Chapter Text
Instinct: noun: an innate, typically fixed pattern of behavior in animals in response to certain stimuli.
Consciousness: noun: the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings.
She awoke with a startled breath. Some strange object was lodged in her throat, and several piercing pains coursed through her arms and shoulders.
She shook her head violently to get the object out of her mouth, and quickly waved around her arms to dislodge whatever was causing the pain, but only made it feel worse with the absence causing a spike of pain at each point.
Panic: noun: sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior.
She began to yell in fear and pain, as her entire upper body began to react to itself, causing her whole body to shake. Her throat felt like it burned with the sun, due to the object being forcefully ejected with something that made her stomach churn at the end of it. It helped her to breathe more with each yell until a pair of hands were clasped around her wrists.
More pairs of hands grabbed her, and against her will forced her body back down to where she was. Her yells were now scared out of her from all the hands, only making her heavily breathe in her panic. She froze however when she felt one pair of hands grasp her head and turn her in a direction.
Her eyes blinked and could see, but it felt like nothing was accurately registering in her vision. She could not, or rather would not know where or when she was, or what was the cause of anything in her waking mind.
Her ears, however, pricked up at the sound of something other than her yelling and labored breathing. Someone in front of her face was talking. The small but growing sane part of her mind tried to focus on the face and words.
"Alessia, it's me! Franco! Calm down! It's me, your fiancé!"
Alessia screamed even more.
All of a sudden, she was awake once more. Her throat felt like it had molten magma poured down, and the sheets covering her felt too cold for her body.
Sheets. Her eyes blinked, and she scanned her surroundings for the first time with her eyes. Labored breaths came back to her, but they were slowed and methodical, with the rational part of her mind starting to react.
She was on a bed. A clean sheet but small cot that barely fit her frame, it had to be a hospital bed. Her immediate room confirmed the idea, with plain white curtains and wall panels that reinforced the sanitized dreariness of a hospital. The air itself smelled like rubber and rubbing alcohol, much of it coming from the thin sheets that barely protected her blue fur–
Silver-furred body. With a strange cough, she opened the sheets to reveal herself in a hospital gown that covered up to her knees, but her ankles and paws showed her as silver-furred. Taking a look inside the admittedly loose gown, she could see the rest of her body was a two-tone silver and dark grayish to almost black fur coloring, complete with a natural marking of a white v-shape in the middle of her chest that oddly looked like a heart.
Her body involuntarily twitched, and her mind almost panicked again at the sheer weight of the twitch. She was slimmer yet bigger in her build, wider in her shoulders yet even more pronounced at her chest, at least when looking down through her gown.
Why did she feel so… alien? And feeling slightly uncomfortable at even looking at herself, as if she was peeving on someone else—
"Good afternoon."
Her body shook and turned rigid in reaction. Someone else was in the room.
Slowly, she turned her head over to look at the source of the voice. An autumn-red husky stood at attention beside her bed. Based on her nurse clothing and clipboard in hand, she assumed the dog was her caretaker.
"My name is doctor Veyana. I understand that everything seems weird and uncomfortable, so I am here to help you acclimate yourself. First, I'd like to apologize on behalf of the nurses, your reaction coupled with the fact of,” the doctor gestured at the room with her hand, “Everything, made them panic and choose to quickly sedate you once more."
The talking head next to her bed was one thing, but every single word starting with 'acclimate' put her on edge. She blinked for a moment while trying to think of her first words back.
"You… drugged me?" was all she hoarsely whispered, in a strange low tone. She couldn’t help but flinch at the sound of her voice, even it felt alien in her mind as if her voice had been changed and lowered down a pitch.
"Yes, we did so in panic as you didn't seem to respond to external stimuli for calming you down. Now that you've had your nap, however, do you feel calm now?"
She looked at the doctor in shock, the rational part of her mind losing ground at the mention of the words ‘calm’. She gestured to her body, “Calm? Do I feel calm? I don’t know what is happening, I don’t know how I got here, I don’t know who I am, WHAT IS GOING ON?!” she ‘calmly’ yelled at the doctor.
“Ma’am, please,” the doctor raised her hand in a defensive posture. “We’re doing what we can, but you must understand, or…”
Veyana quickly wrote on their clipboard, before walking up close to her bed. “I’m sorry. Usually, the patient is understanding, but I forget that you are a special case. I can help you catch up to speed, but you must answer back my questions to the fullest of your abilities. Are you ready?”
