I Think I Remember.

Christie thought she would stop by her old job site just to say hello to her former co-workers. She was happy to see everyone, it had been almost 2 years since she went to a different building. She started talking to one of the guys she used to work with, Cary who became a Manager there right after she left.

“Would you ever consider coming back here?” He asked.

“Absolutely!” She responded. “But when I got my Manager spot there were no open spots here for me to come back to. But trust me, I did try.”

Cary seemed overly ecstatic about this. Christie just laughed. Her friend Meli came in the break-room where they were all hanging out and reminiscing about working in the same building together. They talked for a while. It was good to visit. Meli then says, “Hey Christie, Cadence is upset because you haven’t said hi to him yet.”

Christie raises an eyebrow, “I will. I just haven’t made my way that way yet.”

Cary and Meli had to get back to work so Christie mad her way to see Cadence. He stood up to shake her hand but instead she hugs him. “It’s been awhile.”

“Yeah.” He says. “I’m about to be off, if you have time do you want to walk with me out to my car. We can catch up a little bit”

“Sure.” Christie says.

“Well,” Cadence continues, “My car is actually down the street at the gas station. My brother had it this morning and he’s an idiot so that’s where he decided to leave it rather than just driving it here. So, if you don’t mind walking with me down there?”

“That’s fine.” Christie responds.

They take off down the street just chit chatting and catching up. Part of the street has no sidewalk and you have to walk right by the side of a small hill. Suddenly it gets really dark, very unusual as it’s not time for the sun to go down. Christie and Cadence look at each other in confusion. Out of nowhere two semis appear, almost as if they’re being followed by them. They somehow get separated from each other and Cadence ends up at least a mile ahead of Christie. Christie can see him in the distance as one of the semis pulls right up on him. Despite him being that far ahead of her she can see the fear in his face. She eventually loses sight of him and becomes very worried. “Where did that other truck go?” She thinks to herself. Next thing she knows the second semi is right next to her. It has a trailer attached to it. She becomes frightened. The cab of the truck turns toward her without the trailer moving and ends up almost right against her, almost as if it’s looking at her. She can see inside the truck and realizes no one is driving. That's the last thing she can remember about the semi.

Christie wakes up at an unknown location. It’s appears to be an old house. Still in a daze coming out of her sleep, or possibility of being knocked unconscious, she sees people killing people and she has no idea what happened to Cadence. She does her best to hide, she doesn’t want to be involved in this. What it looks like to her is some kind of Race war, she notices that each group appears to be segregated and they are going after people who are not of their same color. She wants no part of it so she continues to try to avoid being seen. However, she does want to figure out how to get out of there so she attempts to quietly stand up and figure out how she can go unnoticed to the door across the large room. The room has dark wood floors, which makes Christie worry they might creak when she tries to walk due to the house seeming to have been around for years. The floor is mostly clear of any obstacles and everything appears to outline the room. She sees two large fir trees next to each other in pots in the far corner of the room. The trees both just about touched the ceiling and had room enough that people could fit under them. And there was at least six people under them all wrestling on the ground fighting with one another. So much blood. She knew heading that way was out of the question. Christie decided to risk it and stand completely up from behind the small dresser that she woke up behind. She slowly starts to try and make her way around the wall of the room. She made it about half way when suddenly an older, tall skinny, white man, with grey and white hair comes running at her, knife in hand, pointed directly at her with so much anger in his face. Christie’s eyes widen but she doesn’t scream, she just runs in an attempt to get out of there. It doesn’t work. She turns around to see how much distance she has ahead of this man. “BOOM!!!” She hears and the man falls to the floor. He’s been shot. She doesn’t know by who nor does she care to know. She starts running again but still doesn’t make it. She’s tackled to the ground by a small group of women and they drag her to the trees she noticed earlier. Christie is trying to plead with them, “Please! I don’t want any part of any of this! This is insane!”

One of the women, a tall African woman with long black hair and a muscular build responds to her pleas, “You’re not the same as us. It’s each color for themselves here.”

Christie is more confused than ever and being held to the ground by 4 other women. 3 of them Black and one of them appearing to maybe be Hispanic. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Please let me go! And your logic makes no sense, all of you here on your team or whatever are not even the same Nationality.” She points to one of the women, “She looks Mexican!”

All of the women look at each other but don’t say a word. There is what seems like, to Christie, an hour of silence. The women who doesn’t quite seem to fit in with their group finally responds to Christie. “But you are white. You don’t fit in with either of us so we’ll do what we must. This is about survival.”

Christie is panicking now. Are they going to kill her? She knows if she is in fact let go she will have either fractured bones or pretty intense bruises from how hard she is being held down at her wrist and ankles by these women. “But what if I’m not?” Christie says.

