That house had been calling to me for days, the same way the district had, the city had. An invisible tugging at my soul had pulled me along, all across the country by car, by boat, by plane, even on foot. The urge had guided me, unbidden and without reason or justification, the only purpose I had left in me; somehow I knew it would bring the thing I craved most: answers. Answers to why I had woken up in an alleyway two or so months ago with the past four years of my life completely missing from my memory. Answers to why everyone I used to know seemed surprised to learn I wasn’t dead. Answers to why everything in my life suddenly felt so wrong, or, at least, more wrong than usual.
Even if my memories would otherwise have been the least bit helpful, they were blurry at best. I’d awoken that day, dirty, sore and with a headache that could render even the most skilled wordsmith at a complete loss for any sort of clever witticism. I’d been leaning on a dumpster, ass firmly planted on a greasy cardboard box, and barely able to string together the faintest idea of what I’d done “last night.” Of course, soon afterward I would come to realize that “last night” was actually roughly four years and two months prior to when I’d awoken. And, given the fact that I was fairly certain said night had involved some sort of depressive episode and a lot of alcohol, even if it hadn’t been four years since then -- which it definitely had -- my memory was likely to be spotty regardless.
For a full month and a half I tried, and failed, to reassemble the scattered and shattered pieces of my life. My apartment was long since leased to new tenants, my bank accounts closed, my old job now so saturated with new faces that hardly a soul had even heard of me. I had nothing, nothing except old, distant friends and relatives, along with an ever growing voice that prodded at the corners of my mind, calling to me from an unknown, and far, far off place. Which wasn’t to say those friends and relatives weren’t relieved to see me alive and well. But no matter who they were, how close we had been, things were different. I was different and I didn’t know how. Even my own parents seemed to be existing in some other world from my own. A world where things could just go back to the way they used to be, but they couldn’t. Something was wrong.
I was empty inside. Stripped of my past, and beyond that something far more important. Something key to my very being, that cut straight into the heart of who and what I was. I tried for far too long to stand on the shaky foundation provided by those around me. Many a couch was slept on, many a job application to some minimum-wage position or another submitted. But it wasn’t enough, it was never enough. I was incomplete, and everyone around me saw it, even if they refused to acknowledge it. It was why I could never find more than short-term temp work, why friends spoke in hushed tones whenever I left the room, why my parents grew increasingly insistent I move back in with them. To put it plainly, I was a modern day Phineas Gage; some part of me had been left behind when whatever proverbial steel rod had blown right through me and taken my memories and sense of self with it.
That was why I’d been so relieved when, after a month and a half, the dreams started. They were never particularly clear, and I hardly ever remembered much of them, but there were some things I could always count on. There was always a woman, always a house, and I always, always felt whole in them. Beyond that it was difficult to discern much, but there were some common details yet. For one, I often seemed to be looking up at the woman. She never made any attempt to harm me, but there was something about her that intimidated me nonetheless. Lastly I knew she was incredibly beautiful, though her appearance eluded me.
The house was more difficult. Really, all there was for me to be certain of was that the house was very large, a place I could easily get lost in if I weren’t so intimately familiar with it. But none of that really mattered, all that truly mattered was that the feeling I had in those dreams -- the feeling of wholeness, no matter how blurred -- was one I needed to pursue. And luckily -- or perhaps it was not luck at all -- I somehow instinctively knew where to go, as with the dreams came the bolstering of that pull I felt deep within the void which had been left in my mind. And it brought direction.
With that direction tugging me along, I found myself on a Greyhound bus, with a suitcase containing all my possessions -- mostly clothes -- and a brand new bank account containing the few thousands of dollars I’d managed to scrounge between working odd jobs and borrowing from my parents. And so I traveled. I bussed, hitchhiked, and, as mentioned before, even flew when the time and money evened out properly. A week and a half of bad sleep and few chances to stretch my legs later, I found myself inside the city, in a cheap, but serviceable motel room, and a burning sense that I was on the right track.
It didn’t take long for the pull to guide me toward that house, the one from my dreams. It wasn’t too old, but certainly not brand new, likely built within that last three or so decades. It was large and stately, somewhere on the small end of what one might consider a mansion. The outside was trimmed with a dark, reddish brown that gave way into a more pale beige. Many a balcony and overhang were supported by thin, but sturdy looking columns matching the color of the trim, and all around it, the blinds to each and every window remained drawn no matter what the time of day was. I’d spent days around its perimeter, tracing its boundaries, trying desperately to determine how and why it felt so familiar, so quintessential to the core of my being.
