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When I came to consciousness, I was in a hospital bed. I could smell the obnoxious clean smell coming off the walls and my bed. Around my bed were a few people. They held their heads low, a few asleep. They didn't seem familiar to me, but I wanted their attention. I coughed.
The woman on the large chair to my right looked up at me, her eyes wide. "Oh Hazel! You're awake!" She went to hug me, then stopped as she saw my lack of a reaction. The man next to her on the chair woke up, glancing towards us.
"Huh?"
"Oh honey, Hazel's woken up!" The woman shook her husbands shoulder softly as she still faced me. "It's me, Hazel. Your Mom." The man scratched his head, yawning.
"And me, Dad." He smiled softly at me. I bit my lip as I thought of what to say.
"Nice... to meet you?" My parents burst out laughing, before walking over to the chair on my left. There was a smaller girl there, who seemed groggy as she woke up.
"Wh? Huh?" she said as she rubbed her eyes.
"Hazel's awake, hun," Mom whispered into her ear. The girl jumped up, jumping over to the bed. She gave me an indiscernible look.
"Hi."
"Hey."
It was the next day when I woke up that my Mom was hovering over me. She told me that I was late for breakfast, but it was strange that I was late since before the incident, I was a punctual person. I groaned, clutching the bed sheets.
"Now now Hazel, you know that you hate being late," Mom chided as she pulled me out of the bed and into the kitchen. I thought otherwise, but I was just in the hospital, so I guess it was time I start acting like my old self.
At the table, Dad was already eating a plate of toast, eggs, and sausage, while my sister was slowly eating toast and eggs.
"Morning." I sat down at the chair next to my sister.
"Oh, if you're going to be late everyday to breakfast, I better get used to this. You were always on time, honey," Dad remarked as she swallowed his food. My sister gave him a look before going back to nibble her egg. I put a finger on my chin.
"Say, Mom, Dad." Dad looked up at me, and my mother came to the table with a plate of toast and sausage for me and toast and eggs for herself. "Who am I anyways? Like, as a person?"
It was then I learned of the pre-incident Hazel. She wanted to be a doctor, and was a straight A student in school. Despite this, she was popular, and had many friends. Although she had no boyfriend, she was still quite happy with life, with a great family, group of friends, and life at school.
I sighed as I sat at the desk in my room. Hazel sounded boring. I looked around at my desk. It was quite clean, with only a pencil cup and a few books on the side. There was a recycle bin with paper inside on the side, and the drawers only held little colourful flags. Maybe Hazel was into geography? I looked around my room. The walls were white and my bed sheets green and grey. The closet to my left held pretty plain clothing at a glance, as expected. There was a bookshelf to the left of the desk, with many books inside. As I sat down on the bed, I sighed. This was going to be difficult.
As I was looking at a photo of my classmates and me in class in my drawer, a memory clicked. I remembered being surrounded by people, and feeling lots of people watching me as a laughed happily. It seemed I really was popular. Picking up another photo, I tried to dig into my memories again. In this one, I was posing with a few other people, dressed up in elaborate costumes and makeup.
"Seems I got into quite a bit of shenanigans with my classmates," I chuckled as I placed that one down.
"Hazel! Come out here and help me out!" my Dad called from the living room. I placed down the photo on my desk and left the room, bumping into my mom as I walked out.
"Oops, sorry mom." I took a second take as I watched my mom walk into my room, but brushed it off to go help my father.
When I arrived at my room again, there were no more of the photos I had found earlier. The other flags were thrown out too, although I spotted them as I saw colour in the recycle bin.
"Oh well," I muttered under my breath as I dug out the bin. There weren't too many sheets in the bin, although they looked like they had been thrown in haphazardly.
"Not very valedictorian of you, Hazel." I shuffled through the sheets. Some were play scripts, others papers talking of geography. The flags didn't seem to match any of the described country flags though. One in particular, a small flag consisting of all the colours of the rainbow, intrigued me. Suddenly, I remembered marching, waving a similar flag high above my head.
Strange.
One small slip of paper caught my eye at the bottom of the bin. I reached to grab it, but heard my sister calling for me. Sighing, I shoved the other papers back into the bin as I walked out to the source of her voice.
Things slowly came back to me. One of my closest friends, Lucia, was also striving to be a doctor. I texted her to call and catch up. It was in the afternoon when everyone was sleeping that I finally got to see my supposed friend.
"Hey," I greeted as the video call connected. Lucia grimaced.
"Hi." She put up a hand slowly. "How're you feeling?"
