He never answered my question. He reacted with inhuman speed. He never talked to me, but he kept eye contact, almost like he hoped that if he looked at me long enough I would remember.
He picked me up, when I protested that I could walk on my own he just gripped me tighter. He didn’t want me to make my own decisions. He just kept walking in the dark cave until we reached an elevator. We traveled up for a short time. Five minutes later he carries me out and into a pure white room. It hurt my eyes so much that I had to squint. I didn't notice any lights in the room, it seemed like the ceiling was just glowing.
He still won't let me stand on my own. I gave up struggling out of his grip long ago, now I lay in his arms. Nothing romantic about it; like I am a victim and he is the hero. Just when my eyes adjust enough to see him clearly, a group of people in blue and white hospital gown flood into the room. Following them is a gurney. He lays me down on it, but he keeps my arm pressed in his hand.
His hand is calloused. I wish I knew why. I bet it was from all that hard work running in those caves. I don’t know where these though are coming from. They just crash into my brain. It feels normal, but so wrong at the same time. Like thinking these things were once okay, but not anymore.

A sharp pain pinches the inside of my elbow. I look down to see him pushing a needle into me. The liquid inside is red. When half of it is in me, he plucks it out and pushed the tip into his own flesh. He lets the rest of it go into his arm. Then a nurse is grabbing my other arm and sticking a clear needle in. My vision blurs and the lights starts to focus then unfocus again, never seeing a clear picture.

The last thing I see is the faint outline of his beautiful face over mine. “I love you Jess. you can make it. You will make it. I will help you in any way I can. I love you.” I want to respond. But my head goes numb. My eyes are suddenly very heavy.

I can’t see him anymore, but I feel the faint kiss on my forehead. Words are flying around me and I can’t contain them all.
I let the darkness come, it engulfs me in a blissful sleep. Will I wake up? I don’t know; but I’m thankful for this silent moment with just my thoughts.

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The noise is like a bomb going off in my head.
The fluorescent lights are blinding me. I try to open my eyes and all I can do is squint at then while me head pounds against my skull. I take a deep breath, and stop thinking. As I drift back to sleep, I feel the faint pressure still holding my hand.
He still hasn't moved, he hasn't even let me go. He must really care about me. I wish I knew his story. I can feel it deep in my subconscious; the story of the boy and how he has come to care for me.
"Hey, Jess," he whispers, "How ya' feeling?"
"Hi." Is all I can muster out. I remember his rigid muscles and perfect skin. All his beautiful details coming back to me. I'm suddenly nervous to talk to him. "Um, ya'. I, uh, i guess I'm alive." I giggle for no reason but to hide my shyness. I feel way more self conscious around him then I should.
"There's that, I guess," he says it with a goofy smile that makes him seem cute, not rough and handsome like earlier, more childish. "Do you, uh, remember anything?" He has obviously been dreading this question. His hand trembles in mine, all drenched in sweat now. He rubs his neck with the other, waiting for my answer.
"Not really, sorry," I tell him. I looked away, not wanting to look at his disappointment, especially since I caused it. "But I bet it will all come back to me!" I say a little too enthusiastically. He liked that, his smile even comes back. "How bout you help me jog my memory? Yeah, and you, uh, never told me your name." I trail off, not wanting to offend him.
"Oh, yeah. Um, it's Jason. Yeah, Jason." He is really nervous, but he carries himself. I appreciated that, not putting his emotional baggage on others.
"Well Jason, I would really appreciate if you could give me some sleep." I tried to make it sound like a request, but it came out more like an order.
"Sure, of course. You probably are tired. I'll just be waiting here. Uh, sweet dreams." He said it like a question. Maybe he feels uncomfortable talking to me without me knowing who he is. I like him though, and he cares for me. Jason and Jess, sounds right to me.