The house had a calming aura, though, and no matter how hard I tried to sweat the details, I found myself simply wanting to go inside -- and perhaps, never come out. She was in there. I somehow knew it, that woman who’d appeared over and over again in the dreams that called me to this spot. Was this all her doing? Did she have the answers to why I’d become like this? Could she explain why everything had felt so deeply, profoundly wrong -- from my mood, to my day-to-day life, to my very shape -- ever since I’d awoken? Would she know why the hole that had been left in me seemed to leak discomfort and unease to the point that even looking myself in the mirror would make me feel sick sometimes?
I’d told myself it was the lack of memory time and time again, that there was a part of myself missing, and that without it I could never truly feel like myself. That whatever form I took would feel unnatural when I didn’t even have a natural anymore. I still believed it, to a certain extent, but I couldn’t help but wonder -- what if the part of me that was missing brought with it some uncomfortable truth that would shatter what little sense of self I even had left? What if I had been some kind of monster? That I felt such disgust with myself out of guilt? Thoughts of what truth might lay within those walls frightened me to no end, but I knew that truth existed there. It had to; I’d been inside before, it was the only explanation.
Unfortunately, getting inside was its own challenge; it wasn’t as though I could simply walk up to the front door and knock. I had no sense of what could be inside and whether or not it had my best interest at heart. To make matters worse, I was certain the woman lived inside; I had no evidence to prove it, but that pull within me insisted it was the case. Unfortunately, I never saw her come or go. I’d staked the place out for hours, watching for any activity inside the windows or at the front door or garage, and nothing ever happened. Eventually, I had to make a difficult decision: I would go in blind, like it or not.
Which brought me to the property's edge, in the middle of the night, armed with nothing but a little crowbar if things broke bad. I stole across the lawn, having already checked and rechecked for cameras to no avail, and deciding to make a break for it. The risk was great, but it was either find a way inside, or live the rest of my life incomplete. The choice had been easy, after all. Taking care to make as little noise I could, I approached a side window on the first floor, pressing my hand to it, only to find, to my surprise, that it popped right open as though nothing at all held it in place. Fear gripped me for a moment; it was all too convenient, as though the house were inviting me inside like some wooden, inanimate angler fish flashing its light at me temptingly. I took the bait nonetheless; there was nothing it could offer me worse than going on as I had, an empty husk of a person.
Once inside, I found myself in a fairly generic, if a little sparse, living room. The details were difficult to make out, as there was little to no light, but I had no trouble stealing around chairs, couches, coffee tables and the like. For the same reason I’d known to come to this city, for the same reason I knew what district and street to find this house on, I instinctively knew where I needed to go. A location, a room within the house called to me, pulling me into its orbit. Not wasting a moment, I crept up the stairs, down the hall, and to the left, entering what seemed to be a repurposed bedroom. My hand found the light-switch instinctively; there was no need to fumble about for it in the slightest, and I would need its light, there was something inside I needed to find. The lights flickered on.
I seemed to be standing within some kind of shrine or memorial. Arranged throughout the room were the personal effects of some woman. I didn’t know who she was, but instinctively I knew she wasn’t the woman I’d seen before in my dreams, and I also somehow knew she was important to me, though not why or how. There were clothes displayed on hangers and mannequins, a makeup table, a shelf full of hand-painted miniatures that I would, in other circumstances, feel quite compelled to admire. On a bookshelf was an assortment of titles from cookbooks to romance novels to the sort of books one might read for a high school or university literature course. There were a few framed photos, but they’d been placed face-down; perhaps looking at them had become too painful for whomever created the place. On a central table, a jewelry box had been placed, containing a gorgeous engagement ring.
Everything I’d seen so far had been oddly compelling, alluring, in a comforting, almost nostalgic way. Also melancholy; this seemed to be a shrine to a lost loved one, and I couldn’t help but feel bad for whomever had so lovingly compiled all I saw before me. Despite that, I hadn’t yet found what I was looking for. There was something else; the pull told me that. I stepped delicately through the room, past items displayed here and there as I felt the pull grow stronger. Then I saw it. It was the last thing I’d have expected to be calling to me from across an entire country, but, on a little table, along with several restraints, dildos and other sexual props, was a leather kink collar.
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[squeaking]
Woah. This is starting off intensely.
What a mysterious premise!
Woah this is interesting