A pang of foreboding regret reached her, but she stayed in bed as she took one more deep breath. “I, I guess I’m ready. I don’t know how more questions are going to answer my question…”
“Considering your case, I’m afraid it may be all questions. Now let’s start with the obvious. Who are you?” Veyana asked.
She flinched back in surprise. “Uh, you’re the one with my clipboard, right?”
Veyana wrote down on the clipboard before speaking up, “Please answer the question. What is your name?”
She couldn’t help but scoff, this was supposed to be a doctor? She rolled her eyes at her as she got ready to answer, but hesitated with an open muzzle.
Nothing. Nothing came to mind as to her name. She was silver and black, and she knew what kind of race her doctor was, but that was it. Nothing absolutely came to her mind.
“Ma’am, if you do not remember your name, that is okay. This is part of why I needed to ask you these questions,” Veyana interrupted her thinking. “We were prepared to see you would suffer from amnesia, considering your case.”
Amnesia. Amnesia… “What is amnesia?” she asked.
“You forget things. Sometimes you just forget where you put your phone, other times you’ve forgotten whole memories and information in your mind. Not even remembering your name means you may have severe amnesia, I’m afraid.”
Severe amnesia? Like, I forgot everything? “So I just… forgot everything?”
“Not everything at least. You have some information and facts in your head, like how me saying sedating you made your mind equate to me drugging you, along with basic instincts and ingrained behaviors like breathing and moving your body. The issue is information pending to you as a person, pending to Alessia Williams.”
“Pending to who?” she asked.
“You. Your name is Alessia Williams.”
THAT IS NOT MY NAME.
“Argh!” Alessia held her head, suddenly reacting to a pang of pain inside her. Just as quickly as it came, it faded away.
“Is something wrong?” the doctor asked.
“No, just,” she hesitated, “something in my head suddenly hurt. Is that what it’s like to remember something?”
“That depends, miss Williams,” Veyana grabbed her pen and readied it on her clipboard. “Do you feel like Alessia Williams is your name?”
Alessia took a deep breath and held it in. Her mind raced as it tried to find anything core or essential to her name. Nothing came up, except the recent moment of the pain in her head when she was told -
“No.”
She could see the doctor flinch for a moment, before quickly writing heavily on the clipboard. “And, are you sure? Tell me why you think there’s no way that could be your name?”
“It’s like…” she hesitated for a moment, trying to find the right words in the otherwise empty mind of hers, but nothing was helping at all. So if it wasn’t her mind that told her otherwise… “It’s not a sense of thinking or knowing. It’s like you said before, it’s instinct. Just… something deep within me is telling me that is not my name, and nothing in my head is telling me otherwise.”
"I see…" Veyana trailed off, writing down once more. "I suppose I should let you know the circumstances now, to see if that will help your memory."
Doctor Veyana stood up and away from the bed, going towards the IV drip next to Alessia. She didn't even realize there was an IV drip there. The husky continued, "For the last few weeks, miss Williams, you have been, for all intents and purposes, functionally braindead. Your body still lived and pumped blood, with your organs mostly working without medical help, but there was absolutely no brain activity within your head. Your fiancé was all but ready to ask for the order to terminate your life support when, a few hours ago, you suddenly just awoke. As if nothing had happened to your mind, or as if something just swapped the brains between you and someone else and turned the on switch."
"Your special case is that it seems some sort of impossibility did happen. There is absolutely nothing within the history of medicine that suggests or mentions how you could and did come back from being braindead. You are the first to recover as such."
Alessia could do nothing else but take a long breath as she reacted to the news. All but straight up dead, and then suddenly back to the living. It only seems too true as a miracle.
"Does," Alessia finally spoke, hesitating as she considered her next words before settling on an off-hand question. "Does anyone else know about me then? About the whole, back from the brink of death?" she asked, gesturing at herself with her hand.
Veyana nervously nodded her head. "Unfortunately for your sake, yes. I think there are a few news reporters in the main lobby, waiting to pelt you with questions about the edge of death and heaven and hell and whatnot," she spoke. "The entire hospital was abuzz about your condition once the initial nurses began talking about it, and it spread from there. Your fiancé and your best friend are just outside the door waiting for my prognosis before I let them inside."
Fiancé? What fiancé? "I'm sorry, who's my fiancé?"
