I open my eyes to the sound of an alarm blaring to the side of me, scaring me so badly that I get goosebumps. I turn it off seeing the time is five in the morning. I’m confused, wondering where I am, who I am, and what’s happening to me. I can’t remember anything, but I know basic functions and english so something must’ve happened to me to have lost my memory. I get out of bed and my feet touch soft carpet, I stand up and notice I’m wearing nothing but underwear and a plain long gray shirt. There are pictures on the wall of the room I’m in, it looks like a couple with a dog but I don’t recognize anyone in the photo so I ignore it and go to leave the room. As soon as I open the door I get scared by a man at least a foot taller than me holding a plate of food and a glass of water. Backing into the room back to the bed my thoughts race trying to figure out who the man is, before I can keep scrambling my thoughts or say anything the man speaks.
“I’m glad you’re awake, you’ve been asleep all day. How are you feeling? I brought you some food in case you were hungry.” I stayed silent, not knowing what to say to the strange man but I guess he noticed. “Are you okay? Are you hurting somewhere?” I stared him in the eyes and finally gained the courage to speak the words I’ve been thinking of. “Who are you?” The man stares back at me confused and I think, a little scared. He chuckles nervously and asks, “What do you mean?” As he goes to place the plate and glass of water on the nightstand next to the alarm clock he sits on the bed near me and grabs my hand. “Elva, is everything okay? Did something happen while you were asleep?”
I guess I’m Elva, but I still have no idea who this guy is, but what does he mean, did something happen? Why do I not know him? I move my hand away from his and stand up ready to finally get some answers. “You seem to know who I am, but I have no idea who you are, where I am, or even who I am outside of my name. Who am I?” The man stares at me in shock, he stands to his feet and goes towards the wall grabbing the photo from earlier. Pointing at the female in the photo he speaks with a shaky voice, “This is you, me, and our dog Felix. You’re my wife, we’ve been married for 3 years now. How can you not remember?” I was shocked, hearing I have a husband that I can’t even remember, or a life I know nothing of. “This is hard to process. Why can’t I remember anything, did something happen to me?” The strange man who claims to be my husband shakes his head, he goes to leave the room coming back less than a minute later with a book. It was a photo album and it had multiple photos of me, him, the dog, and even a few random people.
I sink back onto the bed, feeling empty and a little sad at the fact I can’t remember anything. Something had to have happened for me to forget everything about myself, but how am I supposed to find out if I don’t know where to start? “What’s your name?” I ask the man sitting next to me. He smiles and answers with a soft voice, “Gerard. My name is Gerard Valentin, and you are my wife, Elva Valentin. I’m not sure what’s going on but whatever you don’t remember, I will do everything to help you find out. Next thing I know I’m being hugged and my back caressed by a warm hand, bringing me a feeling of comfort. I lean into his touch and start to calm down. “Maybe I just need to eat something and rest, calm my mind a bit.” Gerard continues to smile at me and hands me the plate of food, which is probably a little cold now but I decide not to complain. I’m not sure what kind of man he is and I don’t want to find out if he is dangerous. “I’ll be back in a few hours to check on you, I have to run some errands but I promise to make it quick.” He kisses me on the head and walks out of the room, leaving me on my own.
After laying down for about an hour I finally came to the conclusion to go find some answers. I jump out of bed and head towards the door, I open the door and notice how cold it feels as I step into the hallway. I look to my left to see a door opening to show a bathroom, to my right a little down seems to be another door. I walk down the hall to my right to the door but it’s locked, which is a little weird but I’ll deal with it later. I turn and go to the opening to my left which turns out to be the living room. For a married couple our home doesn’t seem very…homey, there’s no decorations on the wall, no other photos, there’s a brown couch with a flat screen tv across from it and a small wooden coffee table but nothing significant. I turn on the light switch next to me and the living room lights up to show it’s even more bland and depressing than in the dark. As soon as I step into the middle of the room I see something moving from around the corner in front of me, I pause as I wait for whatever it is.
I calm down after seeing it’s just the dog from the photo, Felix. I crouch to pet him but he just growls at me and runs away. It’s weird how my own dog doesn’t seem to like me that much but I can’t say I’m upset by it, I feel no emotional attachment to the animal. I shut the light back off, not wanting to see the boring room any more and go to keep looking around the house. I found the kitchen, which surprisingly had a good amount of food in the freezer and a few beers in the fridge. I start to think really hard, am I actually married to this man? This place seems more like a bachelor pad than a marital home, there’s no comfort in being here. But I guess if I want answers then I should probably stop thinking about how sad this house is. There aren’t many places to look so I start with the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen, sadly all I find is old mail addressed to Gerard, kitchen supplies, and other stuff I could describe as junk. One piece of mail seems to contain something about finishing a project on time to present to some board, it was sent by someone named Michael Klemens. Since there’s nothing significant or even remotely useful here I decide to head back to the room I was sleeping in, as I get back to it I find the dog there snuggled up to a womens sweater that seemed worn out. I step slowly to avoid angering the dog and he looks at me confused and sad, I stop in my tracks and the dog walks up to me slowly with droopy ears like he isn’t sure of who I am.
I decide everything is all good and move over to the dresser in the room. I find women's clothes in most of them but as I move some of the clothes arounds I notice a piece of paper peeking out from a pocket, it looks like a note. I pull it out and read what it says, ‘Don’t believe him, check the photo, keep the dog locked up.’
