A knock was heard and the door was opened with a loud bang by two agitated young men.
They looked around the room and rushed forward to hug Ashly who was on the bed.
"Ash!! Are you OK? Where have you been?"
"Are you hurt? Did someone do something to you?"
"Dam, Jay? What are you doing here?" Ashly finally managed to get a word in between their questions.
Damian and Jason were John's older brothers and Ashly's cousins.
Damian and Jason actually had a large age gap between the both of them and John. Damian was already 30 (and single :) ) and Jason was 26. Damian worked in the capital of Klaesmon, Vernoe, and Jason lived with his girlfriend out of the country.
Damian had black frizzy hair and blue eyes like Uncle Jack while Jason had straight brown hair and brown eyes like Aunt Helen. John had brown hair like Helen and Jason, and blue eyes like Jack and Damian.
Although they're cousins they always treated each other as siblings, also because because ever since her parents died Ashly lived with them.
Ashly was the closest to John since Damian and Jason didn't live with them but they still all had a great relationship with each other.
Ashly really loved having three big brothers and being the only girl. Oh, believe her, that's super fun!
"I'm fine, don't worry. But, I mean, how did you get here so fast?" Ashly tried to ask them again, barely managing to stop their flurry of questions.
"What do you mean? Of course we would already be here, Ash! We both returned home back then but I had a problem in work so I got a bit stuck and Jay just went to ask for help from a friend in another city. We came back right away when Dad called us tonight. Are you really sure you're alright?"
"Yeah!" Jason nodded and chimed in, saying "And seriously Little Sis, where were you all this all this time? We were all worried sick! What happened to you?"
"Yes, Dam, Jay, I really am fine. It's actually really strange, I'm certain I got hurt quite badly but I don't feel like I even have a scratch now. But more importantly, what do all of you mean by asking me where I was? I don't get it. What are you talking about?"
Damien and Jason exchanged looks, almost mirroring each other's weird expressions.
"Ash, don't you... do you remember what happened after you jumped?" Jason cautiously asked.
"After I jumped?" Ashly repeated with a baffled look on her face. "I- "
Another knock sounded, interrupting them once again.
{What is with those knocks today!...}
The door opened, and a middle-aged man entered.
"Hello Mr. Blanchet, I came to take your niece's statement as we heard she woke up." The man looked at Jack and addressed him in a familiar manner. It was the same man that Uncle Jack had spoken to a week before in the police station.
"Hello Ashly, I'm detective James Tarnell from the Terrorist Crime Division. I'm sorry to ask you questions when you just woke up, but we have more chance to find out the truth the quicker we act. First, where were you for the past month?"
Ashly frowned, more and more confused.
"Hi, I'm Ashly Rosenwoods, nice to meet you. Can you please explain what all of you are talking about? After I jumped from the building I fainted and I woke up just now. What do you mean by where was I in the last month? I don't understand."
Detective James looked at the other five, and seeing the same concerned looks on their faces, he turned around and asked Ashly, "So you don't remember anything after that? What about how you got to the hospital?"
"Didn't an ambulance bring me here?"
James sighed and stayed silent for a while.
The quiet, tense atmosphere and the troubled expressions on their faces were making her anxious, and she stroked the little scar on her right palm, which was a habit she had of doing when she's nervous.
The detective finished sorting out his thoughts. He looked at Ashly, and started telling her what happened.
"Yes, you were taken by the ambulance to the hospital, but you disappeared from the operation room. The doctors were all knocked out by a man in black clothes that's suspected to be the one who took you, without being seen on any security camera.
You went missing for a whole month, and we had no clue to your whereabouts until yesterday at midnight, when you just walked into the hospital. Furthermore, all your fatal injuries were healed. Do you really not remember anything that happened to you in that whole month?"
"I really don't remember anything" Ashly answered, shocked. She was still processing all the information.