The doctor sucked air through her fangs in a nervous snarl. "Oh… that's gonna be a tough one," the doctor mumbled as she wrote again on the clipboard. "Your fiancé was trying to help you when you first awoke, but I knew something was up when you screamed at him at first sight. His name is Franco Salinas; does that name mean anything?"
NO.
"I'm sorry, no," Alessia again apologized. "I do not remember him or his name."
This time it was Veyana who took a long and drawn-out sigh. "That is… not fine, but I think we must end our session today for now. I think my prognosis is that you will need to stay in the hospital for many mental therapy sessions, to understand the full scope of your, well, sudden ‘recovery’ and its lasting impacts on your future health."
Though she didn't want to say it, Alessia felt a pang of relief at hearing the questions were coming to an end, even though it still left her with her own questions. "Sounds like a plan, I guess. Am I free to at least walk around?"
Veyana shook her head. "You're currently only cleared to stay in your room. Both for your sake to not tax your mind, as we don't know if it is sensitive to any external stimuli at this time, and for your sanity, because those news reporters are absolute vultures. If you think my questions are bad, wait until you get theirs. Or don't and just stay here for now, until we can sate them in a way without exposing them fully to you."
Alessia couldn't help but whistle in relief. "Phew. That bad, huh?"
The doctor nodded her head in solemn agreement. "One of them questioned my credentials live on air, and I know he did it to spite me because I remember rejecting him in undergrad. Prick…"
Alessia couldn't help but chuckle in a dark tone. "Men will forget their promises and yes's but will never forget a no, huh"
"Ain't that right, honey," Veyana chuckled back. "Speaking of men, yours is still outside. Would you… like to see him? Or do you think it'll feel more uncomfortable considering your amnesiac condition about him?"
Alessia took some time to think about it, letting out another sigh before coming to an agreement with herself, "I'm willing to bet that if anyone can help to bring back my memories, it'll be him, right? Wouldn't that make for a rom-com?" she asked.
"Well I think there is one about an amnesiac wife, probably could take some pointers from them," Veyana answered back with a smile. "Very well, I'll let him know he can come in, but as I mentioned you should probably not be let out of the room and just take your rest for now. If you need anything, your service buttons are there on your right," the doctor pointed to a remote on a stand next to Alessia's bed, "And if you are bored and believe your brain is up to the task, service will reactivate the TV for you," Veyana pointed to the other end of the room where a large flat-screen TV sat embedded within the walls.
Alessia took another long sigh, before nodding her head. “Okay. Thank you, doctor, for, everything. It’s just, it’s all so much, especially when it feels like I woke up from one fog to another…”
The doctor took a moment to walk up close to the bed and grab Alessia’s hand, holding it in a calming gesture. “I’m sure that one day we will have you fully recover, miss Alessia. Then you can live your life as one of the lucky ones.”
Alessia scoffed. “I thought I was the first to come back?”
“The first lucky one then, but with more to come if we can also figure out your recovery,” Veyana replied. “I have to leave now, but I will let your fiance know to come in. I’m going to collect my colleagues, both here and possibly some off-world, and we’re going to pour over my initial writings. I don’t think I can do this alone, but with their help, we should determine a basis of therapy to work from and move towards your full recovery. Believe me, Alessia, we will get through this together, I promise you.”
Alessia nodded her head in satisfaction, but a small thought made her smirk. “I thought doctors were taught never to make promises while a patient’s on a bed?”
Veyana let go of her hand and quickly grabbed her clipboard, walking around the bed towards the exit of the room. “I’ll be sure to mark down that at least my patient has a sense of humor intact. Good day, miss Williams!” she replied, opening and closing the door.
Alessia breathed once more, but the voices on the other side of the door were loud enough to reverberate throughout the room, giving her an uneasy feeling of dread. Her… fiance was about to come in.
Fiance. Something about the word gave her a feeling of dread. Not that she wasn’t opposed to the idea, but the fox coming into her room may as well be another stranger in her life, another alien.
Wait, fox? How do I know he’s a fox?
She heard the door open, and she turned to see a tall and slender tabby cat, dark-furred and looking ragged with clear bags under his feline green eyes. He wore a plain white button-down shirt with a pair of olive cargo shorts, finished with a pair of socks covering his feet but still wearing open-toed sandals, oddly enough.
“Alessia?” the tabby cat spoke.
