If I Burn

Four walls of smooth, gray stone and a glassy black floor encage me in this strange space. Bright lights from above illuminate the room with a blinding intensity and I shiver against the harsh cold. I look at my arms -goosebumps. Not only that but I’m wearing a minimalist, tight fitting outfit of pure white that I can’t remember putting on.

It’s that lost feeling all over again, of walking into a room and forgetting why you were there in the first place. There’s something I forgot. Something I forgot. Something I forgot.

I blink. Remember. Remember something. Remember anything. I concentrate as hard as I can to access my memories but I hit a wall. I try again and a shooting pain crashes through my skull. What the hell? My heart hammers in my chest and my skin tingles. Something is very wrong. What’s my name? How old am I? Where am I?

My chest constricts and I choke back tears as I spin around the room aimlessly.

“I gotta get out of here,” I cry out in a shaky voice.

A knock sounds at the door that I swear wasn’t there a second ago and I stare at it. The world’s orbit slows to a halt as I remain planted in place wondering if it’s possible to die of dread. What. Is. Happening.

I should answer it. I should answer it, right?

“Yes.” The thought comes screaming in my mind out of nowhere and it takes me by surprise. Alright, it looks like I’m doing it.

I take a deep, bracing breath and will myself forward. It comes as a shock to me that my legs are actually moving towards the door and my hand reaches out and twists the cold silver doorknob.

“State your name,” a voice says, only it’s not a human voice. A black drone is hovering three feet away from me carrying a wooden box approximately two feet long, one foot tall, and one foot deep. Outside the world is black like the dead of night and I can’t see or hear a thing.

“I- what?” I stammer.

“State your name,” it says again, and finally my brain catches up.

“Oh. I-I don’t know.”

The drone doesn’t say anything in response. It hovers in place for several seconds before emitting a red light that scans me from head to toe.

“Identity confirmed.”

“What identity? Who-”

“Please take your package,” the drone interrupts. It drops the box in front of my door and flies away, leaving me behind with a million questions invading my mind.

Once again I’m having a staring contest with an everyday object that really shouldn’t be eliciting so much mystery as this, and I’m feeling dumb and confused and a million other things that I’m glad no one is here to witness. Wait. Nobody else is here, right? I try to push the thought away as I pick up the box and move it into the room, but suddenly I have the oddest churning in my gut. The hairs on my body stand on end. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think someone is watching me -and it’s not the drone.

The box was heavier than I expected, though to be fair it might be made of solid wood so I can’t tell how much of the weight is from its contents. I stand back and read the words stamped in red ink on the lid: DO NOT OPEN. The wildest urge springs up inside of me. I need to open it. I have to. I can’t stand a mystery and I can’t stand someone telling me what not to do. I’m gonna do it. Before I can inch towards the box, something stops me.

“NO,” a voice screams, and I flinch.

I freeze. I look around. No one else is here, I’m alone in this room. But it didn’t sound like the voice came from around me, it sounded like it came… in my head.

“Who-” I start to say, but it comes again.

“Quiet.” It’s a strong, commanding voice that sounds like my own thought in my own head, only I wasn’t in control of it. Am I… hallucinating?

“Not hallucinating.”

I know the voice just told me that I’m not hallucinating, but somehow that doesn’t ease my fear that I’ve actually gone insane -because now it’s clear that this person in my head is listening to my thoughts somehow.

“What’s going on?” I ask inside my head, just to humor myself.

“No time to explain. Just do what I say.”

I don’t get to ask any more questions because someone starts pounding on the door over and over again and I back away to the opposite side of the room.

“Let me in,” someone screams. Not someone, a child. A little girl. “Please,” she begs, and I run towards the door and fling it open. Immediately she bursts into the room and throws her arms around my legs. I close the door behind her and stroke her hair while she sobs uncontrollably.

“Who are you?” I ask gently. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re coming,” she cries. “They’re coming for me.”

“Who’s coming for you?”

The little girl looks up at me and my jaw drops. No. No. No. This isn’t right. This little girl can’t have that face and that body. It’s not possible. That little girl is. Me.

I back away and her arms fall to her side and my eyes are filling with tears. She has my hair, my eyes, my little nose, my everything. She’s exactly how I looked when I was about seven years old. How is this possible? Where did she come from? Who’s chasing her?

