In the beginning, all I knew was the pain. At first, it was dull and distant. It floated in the darkness of my thoughts, never quite achieving that sense of reality. The intangible ache was almost as if it were nothing more than a sympathy pain felt while listening to someone else relate the details of their unforgiving agony. Yet, down deep in the void of my unconsciousness, I knew that the pain was my own. It was just out there in the blackness, circling like some hungry predator, waiting for the right moment to strike. I began to panic. Why was there nothing here to protect me, nothing to cling to for comfort, and no one to run to for help? The fiery, throbbing pain sensed my vulnerability and it pounced in for the kill.

I awoke, not with a start, but with a slow excruciating rise from the grasp of a cold abyss. The pain was right there with me, intending to be my constant companion. It burned at the base of my skull as if someone had attempted to probe my brain with a red-hot poker. My hand reluctantly searched out the source of the terrible ache, but I was afraid of what it might find. My curiosity was awarded with the touch of a warm, sticky gauze bandage and an increase in the pain’s intensity. The other hand, still resting at my side, gripped the sheet that I lay upon hoping to anchor me from the searing pain that threatened to sweep me away. As the wave of my debilitating discomfort began to reside to its normal intensity, I decided to open my eyes and explore my surroundings.

At first, all I could discern were the lights. Three bright lights hovering above me in a triangular formation. Large silvery discs to increase their illumination surrounded them. They stared with their incandescent gaze like three mythical, cyclopean beasts. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the blinding glare so I could see more of the room. I was in what appeared to be a small operating room and I lay upon what seemed to be a simplistic surgical table. A needle that was attached to an IV drip punctured my right arm. My left arm was wrapped tightly by a gray strip used to measure my blood pressure. A series of wires attached to pads stuck to my chest and temple trailed off to a variety of machines that were monitoring my vital signs. Near the bed to my left rested a wheeled cart that was littered with a multitude of intimidating surgical tools. Some of these items were placed inside a square metallic tub filled with a pinkish, bubbly liquid and these tools appeared to have been used recently. They grudgingly released little globules of blood from their metal grip, and then the dark red liquid would rise to the surface of the water only to dissipate. The remainder of the room was filled with large medical equipment. I recognized one of the machines as a MRI. A desk, which seemed oddly out of place with the rest of the scenery, sat in a far corner near the door. The door also did not fit the surgical motif of the room. It wasn’t the sterile, double swinging doors with the silvery metal plates instead of handles. It was a single large mahogany door that you might find in an older home. The entire room was alien to me and I recognized nothing.

I tried to collect my thoughts and piece together my memories. Think…think…think…what is the last thing I remember? Why would I be in some makeshift operating room? An overwhelming fear gripped my heart. Nothing came to me. Not just a nothing that failed to explain my surroundings, but a horrifyingly literal…nothing. Nothing about my life, nothing about my identity and nothing about my past before this moment. I attempted to reassure myself that this lack of memory was just a side effect of disorientation. Of course you know who you are; you recognized the MRI, you can recall the names of all the items in this room and you remember how to speak english, how can you not remember your own name? Yet, the truth was my past was a blank slate. The harder I tried to remember, the more the wisps of familiarity continued to elude my grasp. I needed to find someone soon before I became paralyzed by my own anxiety. I removed the sheet that covered my gown-adorned body and dropped my bare feet to the cold tiled floor.

Still weak from the anesthetic, I leaned heavily on the bed for support. While attempting to steady myself, I realized I was still attached to the various medical devices surrounding the operating table. The equipment tugged at me like some seductive succubus coaxing its prey back to a relaxed and vulnerable state. Shivering from the cold, I began to remove my connection to the IV and monitoring devices. Like the child that has had the umbilical cord cut, I was now free to explore the mysteries of my strange new environment. Yet, instead of feeling the elation of escape I felt a sense of nervousness about the unknown. As I shuffled towards the thick wooden door my nervousness began to turn into a sense of fear and dread. I stopped, halfway to the only exit from this room, and I felt like it was becoming increasingly more difficult to breathe. There was something familiar about this room. The feeling refused to release me from its incessant tickling at the back of my brain.

"Was it a memory? Is there something I should remember about this room?"

Drifting into my skull like some old childhood memory the image of this room took root in my thoughts. As my mind began to wander, I started to visualize the room from the exact same vantagepoint of where I now stood. I stared at the foreboding mahogany door with the odd roll top desk nearby. I studied the contents on the desk, which I hadn’t even done in my fully conscious state. I saw a series of MRI scans of a brain. My heart leapt at the chance to discover my name among the items on the desk. Yet, each scan was simply marked "John Doe". My gaze searched out the other objects littering the desk top: ledgers with the dates of three consecutive weeks written on the binding, wires and cables that were used to photograph or map my brain from the inside and a hand drawn diagram of how they were going to perform surgery on a part of my brain.

"What the hell had they been doing to my head?"

My quest for my identity, among the documents on the desk, was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps beyond the wooden door. This was all taking place within my daydream, or is this a memory? It must be something pulled from the depths of my unconscious, some memory that had been stirred awake by my walk through this room. A desperate hope was given birth as I realized this might only be the beginning of restoring my lost memories. Yet, my lucid vision wasn’t completed and my thoughts once again returned to its continuing revelations.

The old Victorian door swung open to reveal three men dressed in surgical garb. The man leading the trio had an exposed; partially baldhead and a stocky build with large meaty hands. He resembled a butcher more than a surgeon. He entered the room with an air of anxiousness as he addressed the two men behind him; "The Magistrate and the other council members will be here soon. We need to prepare the patient."

There was an audible crack as the hefty surgeon’s shoe stepped upon something. My gaze within the vision dropped to see what had made the sound. I noticed, in direct contradiction to his physical appearance, that the stocky man wore well made Italian shoes. Resting beneath his expensive footwear were the broken fragments of an aqua marine coffee mug. As the lead surgeon removed his foot in order to observe what he had broken. I was able see that there was an image on the largest shard of the shattered cup. Split into two pieces the picture was of the Epic City skyline. Written in an arch formation over the skyline was "Merchants Union Tower" and below the same cityscape was written "Feel like you’re on top of the world". The butcher like surgeon stared at the fragments on the floor and then his face began to rise. He looked through me with a fury burning in his eyes. His jaws were clenched and his reddened face began to shake uncontrollably.

As if my mental state were a rubberband that had been stretched to its limits, I was shockingly hurled back into a full state of awareness. The pain at the back of my head lashed out with new ferociousness and I stumbled about disoriented. My vision became blurred from the increased intensity of the pain. I reached out desperate for some source of support. My hand waved before me searching for the desk. My knee sent a jolt of pain up to my brain as I crashed into the desk and my hand brushed up against something as I steadied my balance. As my eyesight began to clear I saw that what I had knocked off of the desk, ...was the coffee mug. My blood turned to ice. As impossible as it seemed, I knew immediately that what I had envisioned was not a returning memory, but a glimpse into the future. I sensed the truth of this in my very soul. I also knew that if I didn’t get out of this room soon I would be in grave danger.

To be continued….