course, I tried the berries. And they were indeed amazing.

~x~

"How far still?"

"Not far, just over that hill," Rosa assured me. We'd been walking for a long time. I had thought the place would have been closer, but apparently I was wrong. It had taken a while to get going, since Ulula had insisted I take not only the clean clothes I was wearing, but also another set of clean clothes with me. Clothes they had no longer need for, she'd said. And the snow had settled on the ground the previous night, so I would need something to keep myself warm, she'd added. She'd also given me some food to go, and some of the great berries.

It wasn't that I was tired of the walking. I wasn't. It wasn't even midday yet. But I was impatient to see the other girl. The other amnesiac.

Rosa was right. Once we had climbed up to the hilltop, I could see a house down in a beautiful valley. That's when Rosa sped up her step. I looked at her curiously, matching my walk to hers.

"Something's wrong," she said simply. I turned my eyes back on the peaceful-looking building down the hill. I wondered what she saw that I didn't.

When we go closer, I began to see what she must have meant. There was a table in the yard, tipped sideways. There was a broken window. There weren't any footsteps in the fresh snow, so no one had come out or gone into the building since last night, even though it was almost noon. The closer we got the more obvious it became. My heart began beating harder in my chest.

Finally we got to the door, which was open, and peered inside. It was a mess. What little furniture there had been was thrown all around the place. There was dried mud all over the floor, some spread in a way that made me think something had been dragged over it when it was fresher. Small things were scattered all over the room, things what looked like pieces of glass jars and ceramic pots and plates. There was a chunk missing from the rail of the stairs going upstairs. It was laying on the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh, no," Rosa said next to me. I was stunned.

No, I realised. I was angry. Not for myself, for not getting the answers. For the girl who had lived here. I didn't even know her, but something bad had obviously happened here. Rosa hurried into the house, up the stairs. I went after her, looking at the damage done to the house on my way.

The upstairs wasn't any better. We went slowly through the big room up there, trying to find someone. Something. There was no one. But there also wasn't any dead people, or any blood, a small voice in the back of my head noted, so that was good. Probably.

Something caught my eye on a table I was slowly passing. There was a picture. A sketch, more like. Someone had been drawing, with a piece of charcoal, onto a piece of thick, crude paper, in a way that made me think they were trying to pass the time. Whoever had drawn it knew how to draw.

But that wasn't what caught my eye. It was the figure in the picture. It was a girl, a young woman, who looked the same age I looked, maybe a bit younger. She, like me, had lines drawn on her face. Different lines, in different place, but clearly the same kind of dotted lines. Hers went down from next to her right ear, along the jaw bone to the end of the jaw, and another one over her left eyebrow.

"What is it?" I startled as Rosa's voice came from next to me. I hadn't noticed I had picked up the piece of paper.

"It's a drawing," I said, showing it to her. "Rosa, did the girl like me you met have lines on her face?"

Rosa nodded, looking at the girl in the picture.

"Is it normal for people to have lines on their face? Or anything at all?"

"No," Rosa shook her head. "You are the only ones I've ever seen with something like that. Or even heard of."

"What do you think happened here?" I asked, quieter, looking around the abandoned room.

"I... Nemo, I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know. It looks like someone took her. Came here and took her, and she put up a fight. But eventually it didn't matter. She were taken."

I nodded. I had thought of the same thing.

"Why would anyone do that?" I asked, staring at the girl in the picture.

"I don't know," Rosa said again. "But I don't know anything about you. You don't know anything about you."

She was right.

And she was wrong. I knew one thing about myself.

I had to find her.
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First, I intentionally spelled winter berry earlier there. I did not mean winterberry, which is a species of holly growing in north-eastern USA. I know this, because I wanted to know if winterberry is a thing.

I know, I like this story too. I just hope it gets even better instead of kind of starting great and then fall flat half way through. I know, I know, I'm the one deciding if that happens. But writing a story you can't control everything, and you know it.

Btw, it would be great to get the next bit before I go to sleep, so I'd have time to think about it over night. Especially since I'll be busy literally all Saturday, and the only moment I'll probably have time to write is maybe an hour in the morning. Assuming I wake up early. So you know, first reading and then writing right afterwards doesn't sound too fun.

Ok.

Your topic for tomorrow is Crack. Not the drug.

~ matu