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The next time I wake up, Jason is gone. I panick, pulling my head off the pillow, looking around frantically for him. Breathing gets harder, and I start to feel sweat trickle down my temple. I feel naked; I look down and notice the IV tubes are still in me. I’m about to rip them out, when Jason walks in. The wave of relief washes through me. My heartbeat fades away in the background, I never noticed I was listening to it.
“Please. Do not rip those out,”he says each word like a sentence. Walking slowly towards me, until I move my hand away from the needles in my arm.
“Where did you go?” I ask him in concern. “I was worried you left me, I thought it was all a dream.” I didn’t mean to say that last part out loud. Oh god, now I’ve done it. He thinks I am crazy.
“Why would I ever leave you?”
Was not expecting that response. I guess he really does care about me. Enough to dismiss my crazy talk. “I just thought that I had a crazy dream, that’s all.”
“Well, did some sleep help jog the memory?” he has a hopeful tone in his voice, but he has made walls. Walls that protect him from me.
“I think we should talk about this.”
“I’m guessing that’s a no on the memory thing?” He laughs at his own response. I start to giggle but he cuts me off. “Okay, we should talk. First off, what is your name?”
“Why would you ask me that? Don’t you know my name?” I think he is just teasing me but his face is set, not humor behind it.
“Yes, I know know your name. My question was, do you know you name?” He gestures for my answer. Waiting to see how much damage there really is.
“My name is Jess.” He sighs in relief, but hides it quickly.
“Your full name?”
“Jessica Grace Ralone.” I answer, with what I guess was my normal sass because he laughs and looks at the ground, trying to control himself.
“At least your not a sack of complete uselessness.”
“I feel honored to be called ‘not a complete sack of uselessness.’” We both laugh together, the noise is beautiful. As the time rolls by, second by second, the room fades into silence. He makes the same determined eye contact with me.
“Okay, moving on. What is my full name?”
“Jason. That is all I know. Sorry?” I want to hear him laugh again, but he looks down. I upset that I caused him this pain. All because I happen to forget everything in a blink of an eye.
“My full name is Jason Mckenzie Raker. Does that ring a bell?” The name stumps me, but I felt the twitch of memory when he said his name. Like we were meeting again for the first time.
“Jason Mckenzie Raker.” His name comes off choppy on my lips.
“Yeah, that be my name.” the way he said that makes us both laugh a little. I thought it was funny just with his tone; but he makes a big deal about using the wrong grammar, “Sorry, I meant to say, ‘Yes, that is my name.’” He goes all serious again.
“Why did you just correct your grammar?”
“Oh boy. You are gonna have a lot to catch up on when the Herron calls us back.”
“Who is the Heron?”
“Lets just say he is in charge of every move you make and you should not defy their rules. Okay? I’ll give you the insight before we go back.”
“It doesn't sound like you like this guy.”
“Girl.”
“What?”
“The Herron is a women.”
“You're scared of a women?” I laugh in disbelief. There was no way that Jason, a buff dude, was afraid of a women.
“You should be scared of her too. She will tear you to shreds if you treat her badly. The last person who defied her rule was sent to the jungle for a week. He almost died, poor kid.” He says it quietly, like he is afraid someone might hear him and tell.
“Oh. Um, how old was he?”
“Who?”
“The kid who was sent to the jungle?”
“Only twelve.” He lets out a long breath of air.
We stay in silence for a minute. I was about to ask him something when a nurse walks in with a clipboard and a bag of clothes. “Mrs. Ralone?”
“Yes?”
“It seems like you had quite a mess during your simulation. Lucky for you this boy saved you.” She points to Jason without looking up. “All your sighs are good. A bit of a bump on you head, not sure from what, but you will be fine.”
“What about her memory?” Jason asks her impatiently.
“Well, her memory definitely was a shocker. We don’t know what caused the memory loss. Her brain scan turned up negative for any distress, so we honestly have no clue.”
“What do you think will happen? Will her memory come back?”
“I can’t say. We will just have to wait and see; but for now you are physically fine. So, here are you clothes; and we will be calling you back in a week for a check up,” she looks only at Jason now. “and if anything seems wrong with her, besides her memory, you just bring her back. You hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”Jason gives her complete respect, taking me clothes politely away, and holding the door for her on the way out. “You change, and I’ll be waiting in the hallway.
I tug my pants and shirt on, then my running shoes. I realize this is my training gear as I finish up. I pull the door open, looking to my left, then my right. Jason is standing with straight legs, head up, hands behind his back. The perfect stance of the waiting soldier.
We walk through the hospital, finding the exit. As we walk through the doors I ask him,”Hey?”
“Yeah?”
“What do we even do?”
“Thats is a long story. I’ll tell you later.”
“Okay, I guess.”

Jason walked me around for a few hours; he showed me all the building and streets, stating little facts about them every now and then. We saw tall buildings that had blinking lights and long glass windows that let you see into the entire building. We saw broken streets that looked like giant pieces of swiss cheese, filled with potholes. There were twisted wires littered along the streets, rusted cars with missing tires parked along the curbs. “Wow. This is amazing! How does a perfectly functioning skyscraper be on one block then a broken street on the next?”

