Chapter 132 REALITY
MERRIELYNN
AGE 16
My eyes opened slowly, and everything felt wrong.
The light was too bright.
It hurt to look at directly, so I blinked several times, trying to adjust while my vision swam in and out of focus.
I stared up at the ceiling. White tiles stretched above me, and there was a water stain in the corner that looked vaguely like a cloud. I didn’t know why I was looking at a ceiling, or where I was, or what I was doing here.
I tried to turn my head and pain exploded through the back of my skull.
It was dull, but impossible to ignore, like someone had driven a spike straight through my head and I was still healing.
I gasped and froze, waiting for the pain to fade into something manageable.
The room started coming into focus around me. The walls were white and plain. There was a small window with thin, worn curtains that didn’t quite close all the way.
A monitor beepedsteadilysomewhere to my right.
This looked like a hospital room. Or at least, something close to one.
I looked down at my arm and saw an IV taped to the inside of my elbow. The tube snaked upward to a bag of clear fluid hanging from a metal pole beside the bed.
But something felt off about this place.
It was too quiet. The walls looked dingy, like they hadn’t been painted in years.
I tried to think about how I’d ended up here, but when I reached back into my memory, all I got was this heavy fog.
Like trying to see through smoke.
Where had I been before this?
The question sat there in my mind with no answer following it.
Why was I here?
Nothing.
I reached up slowly and felt thick bandages wrapped around the back of my head. They were rough against my fingertips, and when I pressed down even slightly, the pain flared up again.
What happened to me?
I didn’t know.
I couldn’t...remember.
The door swung open and a woman in scrubs walked in. Her face brightened when she saw me awake, and she smiled like she’d been waiting for this.
“Oh, good,” she said, walking toward the bed. “You’re up.”
I just stared at her because I didn’t know what else to do.
She picked up a clipboard that had been hanging at the foot of the bed and scanned it quickly before looking back at me. Her smile was still there, but it looked practiced now.
“Do you know where you are?” she asked.
I opened my mouth but no sound came out at first. I had to clear my throat and try again.
“No,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse and unfamiliar, like it didn’t quite belong to me.
Something shifted in her expression, but the smile didn’t drop. “That’s alright. Do you remember how you got here?”
I tried again to reach back, to find something that would explain this room or this woman or the pain splitting through my head. But there was nothing.
I shook my head slowly, and the movement made everything tilt sideways for a second.
“I don’t,” I whispered. “I don’t remember.”
And thenI realized...I didn’t just not remember how I got here.
I didn’t remember anything at all.
My chest tightened and I looked up at her, feeling panic start to creep in from somewhere deep. “I can’t...I don’t know what—”
“It’s okay,” she said quickly, reaching out to rest her hand on my shoulder. Her touch was light and meant to be comforting, but it just made me feel more disconnected. “It’s okay. You had a head injury.”
A head injury?
How?
“You’ll be meeting with the alpha of our pack soon,” she continued, pulling her hand back and checking something on the monitor beside me. “But first I need to make sure your vitals are stable.”
Alpha?
Pack?
I didn’t understand what those words meant either, but I didn’t ask. I just watched as she moved around the bed, pressing her fingers to my wrist to check my pulse, holding a thermometer under my tongue, asking me to follow her finger with my eyes while she moved it back and forth.
How I knew these words... the meanings and uses of the items around me.... I wasn’t even sure
I did everything she asked, but it felt like I was watching someone else go through the motions. Like I was floating somewhere outside my body, just observing.
When she finished, she gave me that same professional smile. “You’re doing great. I’ll be right back.”
Then she left, and the door clicked shut behind her.
I sat there in the silence, staring down at my hands where they rested on top of the thin blanket. They looked like they should be mine. They moved when I wanted them to.
My fingers brushed against something around my neck and I pulled it out from under the hospital gown.
A silver necklace.
The pendant was blue and smooth, cool against my palm when I held it. I turned it over, examining it from every angle, waiting for something to click. For some flicker of recognition to surface.
Nothing came.
The door opened again and the nurse poked her head back in. “Alright, you’re going to see the alpha now.”
She pushed the door wider and another girl appeared in the doorway. She looked about my age, maybe slightly older, and she was chewing gum so loudly I could hear the snap and pop of it from across the room.
“I’m Evelyn,” she said flatly,“Come on.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, moving carefully because everything still felt unsteady. When my feet touched the cold floor, I had to grip the edge of the mattress to keep from swaying.
Evelyn just stood there watching me, still chewing her gum, completely unbothered by how long it was taking me to stand.
I followed her out of the room, keeping one hand on the wall as we walked through a narrow hallway.
The walls were the same dingy white as the room I’d just left, and the floor was scuffed linoleum that stuck slightly to the bottom of my bare feet.
We went through a side door and stepped outside.
The sunlight hit me hard and I had to raise my hand to shield my eyes. When they finally adjusted, I looked around at where we were.
The buildings surrounding us were falling apart. Paint peeled off in long, curling strips. Some of the windows were broken and patched over with cardboard or plywood.
The pavement under my feet was cracked in a dozen places, weeds forcing their way up through the gaps. Everything looked worn down and forgotten, like no one had bothered to take care of any of it in years.
I must have made some kind of face because Evelyn glanced over at me and let out a sharp scoff.
“What?” she said, her tone cutting. “You thinking you’re way better than this place, huh?”
I looked at her, confused. “No, I wasn’t—”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and kept walking.
I followed behind her, trying to brush off the interaction as we crossedwhat looked like it used to be a courtyard. The grass was patchy and overgrown, and there were a few benches scattered around that looked like they’d collapse if anyone actually sat on them.
Evelyn led me toward another building. This one was in slightly better shape than the others, but not by much. The door hung crooked on its hinges and she had to shove it with her shoulder to get it open.
“Go in the door on the right,” she said, jerking her thumb down a dim hallway.
I hesitated for a second, then walked past her into the building.
The hallway was dark and smelled like stale cigarette smoke mixed with something damp and musty. I found the door on the right and pushed it open slowly.
The office inside was tiny.
A desk sat in the middle of the room, buried under stacks of paper piled so high I couldn’t even see the surface underneath. The walls had wood paneling that was chipping away in places, and the furniture looked like it had been pulled from different places over the years. Nothing matched. Nothing looked new.
A man sat behind the desk with a cigar hanging from his mouth. He looked up when I walked in, and his eyes were tired and bloodshot, like he hadn’t slept properly in days.
“Come in,” he said around the cigar, gesturing lazily toward the chair across from him.
I crossed the small space and lowered myself into the chair. It creaked under my weight, and I folded my hands in my lap, unsure of what I was supposed to do.
He took a long drag from the cigar and then exhaled slowly. Smoke curled up toward the stained ceiling, hanging there in the still air.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to answer.
And there was nothing.
I frowned, digging through my mind for something that should have been right there. Something as basic and fundamental as my own name.
But I couldn’t find it.
Why?
“I don’t—” My voice came out shaky. “I don’t know.”
The supposed alpha let out a long sigh and dragged his hand down his face. He muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t make out.
Then he looked at me again, and his expression was flat and unreadable.
“Well,” he said slowly, leaning back in his chair until it groaned. “All you need to know for now is that the past is in the past. This is your life now.”
He tapped ash from his cigar into a chipped tray sitting on the edge of the desk.
“Your name is Merrielynn Forbes,” he said. “And this is, and has always been your home.”