The message was strange, it made me pretty worried, but if it was hidden in the clothes that means someone else was here and is trying to warn me. If this can help me find answers to why I can’t remember anything then I would rather follow the strange letter then to wait around for Gerard to come back. Putting the note back in the pocket I turned to the photo on the wall, it looked like a normal photo. It had the woman who was supposedly me, black hair, brown eyes, Gerard with his brown hair and green eyes, and of course Felix right in the middle of us both. I grab the photo and flip it around, there’s writing on the back that says ‘-2022- The love of my life and my best friend’. It was heartfelt and seemed innocent enough, but when I went to put the photo back it slipped out of my hands, the glass shattering on the floor. As I went to pick it up I noticed a weight pushing the photo out a little, I take the picture out and low behold, a key.
I’m surprised there’s a key hidden inside the photo, it doesn’t look like an original, maybe a copy out of hardened clay. The more I think about it, I remember the locked door down the hall, the key can only be for that room. I look at the alarm clock and notice it’s already been an hour since Gerard left, he said he would make his errand quick so I should make this quick. I rush to go out the room door and as I get to the threshold I remember what the note said. Turning to look at Felix, he is already staring at me sitting there, without a second thought I leave the room, locking it as I go and shut the door. I rush down the hall to the door and stick the key in it, it doesn’t turn instantly but with a little more force I hear the lock click and the door slowly starts to open. I gather my courage and walk into the room, shutting the door behind me. It's dark and the air feels dry, I stay close to the wall, rubbing my hand along it to find a lightswitch. After a bit of frustrating searching I finally find it and flick it on and I’m shocked at what I see. Tables covered in large cloths with bulky items underneath, papers scattered over the floor with gibberish writing, on the wall hangs random wires, and some huge empty tube. It’s all a bit unnerving and sketchy. I step further into the room and notice a bit of dust covering almost everything, I try not to step on all of the papers on the floor as I tiptoe over to the mysterious table. Without hesitation I rip off the cloth and notice a bunch of body parts, but not just any body parts, robotic legs, arms, hands, and a bunch of random parts I can’t comprehend.
I’m starting to feel frightened with all these random parts and how weird this room is but I know I may find what I need here. I start to rummage around the room looking at the papers to see what they mean, most of them are illegible, but some of them mention the same name that was on the mail in the kitchen, Michael Klemens, who is he to be this important? The more I look around the more I see his name, along with letters and manuals for some kind of machine, it must be the project the mail was talking about. I go near the huge tube in the other corner of the room and see a small sticky note on the glass, some of the writing is smudged but I can read out ‘3LV4…Test #6, pass/fail?’ . Nothing in this room is making sense and I’m starting to get more confused than I was when I woke up, that was until I picked up a piece of paper on the floor near the tube. It seems like a cover for a research document that has my name as the title and has two authors listed as…..Gerard and Michael. I look back at the table full of robotic parts and start to piece some things together, my name is Elva, the sticky note has the characters 3LV4, I don’t have any memories of who I am outside of my name, and I haven’t felt the need to eat, hydrate, or even sleep. Before my thoughts get the best of me I feel a hand on my shoulder, scaring me shitless, making me trip over the cluttered floor and blacking out.
Opening my eyes again, I notice I’m still in the creepy room, but I’m floating above the ground. I don’t feel any pain, I don’t feel much of anything now that I think about it, what’s happening? I look up to see a strange man sitting on a chair, watching me like a hawk with a look of amusement and annoyance in his eyes. I snap to attention as he stands up from the chair and speaks.“Elva honey, we have to stop meeting this way. You’re giving your husband a headache, and quite frankly I’m tired of whatever this is already. Every test, every new update, every day spent trying to make you perfect just seems to be a waste of time. I know I can’t blame you, Gerard told me you don’t remember anything which means this test was a failure. You were supposed to have her past memories, her emotions, but you have nothing but her looks.” I watch him with suspicion, confused about who this ‘her’ person is. I try moving around to get away from him as he moves closer to me but I can't move an inch. He gets into my face and the next words out of his mouth make me listen very closely. “ Sarah was beautiful, she lit up every room she walked in with her smile, she could make even the saddest person smile in an instant with how caring of a person she is. Everyone loved her, but she was taken from us too early. A hit and run, they never caught the driver, she was on her way home from taking Felix on a walk. It was very unfortunate, but no one felt worse than Gerard, he went into a terrible depression, drinking almost every hour of the day, skipping out of work, all he could do was cry and mourn her death. She was his wife after all, the love of his life. So I tried to help him, I got him into artificial intelligence, putting the idea of bringing her back to life in his head. And what do you know, here we are, on our sixth attempt and failure of bringing her back. Something always goes wrong.” The last ones found this room as well, but they weren’t found by me or Gerard, Felix got to them first. He’s a smart dog, but we couldn’t quite get her smell onto one of you so he never trusted either one of them. I wonder why he didn’t stop you from getting in.” That’s when I remember that I locked the dog in the room, but the only thing ringing around my head is the fact that I am not human. I am a carbon copy of the woman they want me to be, a dead woman who they won’t let rest in peace.
The man, who I can only assume is Michael, reaches out to me. He picks me up but for some reason it doesn’t feel right. He walks over to the door of the room, out of the hallway and towards the bathroom. He flicks the light on and the next thing I know, I am staring at the woman in the photo, my head, the head of Gerards real wife, Sarah. The only difference is the wires sticking out from the bottom of my head and the peeled skin under my skin.