The women now look at each other with confusion. Christie continues, “What if I’m not!? I’m not white, I’m not Indian, I’m not Mexican. I am a bunch of things put together. I am a mixed-Race person so what does that mean? Again! I don’t want any part of any of this and I am on NO sides! Just let me go!”

Christie is doing her best not to be murdered by anyone. She doesn’t know who protected her from the man earlier but she is fairly certain it wasn’t any of these ladies. She continues pleading for her life and trying to break free from their grasp until she is physically and emotionally exhausted and in so much pain from the all the pressure these women were putting on her body in order to hold her down. She doesn’t know how long it goes on for but eventually Christie blacks out from it all.

Christie appears in a long hallway. She is wide awake and standing up facing all the doors down the hall. The hall has peach colored carpet and there are 3 white doors on each side. But on one side, one of the doors is open and it leads to the outside. Right outside the door is a small porch with black railing around it. When Christie notices this, she stops trying to figure out what happened with those women or why she doesn’t have any bruises or pains in her wrist or ankles. She sees this as the perfect opportunity to get the hell out of there. She runs to the door, somehow her light blue jeans and grey t-shirt are covered in dirt as if she had been wandering aimlessly outside for days. Her long brown hair was no longer being held up with a hair tie. It must’ve fallen out at some point through all the craziness. Her normally straight hair was a tangled mess. Her black sneakers loose as she runs because of the untied laces. She makes it to the door and is relieved at that first burst of the fresh outside hair. But her hopes of freedom didn’t last. Outside stood a young girl. To Christie the girl looked no older than 8 years old. She had light blue eyes, pale skin and long wavy dark black hair. She wore a white dress with small blue flowers all over it and no shoes. She did not say a word and stared at Christie intensely. Christie knew at that moment she should not take her eyes off of this girl. She felt something was not right. They continued to stare at each other for a few long minutes. The girl’s eyes appeared to turn into a dark almost black blue and the girl smiled at Christie. This exposed the girl’s sharp teeth. Christie turned around without saying a word and ran back inside the old house. As she re-entered the hallway she could swear she saw her husband entering one of the rooms. He noticed her and reached for her and she reached for him in return. Their hands met and they ended up in a small room sitting on the floor together with some other people. None of them knew what was going on. The room had a few old wooden desks directly in front of them. They all seemed to be trying to hide behind them. The carpet in this room was dark brown. There was a woman standing up in the room who appeared to be an older version of the little girl Christie saw outside. But this woman didn’t seem to notice that there was a small group of people attempting to remain hidden in the room. Christie’s husband got up on his knees and whispered to Christie, “I will be back. I promise. This is insane. I am going to find a way for all of us to get out of here.”

“No!” Christie responded. “It’s dangerous.”

“I know.” He said softly. “Trust me.” And he kissed her on the forehead before he found a way to sneak out of the room.

The lady in the front of the room began to speak with amusement. “I know you all are here. No, don’t try any escape efforts. No, you can’t kill me. No point in doing anything. I can hear you.”

Christie looked at the others in the room with confusion. There were two men and another woman. One of the men was Cadence. Christie’s eyes widened when she saw him and she mouthed, “Oh my God!” to him. Despite the circumstances she was happy to see him and happy to know he was alive. Aside from Christie and Cadence looking at each other, the other two in the room looked down and kept their focus on the floor. Christie was thinking about everything the lady said to them even though none of them had even said a word. She sat closer to the other 3 in the room so that they were almost in a small circle. While Christie was trying to figure out this woman in the room she put her hands on her head and was also facing towards the floor. She noticed a small box of something underneath the desk they were all sitting behind. “Oh shit!” She thought to herself. “I have to figure out how to tell Johnny.” Johnny was her husband’s name and he had not made it back yet.

Christie reached under the desk to pull out the small blue box. She opened it. It was full of small aluminum foil balls. Christie had a very intense feeling of Deja-Vu. She closed her eyes for a few seconds to see what she could remember. “Damn!” She said out loud. And the other 3 looked at her. “They can read our thoughts, that’s how they know everything we’re thinking and doing.”

Christie reach in the box, grabbed a handful of the small aluminum foil balls and held them out for the others to take. They all gave her looks of insanity. “I know this is going to sound completely crazy.” She said. “But they can read our minds and the only way they can’t is if we have these little balls in our ears.”

None of them questioned doing it, they just took the little foil balls and started to insert them into their ears. They were willing to try anything at this point. But Cadence was curious so he asked Christie, “How do you know this will work?”

Christie still feeling the intense Deja-Vu responded, “I’ve been here before.”