"Okay." I laughed. "I don't even know what that incident was supposed to be, but I feel fine, if you exclude the fact that I lost all my memories." Lucia bit her lip at that, looking down. She looked up for a second off screen.
'Be right back." She stood up and left, muting herself but leaving the call on. I rested my head on my hand as I observed her room. There were a bunch of posters on the one wall I could see. They were names for things, although I couldn't tell what, and they were covered in writing. I widened my eyes as I saw a recognizable flag in the corner. It was a rainbow one. I suddenly remembered that the memory I had of waving the flag included a short girl named Lucia. I smiled at the memory, although I couldn't place why we were marching in the first place.
When Lucia came back, her eyes were red. She sighed, sitting down.
"You okay?" I asked, tracing a finger down the spine of one of the books on my desk. It was named "Into the Woods". Lucia gave a small smile.
"Yeah."
I sitting around doing nothing in my room one day when I decided that I should read. After all, I couldn't let these books go to waste. I picked up a book on my shelf at random. It was a school textbook. I almost returned the book to its original spot when I spotted a small piece of paper sticking out of it. I pulled it out quickly, unfolding the scrap. The paper read: "You are an actor. And that will never change." I widened my eyes, before taking a glance behind me. The only person awake at this hour was my sister. I slipped the scrap of paper back and returned the book to it's original position.
Trying to be quiet, I slowly sneaked into my sister's room. The walls were yellow, and her walls were covered in drawings. Some drawings were... okay. My sister was sitting at her small desk, hunched over a book, a pencil in her other hand. She was drawing.
"Hey." She spun around in her chair quickly, setting the pencil down.
"You scared me." She sighed as she watched me sit down on the edge of her bed.
"Sorry," I said as I chuckled. "Hey, uh..."
"Beth."
"Beth." I smiled nervously, rubbing my hands together as I avoided looking at her. "What was I like?" My sister traced the wood grooves on her desk as she contemplated the answer.
"Just like what Mom and Dad said," she answered finally. Sighing, I got up.
"Thanks."
It was when school started up again that I started to struggle. Lucia giggled as she watched me struggle to name diseases. Her laughter died off quickly.
I caught that a lot. Lucia's laughter dying in her throat or quickly after it came out, though I couldn't tell why. She'd watch me question the name of a strange musical (and as a matter of fact, I am still right when I say Urinetown is a strange name) and then stop herself from laughing with a sad look. It happened enough for me to be concerned, but I couldn't work up the knowledge to ask her. Coward.
It was one time when Lucia and I were sitting together on the the staircase when we fell into a rhythm. We were both studying for our tests when suddenly, I felt drowsy. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep I had last night, or the calm atmosphere of the stairs during class time, but I started to move in closer to Lucia, leaning my head towards her. I looked down at our hands and saw her move her hand towards mine when the bell rung. I sprung up, grabbing my papers and bag.
"Time for next class!" Lucia brushed some strands of hair out of her face, avoiding my gaze.
"Yeah."
It was one night when we were assigned some especially hard assignments in class that I had an epiphany. If pre-incident Hazel wanted to be a doctor so bad, why not look in my room for answers? I left school that day with a goal to find them.
"Aw, what the heck?" I looked at the pile of books on my bedroom floor. They were all either fiction stories, scripts for musicals and plays, or history on very specific topics like lesbians. In all honestly, the books on my bookshelf didn't feel very... pre-incident Hazel at all.
At least, from what my parents told me. I took out the piece of paper again from the book, rereading its words.
"You are an actor. And that will never change."
It was then I had a vivid memory of sobbing uncontrollably, clutching my knees as I held my belongings around me, muttering the same thing over and over and over again.
"I don't want to change."
"Hey Mom?" My mom turned around as she and my father were eating dinner; the chopsticks clacking on the bowl of rice.
"Yes, hun?" My father put down his chopstick as well. My sister was currently in her room, doodling. I wanted to just talk to my family.
"You guys have been telling me the whole truth right? Like... I'm Hazel?" My mother gave my father a glance before standing up to hold my shoulders.
"Yes of course hun! We would never lie to you." She led me to the sofa in the living room as my father followed behind.
Mom sat me down on the sofa and sat next to me. She told me of how much she and Dad cared for me, more than anyone else on this planet. It wasn't until too late that I spotted Dad approaching me with a baseball bat, his keys in his other hand.
"It's for your own good, Hazel."
I came to consciousness in a hospital bed. The clean smell emanated from the walls into my nose. There were two people sleeping on the large chair to my right, and a small girl sobbing to my left. I couldn't remember who they were.