Deafening thunder roars and the floor quakes and little me falls to the floor and wraps her entire body around my legs this time. She’s trembling and crying and I don’t know what to do to help her. What am I supposed to do? There must be a terrible storm outside but we’re safe in here, right?

Someone rattles the door handle trying to break in, and the girl wraps herself around me even tighter. I can’t move, I can’t ask her to let me go, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to answer the door or not. The voice in my head doesn’t say anything, I stand in place and count my breaths.

One, two, three, four, fi-

Whoever is outside throws their body weight against the door with a startling thud, and I can hear them pounding and kicking and trying to kick the door down.

“Don’t let them get to me,” the little girl cries again.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“You need to open the box.”

I stare at her. I blink. “What?”

She points towards the wooden box a few feet away. I didn’t know she even noticed the box. Did she know it was here before she knocked on my door?

“It has what we need. You need to open the box so you can protect me.”

“What’s in it?”

She shakes her little head, and her eyes are so big and brown and pleading. “I don’t know, but we’re running out of time. You have to open it.”

“I- I can’t. I’m not supposed to.”

The devastated look on her face rips my heart out, and now I’m doubting myself. Why can’t I open the box? Because a voice in my head said so? But this little girl is in some sort of terrible danger, and I need to do whatever it takes to save her. To save me. Hell, how do I know that I won’t face the consequences too if something happens to her? She is me, after all.

I fling my gaze back towards the box and chew my lip. I should just do it, consequences be damned.

“Don’t,” the voice in my head warns. “You can’t.”

Another hard blow strikes the door, and the door frame starts to splinter. They’re breaking in. I’m running out of time.

“Please,” little me screams at the top of her lungs. “Save me! We’re both going to die.”

“I’m so sorry,” I tell her, both heartbroken and suddenly sure. I steel myself and hold my breath and the door breaks down. The lights go out. The girl is ripped away from me and the force nearly knocks me to the ground. She unleashes a blood curdling scream that unravels me. I hear a thud. The lights come back on and I’m crying and shaking and I close my eyes, terrified to see what happened to her.

Finally, I do.

Seven year old me is lying face down on the floor, dead, in a pool of blood. Nausea hits me all at once and I want to scream but I’m shamefully relieved that I don’t have a single scratch. I’m okay. And she’s dead. And I shouldn’t feel glad that I’m alive but I do.

I scan the room for signs of whoever hurt her, but there’s no one here. I’m alone again. But something is different. I step a little closer, just to be sure. The words on the box have changed. Now the red words stamped on the box read: OPEN NOW.

I was so curious and eager to open the box before, but now I’m certain it must be a Pandora’s box sort of deal. I shouldn’t open it. I can’t open it.

"Open it,” the voice in my head demands. And suddenly, I’m not sure whether this voice is a friend or foe. But still, I obey. I gingerly lift the lid and fling it open.

There’s a gun inside, and somehow I know I’m supposed to pick it up. So I do.

“Please don’t kill me,” someone says. I look up, and see a man tied to a rickety wooden chair in front of me. Where did he come from? His eyes are bloodshot and tears are streaming down his cheeks, but I’m surprised. Besides the wild expression on his face, he’s… handsome. The man is roughly my age, blond hair, brown eyes, and faint stubble growing along his strong jaw. A fire ignites in my stomach. I know him. I can’t remember his name or who he is or how we know each other, but the realization hits me like a truck.

“I know you,” I mutter, but he doesn’t seem to hear the words.

“I love you,” he tells me, his voice passionate and broken all at once. “I love you, damn it, and I know you love me too. Don’t do this. Put the gun down.”

My eyes trail down to the gun in my hand and I’m so lost, so lost inside this confusion and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

“Kill him,” the voice tells me.

“No,” I argue in my head. “You saw what you made me do to that little girl. I’m not going to hurt this innocent man. I think I know him.”

I’m searching his stunning eyes again and trying to place how I know him. I'm trying to understand why I’m magnetized to this man and why I feel like crying and running into his arms when the horrible words come again.

“Kill him. You have no choice.”

Boiling fury floods my veins and I want to rebel against these instructions but somehow I can sense the sincerity behind the words. Somehow I know it’s in my best interest to do what the voice tells me to.

“Trust me,” it pleads. And something inside of me breaks.

I grit my teeth. I choke down the sobs welling up and I let the emotions war inside of me until I collapse into numbness. I raise the gun. And I pull the trigger.

