suffocating me.
When I saw his hand separating from mine I was assailed by an inexplicable fear.
I could almost see myself as an external spectator, while my body tended towards what seemed to be the only lifeline to avoid falling into the void.
I jumped forward and suddenly the pain in my chest, just below my left shoulder, pierced me as if someone had stabbed me.
It was a moment and suddenly the whole reality around me became dark.
I felt disconnected, as if I had been catapulted into another world.
I was on an elegant and very spacious staircase.
In front of me there was that man's hand again.
It was leaning towards me and I could feel my body tensing towards it, but the pain in my chest returned stronger than ever.
My breath broke in my throat, while my body fell backwards, into the void.
I tried to counter the invisible force that was pulling me towards the abyss, but I could not.
In front of me there was only that man leaning forward to grab me.
I saw his hand extended to me, but I only managed to touch it for a split second.
I looked up for a brief moment before falling.
I met my gaze with that of the man.
I read a shadow of fear and disbelief in it.
"Aleksej", I whispered desperately for help, as his hand became more and more distant and the pain unbearable.
Then everything disappeared and darkness returned.
A darkness torn only by my own screams mixed with those of the man who called the doctors.
With my heart pumping frantically and my body shaking with fear, I opened my eyes and realized I was crying.
I was completely curled up on myself, like a sheet of paper before being thrown into the trash.
I blinked several times to free myself from tears and in the end I saw it: that man's hand was in mine.
I was squeezing it so tightly that my nails stuck in his skin.
That image was like a sweet awakening.
"I did it ... I got you ..." I stammered shaken by a tears of relief and shock at what seemed to be a hallucination, as I was back in the white room where I had woken up again.
"What are you saying?", he asked me confused and out of breath.
"I… I was falling. Aleksej… ", I tried to explain without knowing how to do it. I was so devastated that I couldn't come up with a meaningful sentence.
"Then you remember me now", he hissed with a hint of sarcasm in his voice that left me unsettled.
Aleksej.
Yes, I remembered him, even if for the moment it was just a name and a physical body, devoid of an identity.
A little light of hope and memories of a distant and confused past.
I smiled with relief.
At that moment the doctor and two nurses came running.
I immediately heard the man get angry and shout something. It took me a moment, but then I realized that he was speaking another language.
A language that I gradually felt I knew.
They were talking about post-traumatic shock, reabsorbing brain hemorrhage, anxiolytics, while the man next to me was furious at not being warned about what had just happened and screamed that he was paying them enough to get answers about my health to make me heal.
"We don't know how long it will take, but surely we talk about at least a week", the doctor tried to say in the same foreign language.
"A week?!", the other got angry.
"Discharge her earlier could be risky. The microfracture of the skull takes time and the hemorrhage is not yet completely reabsorbed. In these cases, hospitalization cannot be less than two weeks."
"I don't want to stay here!", I interjected worriedly, clutching that hand to my chest from which I could no longer separate myself.
"You also speak Russian ... Why doesn't that surprise me?" the man hissed nervously, turning to me with a look so sharp that it left me breathless.
With a yank, he freed his hand from my grip.
"No…", I blew softly as if they had blown air out of my lungs.
"Keep her as long as you want, but I want this shame to end", the man growled, getting up from my bed and walking towards the door. Then he looked back at me. "And you, Kendra, have until tomorrow to… get your memory back. The time to play is long over."
"Aleksej", I whispered again in anguish, but he left leaving me at the mercy of myself and those doctors who immediately came to visit me and fill me with questions.
I was frightened because, as the questions increased, the awareness of having a big black hole in my head became more and more clear and vivid inside me.
The question that tormented me was: who am I?
Aleksej was the only thing I remembered.
He was my foothold in order not to drown in anxiety.
I wondered who I was and remembered that he had called me Kendra, but that name meant nothing to me.
I asked the nurses several times about Aleksej, but they didn't seem to want to listen to me.
I felt panic overwhelm me again, but before I could react and run to the only person I remembered, the doctor got a shot and shortly after I fell asleep.
CHAPTER 3
KENDRA
"Kendra, would you like if we try to concentrate and visualize your memories again?", asked the psychologist to whom my neurologist had addressed, after spending two days controlling my panic attacks and my seizures, that had started ever since I realized I had lost my memory.
Unfortunately, even with the psychologist things weren't going much better.
Every time I closed my eyes, I relived the same scene: I falling down the stairs, trying to grab Aleksej's hand.
The doctor had explained to me that this was not a hallucination, but a flashback of what had happened and that caused my hospitalization due to the injuries, including a skull fracture, a sprained ankle, a fracture of the meniscus, an injury to the right arm, a bruise on the face and a bad wound in the chest whose cause I had not yet understood.
For the doctors I was a miracle worker, because I could have died or been paralyzed due to the fall.
In those two days, I had done a lot of tests and finally the cerebral hemorrhage had disappeared with great relief for everyone.
However, Aleksej had not yet shown himself, and the more time passed, the more restless I felt.
I had repeatedly asked about him and if anyone knew why he was angry with me, everyone had avoided my questions with embarrassment.
"Kendra?" the psychologist called me back, bringing me back to reality.
"I've already told you. I don't remember anything. I don't know my name, where I come from, how I ended up here and, even though I know that the man is called Aleksej, I don't really remember anything about him. I just know that he knows me and he seems very angry with me. I don't understand ... What have I done to him? Why does he know me?"
"Let's try to get back to you."
"I'm sick of being bombarded with questions I can't answer" I blurted out, feeling my headache come back, like every time I fidgeted or struggled to