Don't forget to remember

This was going to hurt. It had before and it would again. But nothing you need to survive is ever free. One way or another you always paid the price.

Nyssa bolted awake. The sweat beaded on her brow.

“Take me back in. I can handle it.” She massaged her forehead willing her trembling hands to quell the embers of a budding migraine.

“Nyssa you can’t. The levels of acetylcholine coursing through your cerebral cortex are…” Konrad paused. “If you go back in you might not wake up.”

“I know the risks.” She settled herself back down onto the metal plinth and squinted at the bright spotlights leering overhead.

“Nyssa, please.”

“Do it.”

Konrad let out a defeated sigh as his hands darted across the console with reserved precision. He plucked and pruned sprawling wires and replanted them into neighbouring sockets. With each new connection, the room thrummed louder and louder. The sickly-sweet smell of lavender swallowed Nyssa whole. It smothered her in heavy folds and her vision blurred. The pain came again.

She bolted awake. The sweat still beaded on her brow, the migraine now in full force. Her eyes snapped open, and she blinked away the silver stars streaking her vision.

“Try it again. I think we nearly had it.”

There was no reply.

Konrad was not there. The lab was not there. The cold sting of the metal plinth against her back was not there. Instead, she was cradled in the warm embrace of a plush duvet embroidered with swirling hyacinths.

Her daughter’s duvet.

The room was as they had left it. The sound of traffic drifted through the window, left ajar to relieve the summer heat. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure pass through the door and out of the room.

Could it be?

Tears caught in Nyssa’s throat. She scrambled to the door, barely hoping to hope. The distant thrum of car engines grew louder.

Nyssa sprinted down the corridor, ignoring the dull ache in her knee, and out into the living room. In the corner huddled a girl, her back turned, rummaging through their old VHS collection. Tears streamed down Nyssa’s cheeks. She scrambled forwards, took her by the shoulders, and spun her around.

“Grace?”

Nyssa’s blood ran cold, and she recoiled in fear. Where her daughter’s face had once been, there was only a distant blur of flesh and features. Like too many layers of tracing paper pressed over an image photocopied one too many times. So, it was true, all the wires and science in the world couldn’t make something from nothing. The memory had to be still there to be projected and amplified. But there was no mistaking it. This was her house, and this was her daughter.

She took the girl into her arms. “I’m so sorry Grace.” She carefully wiped the wayward hair from where the face should have been. They sat there, rocking back and forth. Nyssa didn’t know for how long, but not once did the girl acknowledge she was there. Neither noted the growing sound of traffic. A single engine broke from the din, projected along a frantic crescendo.

After ten long years, the smell of liquor caught in Nyssa’s throat. The thrum of the car engine grew to a howl and then to a scream. Fragments of a different memory were pushing in, threatening to shatter what remained of this one.

The blow sent Nyssa reeling. Grace flew from her arms and impacted the asphalt with a dull thud. Fragments of glass as sharp as the memory littered the road and caught the dying light of the setting sun. Their family car stood silent and smoking, contorted around a mighty oak that had fared much better in the impact. The windscreen was gone, smashed as the body had launched through it.

“No. No. Not this.” Nyssa tore her gaze away from the girl strewn across the road like broken china. She dropped to her knees and pleaded into the night, “Konrad, pull me out. End it now.” There was no reply.

Click.

The car door opened. A shadowy hand gripped the door frame and a figure pulled itself free of the wreck. Tar dripped from its emaciated form. Each opaque drop curled into smoke before it reached the ground. Knee bent backward, it limped towards Nyssa, its grin too big for its face. “Is this not what you wanted?” The voice cut through the air like the screech of tires refusing to stop.

Nyssa recoiled, eyes wide, and pushed herself across the cracked asphalt away from the figure. Away from her daughter. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.” This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real.

The figure cocked its head towards the girl, “You wanted to remember? Remember what?” It started towards the girl. The shadows followed. “The good times? Happy memories to convince yourself?” It crouched over the girl, its broken knee snapping back into place. “Pathetic really. You can’t even remember her face.” Its arm outstretched and caressed the child’s face with a pointed claw. “It’s too little too late now.”

Nyssa threw herself across the road at the figure and screamed, “Get away from her.” She grappled with the tangible shadow, each blow like whiplash. It was useless, the figure was too strong. A clawed hand struck out and grabbed her by the neck. It wrenched her off her feet and pulled her close, face to face with that toothy grin. “You weren’t there for her then so why would you be now?” Clawed fingers tightened and the edges of her vision went dark.

With the last of her strength, she heaved and struck out. Her foot collided with the figure in the knee. It snapped backward with a mighty crack and the figure roared in agony as it dropped her. She clambered to her feet choking in air, “I will not let you keep me from her any longer.” With all her might she landed one final blow against the side of the figure's head. It keeled sideways. A puddle of tar evaporating into writhing tendrils of smoke was all that marked the impact.

Nyssa rushed to her daughter and scooped her back up into her arms. She held her tight, trying to push the broken body back together. The girl’s hair was splatted with dirt and tears falling freely from Nyssa’s bowed head. She leaned in, and whispered softly, “You paid the price for the demons I couldn’t bear.” She delicately placed a kiss on her daughter's cheek. “I’m sorry.”

From the blur, the edges of a nose came into focus, followed by closed eyes and a mouth. The layers of tracing paper were peeled back, and a wash of peace fell over her daughter’s countenance. It was as she remembered.

Nyssa bolted awake and pushed herself from the metal plinth squinting at the bright spotlights overhead. Sweat soaked her entire body, and she was vaguely aware of Konrad rushing toward her.

“Are you okay? I thought we lost you.”

The migraine was clearing, and for the first time in ten years, the pain stopped.

“I think I will be.”