“It was all a big city that had average buildings and streets everywhere. Now, the government has put all of the money to making certain buildings and neighborhoods as pristine as possible,” Jason’s voice was a flurry of high and low voices. It was kind of cute.

“Why would they do that?” I asked him.

“They wanted to get rid of the weak and only keep the strongest parts,” he explained.

“But then all this space goes to waste! What about homeless families and all of those people?” I demanded.

“Exactly what the government wants them to do. They crawl the streets, beg for food and money, whatever they can get really.”

“That’s terrible,” I whispered. I was walking around in crisp clothes and clean shoes while these poor people scrape by day by day. “How can you live like this? Knowing that people are starving and freezing on the streets!”

Jason just started at me, then looked down the street. An old women, with a small child in tow, was looking threw a trashcan. They obviously haven't bathed in days, and they both had a skinny figure that showed their bones with tight wrapped skin. They had dirt smudged on their faces and teeth with wicked ridges. I was so sorry for them. The lady looked me in the eyes, pleading for who knows what. Her child tuned, showing off his stained clothing and oiled hair.
I moved toward them, but Jason grabbed my arm and yanked me back around the corner. “You can’t help them, Jess.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“The laws prohibit supplying the unwanteds with any form of helpful products.” Every word was painful to say for him. The way he said it. He has never seemed more pained since I have known him. Even when I was going in and out of consciousness, he was more calm than now. It was like the phrase has been drilled into his mind and was forced out of his mouth.
“That is so wrong!” I screamed, “Who made that stupid law and when can I hurt them in the face?”
“Shhhhhhh!” He covered my mouth with his hand. “You can’t say that. You’ll get us both on probation!”
“What? Is it illegal for me to speak freely now too?”
“No, but it is illegal for a uniformed soldier to say that aloud in public.”
“Uniformed soldier? What?”
“Look at what you’re wearing Jess. Uniform.”
He was right! I was decked out in full uniform. Combat boots, high socks, plain black tanktop and desert army cargo pants. Jason was wearing the same thing, except instead of a loose tanktop, he wore a tight fitting tee that defined his muscles nicely.
“How did you not notice that you were in uniform?”
“I don’t know? I just dressed and walked away from the hospital with you. Why am I wearing these anyway?”
“They were the clothes you were wearing when I brought you into the hospital. It was all they had to give you.”
“Why was I wearing this before?” I really wanted an answer. I just don’t know why I would be wearing a soldier’s uniform.
“We were in a simulation, remember?”
“Can someone please explain what the damn simulation is?” Now I was just mad. First my memory flies away, then I can’t help the helpless, now I don’t even know where I got these clothes from!
“Okay, lets go back to the barracks and I can explain everything.” Jason pulled my arm, and as we rounded the corner, away from the women, I swear I saw him drop a five dollar bill on the ground.
“Jason, you dropped-,”
“Just don’t say anything, okay?”
“Sure, how long of a walk to the barracks?”
“About ten minutes, just relax and everything will work out. I’ll arrange for us to get the next week off for medical rehabilitation.”

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As we entered the barracks, a man saluted us and Jason waved him down. He winked at us and nodded his head towards me. “What was that about?” I asked Jason as soon as the guard was out of earshot. “What was he hinting at?”
“Us.”
“Us?”
“Yeah, everyone here knows that we’re dating.”
“Wait. What? Since when were we dating?” Okay, I know that my mind was telling me something, but dating? A full scale relationship? I wouldn’t think I would do this.
“Well, lets just get back to the room, and-,”
“What room?”
“Our room?
"Why do we have a room together?” The thought of sharing a room with a guy was a bit disturbing. Dating was one thing but living together? We must of had a pretty deep relationship.
“We started sharing the room when we were both top ranked in our class. Our parents agreed to it when we left our families.” the words came out at an awkward chock, he was looking at his feet, avoiding my eyes.
“Why did we leave our families?”
“Every soldier leaves their family when they graduate into the academy.”
“Okay. So why don’t we just get this moving. I would like to know what I’m running blind into before I wake up tomorrow.”
“Lets just get to the room first, before discussing anything. I don’t think anyone knows about what happened yet.” He slipped his hand into mine. Even though it felt right, I just couldn't stand to hold hands with a man I hardly knew.
“Please don't touch me right now. Okay?” I yanked my hand away from his, and held my arms out, indicating him to lead the way. He crossed his arms and stocked away, with me in tow.