"When has this started?" He asked, worried.
His voice. His voice. His voice.
"Ah- after my twenty third birthday. The day after," I managed. "At first... I thought... I was hungover..." I sucked some air in, "but it didn't stop."
He stopped for a second. "You are 23 years of age... already?" Disbelief hung heavy in the air.
"Yes. What's wrong with that?"
"... Nothing." He said. But the fear and sadness making its way into my heart told a different story.
He continued walking with a fast pace. I opened my eyes and looked up at him. His brows were creased, mirroring the worry and sadness that I felt. Where they his emotions?
When he noticed me staring at him, his expression turned into a blank slate. "How is your headache now? You seem to be in less pain than earlier."
He was right. My headache was almost gone.
"Yes, I'm feeling better. It's strange."
"Why is it strange?" He asked. We started seeing lights, and they looked like they were coming from a cottage-like building with a tower next to it. It must be an outpost for the forest rangers.
"It's strange because no matter how much of how many different types of painkillers I took, none of them helped with my headaches."
His eyes glanced down at me for a second, before returning to looking in front of him, "That is strange." He frowned. "But why did you look like you weren't experiencing any pain the last time I saw you?"
"So you DID save me then! No one, not even Kai who SAW it happen and even SPOKE to you, believed me when I told them that I was saved by you." I knew it. I knew I wasn't going crazy.
"It's also strange that you remember that." He said.
What? Does he mean that everyone forgot? Why? And why did I remember?
"Why was everyone supposed to forget? And... how? How did they forget?" I had to get answers. I had enough of this cryptic-talk and the questions flying around in my head because of it.
He didn't answer.
"Hello?? Am I invisible? Answer the question!" I was so irritated and frustrated. How hard was it to just answer a question?
Even... even if it had some weird answer.
He still wasn't answering.
"Okay. Okay. Are you an alien? Here to like... supervise our planet? Or, like, are we in a simulation run by... beings of sorts and you are one of them?"
He looked at me like I grew a second head, " What nonsense are you spewing?"
"Well, what am I supposed to think? You aren't answering any of my questions and I am getting tired of being ignored!" I wriggled in his arms, "Put me down!"
"You are hurt-"
"I SAID PUT ME DOWN!"
Exasperated, he put me down. When I was left to stand on my own two feet, I could feel my ankle screaming in agony. I did my best to look like I was fine; I had to stand my ground. We were only a small distance away from the outpost, and I had the feeling that once we got there, I would not get any answers.
"So childish," he said, rolling his eyes.
I looked up at the tall man. He looked like he was in his mid- to late twenties, but his eyes held a certain wisdom in them that made him seen much older. His handsome features and long dark hair must make all ladies want to fall at his feet.
I cleared my throat. "You are going to give me answers."
"As I said: it's useless." He crossed his arms.
"Is it because I'll forget anyway? Like everyone else?"
He nodded, but my intuition told me that there was more to it than that.
"Well, since I'll forget anyway, why not tell me?" I continued.
He sighed, frustrated with my continued poking for answers. "I'm not going to waste my breath. You do not need to know."
"Meiyi?! Is that you?" A familiar voice called out from the outpost.
"And he is another reason," the man said under his breath, and I could feel a tinge of jealousy and regret, before I was overwhelmed with joy as Kai picked me up and swung me in his arms. He held me tightly against him, and said in a tear-heavy voice, "I thought I'd never see you again."
"I'm fine, I'm okay," I smiled, hugging him back.
He pulled away, slipping some of the hair that escaped my braid behind my ear, "I'm so glad you found your way back."
Two of the rangers came with a first aid kit and checked me for injuries. I could feel my headache starting to return.
"I didn't. I was brought here by him," I said, pointing behind me. Kai frowned, and looked behind me. The rangers did the same and then glanced at each other, confused.
"Darling, there's no one there." Kai said.
I turned to where the man was standing behind me. There was no one.
Not again. He disappeared again.
"He was just here! Ponytail-guy, remember?" I said to Kai. He stared at me and the worry he was feeling was making my head pound harder. I rubbed my temples.
One of the forest rangers shone a little flashlight into my eyes, which did not help my headache at all, "Do you remember if you had hit your head, ma'am?"
"No, I haven't hit my head! I know what I saw!"
"She seems to be experiencing a headache, it's possible that she might have hit her head," the other ranger said.
Why wouldn't they believe me? Why was Kai glancing at me with that expression?
"I take medication for my headaches, it has just worn off," I explained. "I take it every night around 8pm."
Kai took both my hands in his, then nodded to the rangers, "She's right. It's 3am already, which is long past when she was supposed to take her medication."
The first ranger spoke again, "What kind of medication is it?"
"I brought it with, it's in my backpack," Kai said, pointing towards the outpost. "I put my backpack in there."
The forest rangers nodded. The other ranger bandaged my ankle and helped me walk with the others to the outpost.
Once there, they helped me sit down on a bed in a room which seemed to be made up as an infirmary. They left me there to be tended to by another forest ranger, a lady that looked twice my age.
I could see Kai take out the medication and show it to the rangers from where I was. They talked in concerned voices, but I couldn't make out anything of what they were saying.
"I'm Anna," the forest ranger said with a kind smile. I felt a warm feeling coming from her.
"I'm Meiyi, nice to meet you," I responded with a smile of my own.
"I can give you some painkillers for your headache," Anna said. "Would you like some?"
I kindly shook my head, "No, thank you. They don't help much."
"Alright then. I think you should lie down and get some sleep."
Suddenly I remembered the lady we were supposed to rescue earlier that day. I scanned the room and there was no one else there, except for me and Anna.
"What happened to the other lady? The one we found?" I asked Anna.
Anna took a second to search her memory and then it clicked, "Oh, you mean the lady that fell down and was stuck beneath a tree root?" I nodded.
"She might have a small fracture in her right shin, and she had a mild concussion, but she was fine. Her friend came to get her and took her to the hospital."
"I'm glad," I was relieved. But there was another question, "Did she say anything about me? I was with her the entire time."
Anna nodded, "Yes, she said that you were with her, but then she passed out and when she came to, your boyfriend was there with us, but you were gone."
Anna covered me with blankets and fluffed my pillow as she continued, "We were confused as to what might have happened to you, because your boyfriend said that he told you to stay there. Then we came to the conclusion that you might have fallen down the slope somehow, but you weren't there."
What? How was that possible? I woke up when it was dark already... They must have been able to find me lying there.
Anna frowned, "And it was weird, because even if you fell down the slope, you wouldn't have rolled down very far. So we didn't know how to even begin searching for you. There were no clues at all. It was as if you had vanished entirely."
I noticed that she didn't say anything about any random rain. "Did it start to rain while my boyfriend came to get you?"
She raised an eyebrow, "Rain? It didn't rain at all today."
I clearly remember it raining, and that was why I fell down the slope. What on earth was happening? Did they perhaps forget that it rained?
Does that mean that all these happenings had something to do with Ponytail-guy?
Was I really going mad?
"What DID happen to you?" Anna asked, curious.
I thought for a second. If I told Anna everything exactly as I experienced it, would she believe me? Or would she also look at me like I was a psychopath?
I decided to filter down my story a bit. I told her that I fell down the slope and when I woke up it was dark. I walked and walked until I saw lights and that was when I saw their outpost.
Anna believed me. She said that maybe I really did roll down further than they thought, and hit a tree, and that's why I lost consciousness.
She poured me a glass of water and tucked me into the bed. She wished me goodnight and then turned off the light.
I lied there, in the darkness once again, with a pounding head and questions circling in my mind.