Unexpectedly, images started flashing through my mind. I saw fangs, brown fur, and blood, I was being attacked, and what ever happened to me before felt like it was happening again. I tried to shake my head, to get these visions out, but the only thing that achieved was chaos with the voices around me, and a sharp pain down the left side of my head.
‘Adele, Adele, are you okay?’ A female voice burst through these thoughts in my head. By now I had guessed that my name was Adele, even though it didn’t sound familiar.
Suddenly there was a prickly feeling down my right arm, like spiders crawling up it, and it felt like something was being removed from my arm.
‘Drink this; it might make you feel better.’ A sweet tasting liquid was forced down my throat, and I could feel it warming my whole body. All the pain was removed from my body, the prickly feeling in my right arm disappeared, my head felt as clear as crystal. I began to open my eyes, but they still hadn’t got used to the bright white light, so I closed them again.
I felt a hand on my arm, ice cold, and a shiver ran the length of my body. A male voice spoke up, and his voice sounded husky, upset. I could smell his aftershave, and it brought back another flood of memories, of me and the body the male voice belonged to, memories of going out together, of nights staying and watching films. Paul. That was his name. He was my fiancé, and we were due to get married four months after he asked me to marry him. That day I could remember so perfectly, him on his knees, his brown eyes looking up at me, and saying those words every female wants to hear, ‘will you marry me’. I can remember my answer so vividly, ‘yes’. I wanted to stay in that memory forever, to never leave it and return to the darkness, but the image slowly began to fade.
I heard his voice, and I opened my eyes to see him. As soon as I did I closed them almost instantly. He wasn’t how I remembered him; in fact, he was nothing like how I remembered him. He had brown eyes, but that was about it.
‘You’re a mouse.’ I whispered under my breath, and I felt him lean forwards, his, a shudder ran through me, his whiskers touched my cheek, and I felt his mouse lips touch me.
‘What did you say darling?’ He stayed leaned in to hear my reply, and when I said it again, he reeled backwards. I heard everyone ask him what I said and as he repeated it I heard chaos commence again.
That first female voice that I had heard say my name asked me to open my eyes, and as I did so I saw everyone around me, all mice. This woman mouse asked another to get a mirror for me, and I knew instantly I didn’t want to look into it, I knew what I would see. The mouse with the mirror, whom I presumed to be my brother and the female as my mother as she referred to me as his sister.
‘Wait!’ I heard a voice come from the door, and a mouse with a white lab coat on (I’m sure I heard myself laugh) entered and approached me. ‘You have suffered serious damage to your head when you were attacked by those rats,’ he turned to my mother, ‘and unfortunately I don’t think she remembers much.’
My brother passed me the mirror face down, ‘I don’t see why you need to, but you can look if you want.’ I knew he was right, I didn’t need to, I knew what I was, and I’d just have to accept it live my life.
As I looked around me, this picture began to fade, and I could feel myself falling, I think I passed out. When I did retain my consciousness, I was in a completely different room, it was dark with no light, and I was lying in a blue bed with flower prints.
‘It was a dream.’ I said to myself, gladly. I heard my mother shout up the stairs for breakfast. She would find it so funny when I told her about this nightmare. I sat up, and started to rub the sleep out of my eyes, but as I did so, I noticed that my hands, well, they weren’t hands. I slowly stood up, went and opened my curtains, and walked over to my mirror.
All I could do was stand and stare; it really wasn’t a dream, what had happened to me, why was I still a mouse?
Then it all came back to me, being attacked and rushed into hospital, I was diagnosed with amnesia, I couldn’t remember who I was, or what had happened to me, I couldn’t even remember my name. Slowly over the years my memories came back to me, and I began to accept what had happened.
I turned away from the mirror, and looked over to the door to see Paul stood there, a look of concern on his face. He began to ask me what was the matter, but I just told him it didn’t matter, I wanted to forget, for these nightmares that daunted me every night to go away, and I knew they wouldn’t, not until I fully accepted who I was.
