First Child

We brought Andrew into the library and called the police, who called Andrew’s parents. Within the hour they were both here assembled in the library. They made an odd crowd; a tired and dishevelled couple with tears in their eyes, tears of joy now rather than the constant ones of sorrow, and smart officers without even a speck of dust on them. But common to both of them was the grateful smile, though none more genuine than Andrew’s mother. She was a nurse, I remembered from her interview on the news. She was almost a minor celebrity in Ashmoor, seeing as her son had been the first to disappear. The other sixteen were never so widely known – in some kind of twisted ‘we’re first’ on the part of the media. She had come straight from work – she wore a coat and a small badge reading ‘Savannah’.

“Thank you so much!” She gasped with unadulterated happiness. “I’ve been so worried, beyond words, I can’t thank you enough-“

“Excuse me, but we didn’t find your son. He was left outside our library, that’s all we did. Don’t thank us.” Dorothy broke in, ever the blunt knife.

“I’m just so glad to have him back.” She held her arms tightly around the boy of fifteen. “The doctors say they’ll come down as soon as possible, and I’ll make sure you find out what happens.”

When I got home, I flicked on the television and watched the news. Normally it wouldn’t be my favourite program but today I needed it to keep my mind away from - well, you know. Everything I must not remember.

I was greeted by BBC News’ presenter talking about Andrew.

This is BBC News, in Ashmoor Town, England.

Andrew Blake, the first child to go missing in what has been called the worst kidnapping case in Ashmoor history, was found today in front of Ashmoor Public Library.

The kidnapper, dubbed the “Ashmoor Asylum Kidnapper”, is still at large despite the efforts of the authorities to find him.

Andrew Blake claims to have no memory of the time he spent while kidnapped – or at all. Here we have substances expert Joe Chair to explain.

“Thank you. Now, there are many drugs which cause memory loss, but it is unlikely that any were used on Andrew. Why? Because he has been examined by top psychologists and no drug-related issues have been found. In fact there is no drug currently known to the scientific community that could completely wipe the prefrontal lobes and still leave the cortex and cerebellum fully intact. To put that simply, we are currently at a loss to understand how his memory has been fully wiped without impacting other parts of the brain.”

Thank you, Mr Chair. We will keep the public updated on any new occurrences.

This is BBC News in Ashmoor, England.

I switched off the TV and climbed upstairs to do some homework. That at least would take my mind off everything that had been happening. 

Bolt from the Blue

When I came into the library this afternoon, everything was normal. People buzzing around the building, some clicking away on the few computers we own and some swarming the shelves in the hunt for a certain book, or more likely, comic.

When hours later it grew dark Dorothy, an older woman who’s worked in this library for a good twenty years now, went outside to get a breath of fresh air. At first we thought she had been beaten up by a gang when we heard her scream. I rushed outside to see what was going on, if I could help her (not thinking about my chances – a small sixteen year old girl with no aptitude for fighting – against armed men) and found her alone, staring down at a bundle which lay in front of her. She had stopped screaming now and merely stood shaking as if she’d seen a ghost.

As it turned out, she almost had.

The bundle stirred and I could see it was a child now. Older than I first thought, it rubbed its eyes and groaned as it woke up.

With a sigh, Dorothy fell with a thud onto the ground next to me, and I only just managed to save her head from cracking against the concrete floor. She was out cold, but what had scared her so badly?

“Where am I?” The voice was a boy’s, but not one I recognised. As he raised his face I realised why Dorothy had screamed.

“What- what’s your name?” I stuttered, and for good reason.

“Andrew…” He frowned. “Andrew… Brown? Black?”

“Blake.” I whispered, with a touch of drama. I knew this boy, and so did the rest of Ashmoor town.

After all, he’d been missing for a month. 

I used to know someone

I used to know someone who lost the Game. I don’t remember their name, or what they looked like. All I know is that they were there once. I think they worked in the same library as me, Ashmoor Public Library. As I probe my memory for more information about them, I skid off the thought, my mind slips away from remembering like it’s a shiny surface.

One day she was there and the next she had never been there at all. Gone. Because she had never really existed, not if none of us could remember her.

I can just about get her name. Sam? Sam… Sam something. Alan. Arnolds. That was it. Sam Arnolds. She would have been pretty, had she ever existed in the first place.

I’ve reached the point where I’ve said all I have to say on a topic, and my mind inevitably wanders. As usual, it tries to go to the place which is most dangerous for it. Oh, brain, why are you so eager to commit suicide?

I’m doing it. I’m surviving, living out my life as best as I can, crippled as I am with the weight of not remembering. They say that if you survive the Memory Game for two decades then He will let you go free. I doubt it very much. 

The Rules

Now I’m awake again, maybe I should explain a few details. Whether anyone will read this or not is not important; I’m doing this to stave off my own memory.

To play the Memory Game, should you ever have to, there are a few rules everyone should know.

Rule number one is the most important and it is also the easiest to break: don’t think about him.

Rule number two is a continuation of the first: if you think about him, you have already lost.

Rule number three: there is no way to win the Memory Game, you may only try to not lose.

Rule number four: if this is the first time you’ve heard about him, then you are safe. But there are no second chances.

Rule number five, and this is so important: if you lose the game, you have half an hour to spread the knowledge of him to someone else. It can be anyone, even if they know of him already. Just reminding them of him will trigger them to lose.

And you don’t want to lose.

Oranges. Round, juicy, orange oranges. Just focus on them, Clarissa. Even writing down the rules was nearly too much. I almost remembered. 

Rambling of a half-hour

I must not remember. Oranges, oranges, that’s the image in my head. Oranges. Not bone, not books, not-

Oranges.

Keep thinking, Clarissa. Keep thinking of anything else.

Remembering is suicide.

Type, type as fast as you can, lose yourself in the words. As your mind goes blank you can finally relax without a single traitorous thought rising up to kill you.

There must be more I can say. All I need to do is to write for another ten minutes, to make up this half hour, and then I can stop, then I can sleep.

What can I say? My name is Clarissa Finch and I am sixteen years old. I live in London, England, and I have done for all of my life (bar a year when I stayed in Spain on an exchange trip which turned into a full blown holiday). I go to school, I take Law and English and I hope to go into journalism some day.

What else can I say? I need to keep writing before my mind drifts back. Five minutes left. Work. Work! I have a part time job in my local library, after school most days except Wednesday, and I get paid a decent amount - £7 an hour, well over the national minimum for my age. It’s an easy enough job. I work behind the front desk, stamping books and helping people to take them out, then I clean after the building closes for the day. Sometimes I even meet interesting people. Take last week for-

No. No no no no no. Too close, I can almost imagine it scraping in the back of my head, yearning to be thought about.  Something more to distract me, please!

The timer just went; my half hour is over. If I’m careful now I can sleep without fear.

Ironically enough, it’s not the sleeping world I fear.