By Gianna Liantonio

“Where are we?” I ask sitting up, rubbing my neck. I brush leaves off me as I see we are in the middle of some type of forest. I see nothing but hundreds of trees, with only an opening showing the sky. There are no ways of knowing if we’re near a city or even a road with civilization.

My two friends Lily and Naomi stand up and look around, probably thinking what I am.

 “How did we get here? The last thing I remember we were–” Naomi pauses, scrunching her eyebrows.

“What is it?” I ask her.

She looks at me and Lily. “I don’t remember anything. It’s like there is a brick wall and my memories are on the other side.” I try to see what I can remember, but the same thing happens to me.

 “How is that possible? We had to have gotten here somehow!” Naomi exclaims. I look over at Lily, hoping she maybe remembers something.

 “Lily, do you remember anything?” However, she doesn’t hear me. She is just looking down, her whole body shaking. I go over to her. “Lily–” I start to say followed by a scream that escapes me as I look at her hands. Niaomi rushes over to see what I screamed at and she freezes looking too. Lily’s hands, up to her wrists, are covered in blood. 

“What did you do?!” I exclaim. She couldn’t have killed anyone, right? She looks up at us, her eyes watering. “I-I don’t know.” 

“Why is there so much blood?” Naomi asks, scared, her whole body turning white as a ghost. 

“I don’t know! How could I do something like this and not remember?” 

I put my hands on her shoulders trying to calm her down. “Okay okay, hey look at me,” I say and wait till she meets my eyes. When they do, I continue, “Maybe you were trying to save someone. I know you Lily, you would never hurt someone. You’re not capable of killing anyone.” 

Her expression slowly shifts and she nods, taking deep breaths nodding. It quickly shifts back to panic as she says, “But, we don’t know that! We have no memories of anything. What if something changed and I had to–” She cuts herself off, not able to finish the sentence.

“Let’s not go there until we absolutely have to, okay?” I try to assure her, but she still looks uncertain. I’d be too if I was her. 

After a beat of silence, Naomi says, “One thing we can do is try to get out of this forest. We will get no answers  just standing here. Maybe we can ask around and see at least where we are.”

I nod knowing we have no other options at the moment. “Let’s go,” I say and together we walk, trying to make sense of everything. 

What they don’t know is I remember everything, and it’s all a matter of time until they do too. We won’t be as friendly. 

They don’t remember what I did.