Awake by Natasha Preston

grey. I took it all in and nothing. Closing my eyes, I tried to put myself back there. To walking into the building with someone holding my hand. There was mud and rubble under my feet. The warehouse was abandoned. My white dress skimmed the ground as I walked.
    I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the top of my nose, feeling a banging headache coming on.
    Remember.
    It shouldn’t be that hard. I’d lived through those four years; I should be able to remember them. My head constantly hurt where I desperately tried to fix the broken link in my mind.
    Remember.
    Evelyn. Focus on her. She was the only name I knew of the strange faces I saw. I wished I knew who she was. I didn’t see much of her face, but she was pretty and had light brown hair that fell to her waist and curled at the ends. That was all I knew about her but it was still a lot more than the others.
    She was running with Jeremy. Where? What were they doing?
    Remember.
    The soft glow of candlelight made them seem dream-like, but I knew better than that. They were in the room that was hot, too. I couldn’t remember if I was playing with anyone but at the time I was just standing and watching them. Why wouldn’t I have joined in? Me and Jeremy played all the time when we were younger.
    I leaned back against the metal wall and gripped my hair. I was back there, playing the same memory over and over in my mind, desperately trying to extend it past the few short seconds it lasted. What happened next? I imagined a broken link and fixed it in my head, hoping, praying that it’d somehow trick my mind into mending whatever went wrong after the accident.
    It happened, I was there. I could do this.
    Gripping my hair tighter, I whimpered as my head started to throb. Stay with it. Don’t give up. Everything was inside my head; I just had to let it out. Think. Remember. Please. I tried to do what Dr Pain got me to do and manipulate the memory. I paused it, keeping Evelyn still in my mind. All I could see was the side of her face, her rosy cheek, button nose and the corner of her eye.
    Remember.
    I imagined I was with her, standing by her side, slightly taller because back then I was only a few inches shorter than Jeremy, and she only came up to his shoulder. She wore a white dress like the one I’d been wearing. I didn’t feel anything when she was there.
    “Ahh,” I cried, pressing down on my forehead as pain sliced through my head.
    The memories of me crying and boiling from the candles made my heart race in the worst way. Evelyn brought on nothing. But the candles might.
    The smell, warmth and feel of having candles alight may do something. I’d been around them before, of course, but I wasn’t focused on them before. I turned around yet again and jogged home, hoping this latest direction would work.
    Mum and Dad were watching a movie in the living room when I got home. Jeremy’s car wasn’t in the drive, so he was probably off with Amie. “Is that you, Scarlett?” Dad called.
    “Yeah.”
    “Do you want to watch Golden Gun with us? It’s just starting.”
    “No, thanks, I’m going to have a bath.”
    “Okay,” he replied, and I headed upstairs, stopping in the hall to grab Mum’s box of candles from the dresser. If I didn’t remember tonight, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was close to tears and so frustrated I felt like slamming my fist into the mirror. Something is wrong, and they won’t tell me!
    I locked the bathroom door, took a deep breath and started the water running. I was going to have to actually have a bath now I’d said it, but there was no way I could lock myself in the bathroom without them getting suspicious if I were just burning candles.
    I set two tea lights on the windowsill, a candlestick in a holder on the side of the bath, and struck the match against the side of the box. Staring at the flame, I said a quiet prayer for this to work and lit the wicks.
    Sitting on the edge of the bath, I stared at the tall, white candle