The man I don’t want to remember sits slumped over and a seering coldness overtakes my body. I’m angry, but I don’t know who I’m angry at. I’m feeling reckless and dangerous, but I don’t know if that’s how I’m supposed to feel. I sink down to my knees and feel my chest split in two. I don’t know who that man was but I somehow know I’m not supposed to live without him and I want to go back in time and undo it. Killing him was a terrible mistake and I need to apologize and tell him I love him too because I think I do. I scramble up to my feet but when I look back…

He’s gone. His body is gone and all that remains is the wooden chair and I-

I shatter.

Suddenly a dozen police officers invade the small, gray room and aim their guns at me and I don’t even care.

“Drop the weapon or we’ll shoot,” they yell at me. But I’m filled with an inexplicable peace. I look once more at the box, and there’s a message inside that says: KILL THEM ALL. The gun in my hand transforms into a grenade, and this time I don’t react. These officers didn’t do anything wrong. They have families and people who love them and they’re just doing their jobs. I’m the one who shot a man and let a seven year old die in front of me. But I don’t care. If I burn, they’re going to burn with me.

“Do it,” the voice tells me. And I don’t hesitate. I close my eyes tight and blow us all to hell.

My body jerks violently from the explosion, but there is no pain. There’s no fire. I open my eyes.

I’m lying on a cold metal table with an IV stuck in my arm and wires connected to my head.

“How are you feeling?” A woman comes into view and I blink a few times to orient myself. She’s about forty years old, black hair, startlingly blue eyes, and a menacing smile.

“Where am I?” I choke out.

“You’re in our testing facilities. We wanted to see how well you’re functioning after your accident.”

“Accident? What is this? Who am I?”

She shakes her head and purses her lips apologetically. “I’m sorry to say you were severely injured in action and lost your memories. You’ve been recovering for many weeks, and we had to do this little test to ensure your basic instincts are still intact. I’m happy to see you’ve retained your ability to follow instructions. Your dedication to the mission is what made you our best agent.”

“Agent?”

“Yes,” she laughs lightheartedly. “Don’t worry, all will be explained soon enough. The only thing you need to worry about now is getting some rest. Do you think you can do that?”

I nod slowly against the metal headrest and a sinking feeling overtakes me.

“Good. I’ll have you escorted to your quarters then.” The woman nods to a man in a soldier's uniform and he leads me down the hallway to a plain room with a single bed, a dresser, and a bathroom.

My body is sore and I’m so tired I just want to collapse on this uncomfortable bed -but instead I drag myself to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. I still don’t remember anything, except the -test- as she called it. What did she mean I was an agent? And why did she have to put me through a simulation to know how I would respond to those specific scenarios? It doesn’t make any sense.

I look at my face in the mirror and my head feels like it’s been hit with a hammer.

“Remember,” a voice tells me. Lightning strikes in my chest. The voice. The voice is back. It was real, then? It was guiding me through the test?

“Yes,” it answers.

“But- why? What’s going on?” I ask.

“You need to remember.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and dig through my mind and for a moment I almost reach whatever it is I’m trying to remember. But it feels like someone is pushing me off the edge of my cliff and I’m scrambling for something to hold onto until. I fall. I’m falling down, down, down.

I stagger backwards and nearly trip when the horrible pain strikes me like a hammer in my skull and a high pitched noise sounds in both my ears. Something warm drips onto my lip and a metallic taste fills my mouth. The second my wrist brushes against my nose it comes away painted in blood, and I want to yell for help but I can’t seem to fill my lungs with oxygen.

My vision blurs and I want to call out to the voice, I want to call out for help, but all too quickly my body goes numb and I fall to the cold stone floor. Sharp pains stab my head as a projector plays in my mind, like movie scenes showing me memories that I’ve forgotten. It’s reel after reel of memories playing on top of one another and too many emotions to deal with and I want to scream from the pain but I’m paralyzed.

Hours later the torrent of memories runs dry and I’m left lifeless on the floor.

I understand now.

They wanted me to forget. They wanted to torture me and wipe my memories as many times as it took for me to become the obedient soldier they wanted me to be. One who wouldn’t have her own agenda or crave freedom or fall in love or rebel. They want an agent who will willingly kill and die for their cause, one who won’t question orders or hesitate to do what needs to be done. They think they’ve succeeded. They think they’ve won. But the battle isn’t over yet.

Because I remember everything.

And if I burn, they’re going to burn with me.