"Alright. For the time being I will let you rest. I'll talk to the doctor about your condition, and he'll give me the results of your physical examination. I'll ask him if you have a concussion, amnesia, PTSD or anything like that.
Although we have enough leads on the group behind the bombings, I still need to take your statement, so I'll return in the afternoon. For now you can catch up with each other and rest."
He almost turned around to leave, but paused. "Oh, one more thing- one of the nurses from yesterday said you wrote something on your arm."
"What?" Ashy was startled, clearly very surprised. She rolled up the left sleeve of her hospital gown, and found the writing. She read them aloud slowly: "It's OK, trust yourself".
She paused for a second, and then continued. "There's an arrow pointing down, and it says 'alone'. After that it says:
'Please w1m.
M2M' ".
John exchanged looks with Damian and Jay while Uncle Jack and Aunt Helen looked curiously at each other. Detective James was observing Ashly with a thoughtful expression.
Ashly seemed to be thinking about it when Detective James asked her "Do you know what it means?"
"I'm not entirely sure", she replied, with a troubled expression that she didn't have to fake to put on.
She looked up from her arm to the detective, saying "I think the M2M part is supposed to be 'me to myself', although it's not an abbreviation I normally use, but I don't know what w1m means. And I'm sure this is my handwriting, so it probably means I thought I would understand what it means, but I really don't know. It could be a reference from a book or a song, but I would've remembered it when it comes to things like that. I also like gematria too. The only other thing it could be is some kind of clue. I'm sorry, that's all I know". She looked down, disappointment avid on her face and in her actions.
Detective Tarnell nodded and tried to comfort her. "Well, that's fine. That also might mean you knew you might not remember and wanted to reassure yourself. Call us if you remember anything that might help or understand the meaning of the words."
"Of course!", she nodded with a determined smile.
The atmosphere seemed to ease a bit after he walked out of the door, leaving the six still trying to digest everything they learned from the conversation.
Walking in the hallway, Detective Tarnell didn't continue to go to the doctor's office. He turned right and walked up the stairs until he reached the roof, standing in a remote corner with no other people nearby. He opened his phone and dialed a phone number.
When the phone was answered, he said "Sir, I finished asking her the questions."
"So J.T, what have we got now?"
"It's just like before. There isn't even a trace of where the girl came from. It's like she popped out of nowhere. We even managed to find the footage from a dashcam and the back-up camera of a car that parked in the other end of the alley and looked at the security footage from a store across the other end of the alley. She just suddenly steps out of the shadows. We also questioned all of the tenants in the buildings and store owners, nobody saw where she came from.
It also seems that she doesn't remember anything that happened during her disappearance. I will ask the doctor if she has a concussion or anything else. But it does seem that she remembered what happened before she fainted in the hospital. All I could deduce is that she probably didn't go through anything traumatic and that she knew that she was going to lose her memory. Other than that it could be possible that she cooperated or knew her abductor.
And when I asked her about the writing, she read it and she did tell us about that part, but she didn't know what all of it meant, she only had a few assumptions- I'll write them in a report".
"Good work. You wrote a report about the bombing, right?"
"Yes, I already wrote all the clues we got about the terrorist group responsible and I also added the testimonies from Ashly's friends and family members about the reason she was there. I still have some questions for Ashy but everything I told her was shocking to her, so I'll go ask the doctor about her condition for now and question her in the afternoon."
"I need you to add the report you're making now to the report you made on the bombing. Report everything that happened since then and send it to me- write right from when the ambulance got to her- include all the details. I need to know about the personnel she's been in contact with, the testimonies from doctors, nurses and Ashly, all the security footage that you have, both of the medical reports, including her loss of memory, attach the photo of the writing on her arm and also the results from the forensics team about her clothes.
After that keep trying to find traces from everything."
"Copy, Sir".
The man the hung up.
Listening to the beeping sound, James sighed. He thought, 'The higher ups are probably really pressuring the Director if he asked me to directly call him and send him the report.'
© 2021 Scarlet Embers