Alessia looked into his eyes, in a small and vain hope that her memory could jog something about him in her mind. But all that came back was just more fog. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
The tabby cat looked away from her eyes and seemed to release all his exhaustion in one long breath. “It’s me. Franco.”
Oh.
“Oh. You’re the Franco doctor Veyana told me about,” Alessia muttered. “Sorry about that. Has, uh, has the doctor told you anything about me?”
Franco looked back up at her, with a small smile. “Only that the most beautiful woman in my life apparently forgot all about hers.”
Alessia couldn’t help but scoff in amusement at the cheesiness. “Flattery isn’t gonna help me get my memories back, Franco.”
“Well it can’t hurt to try, Woofie,” Franco replied, moving close to the side of the bed. He leaned in too uncomfortably close to Alessia’s muzzle, and she immediately flinched away in fear.
Both of them looked at each other with wide, surprised eyes. Something within her told Alessia that she both messed up and broke Franco’s heart, considering his eyes and estranged expression.
“Sorry, just, force of habit between us, usually,” Franco trailed off, his voice becoming a bit hoarse. “Wow, just, it’s like,” he hesitated, “it’s like we’re just a bunch of strangers again, huh?”
“I guess…” Alessia sighed, feeling even more awkward now with that encounter. “Sorry, just, let’s just try and get my memories back before we get more comfortable with each other. I’m sure you’re a great guy and there’s a reason why-”
Alessia pulled up her hands to look at her amethyst ring, only to find nothing on them. “Why I said yes to you, without a riiiiiiing?” Alessia muttered in a confused tone. “Huh. Okay, this is gonna sound weird.”
“I’ve got this weird idea in my mind, just at this moment,” Alessia explained. “I thought I did have a ring? Like I was sure it did happen. Was it an amethyst ring?”
“Amethyst?” Franco said, looking at her with a confused expression. “Your ring was an emerald. It got, uh…”
Oh my goddess, Franco, you idiot. He’s not looking us in the eye, and I know why.
“I think I have it somewhere, the doctors took it from your hand to give to me once they had your, previous diagnosis,” Franco finally explained. “But hey! You’re starting to remember something, right?”
For the first time since she woke up, Alessia had a spark of hope, agreeing with Franco. “Yeah, yeah oh my gosh, I did! Like it’s all foggy and stuff, but yeah, it was something!”
Franco came up close to Alessia again, but this time electing to only hold her hand. “See, I told Alex, we just have to wait and see. We’re gonna get you healed up, and then we can all drink at the Golden Coelacanth and forget about this whole ordeal, right?”
Alessia couldn’t help but chuckle in a dark tone again. “Okay hold on, you’re throwing too many names at me again. Slooooow down,” she asked. “I had a headache when the doctor gave me my own name, just so you know.”
“Oh, sorry,” Franco quickly apologized. He pulled back his hand from hers but still stayed close by sitting on an open spot on the edge of the bed, facing away and not looking at her. “Alright, yeah, baby steps. Don’t need to drown you in all your old life stuff like the reporters outside want to.”
“Oh geez, yeah the doctor told me about them. What do you think?” Alessia asked.
Franco shuffled around in his seat on the bed. “They’re real eager to see you, some of them tried to interview me, trying to ask how you got,” the tabby cat hesitated, and Alessia could feel a sense of hurt in his next words, “how you got, uh, brain dead. And if I knew anything about how you came back. Oh, but funny enough, one of them had to leave mid-interview because he got some even bigger news, get this!”
Franco turned in his seat towards Alessia. “Remember that group of aces that we loved talking and hearing about back in high school, back during the war?”
Alessia shot Franco a dirty look and pointed a finger at her head. “No, I can’t remember. Seems to be a bit of a problem with me right now,” she replied in a mocking tone.
“Oh, right, uhhh,” Franco looked away from Alessia’s glare. “Well back when we were in the Academy, during the big war that was happening at the time, we had this one team of aces that helped out the Cornerians-”
“Names!”
“That helped out our side, sorry! Anyways, they helped out our side and actually were able to stop the war, just by themselves. We always looked up to them because they were only our age but just did a lot and always managed to beat the odds, but just recently something happened to them. They’re called Star Fox. Does that ring any bells?”
What about my team?
“What about team?” Alessia said, before coughing for a moment. “Uh, what about them?”
Franco leaned in close, as if he was going to be overheard by a ghost in the room. “Get this, they just lost a team member, their newest one too. Krystal is dead, killed in action!”