• Cold, freezing, biting, ugly cold. That was the first thing that I could feel was the biting cold and also the cruel caress of rain. It was also my first memory. My conscious was working, but my body and mind couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on. I searched my mind for memories, for something warmer than the cold, but I couldn’t think of anything. Nothing came to me. I could think of facts like how much pie was or how to sing ring around the rosies, but basic things escaped me. For example I couldn’t remember my name or where I was from or why I was so cold. It was so bad that I couldn’t even remember what I looked like. Did I have blonde hair or brown? Blue or green eyes? Were all my limbs in the right place and on the right way?

    Fear gripped my heart and I struggled consciously to make my body move, to make a finger twitch, a tilt of the head perhaps, something, anything to reassure that I even had a body. To make sure I wasn’t lost in some unknown universe floating around as a spirit.

    I silenced my thoughts and focused. A heart beat, I would be able to tell if I had a body through a heart beat. I focused extremely hard on where I thought it should be relative to a persons body. It took a few minutes, or at least that’s what it felt like, before I felt that small thump, and then another. I mentally sighed in relief. I had a body, perhaps I just needed to wake up more.

    After what felt like eternity I could feel the soft thudding of my heart. I relax considerably and could feel my mind pulling towards what I could only think of as sleep. Darkness filled the recesses of my mind and before I could stop it I was pulled in. The darkness was sweet and it caressed me like a mother would a child. Then I felt it. The first feeling of true warmth. It enveloped my body slowly, but surely and soon I could start to feel myself again. Light danced on the edges of the darkness so I slowly concentrated on opening my mysterious eyes.

    Light flooded my vision and I could see something brown and grainy. It was dirt. I found that, with my eyes open, I could feel my body. There was no pain, there was nothing broken and I didn’t feel like I was dying. I could feel my fingers twitch and my leg move slightly. I raised my head up to see what else was around me. Green flooded my vision. Green leaves, green moss, green covered everything except for the ground which was a soft brown. Light flooded in through tree tops and it caused soft, yellowish-green hues to dance along the leaves.

    I managed to move my arms and lift myself up. The surrounding area was what I could only describe as beautiful and beautiful it was. Still there was more pressing matters. I held up my arm which really didn’t feel like my own. I had no idea what race I was until I looked at the soft, pink skin of my arm. I was Caucasian, or white as most called it. I still didn’t know my age though. Was I fifty, twelve, twenty? I didn’t have the wrinkled skin that is an indicator of old age and my arms were longer than that of a twelve year old, though I couldn’t even really envision a real one, so that left me with between fifteen and late thirties. That was a stretch.

    I looked around me, my eyes taking in the beauty. It really was a beautiful forest, full and alive. Left over rain water clung to the leaves and made the ground soft and moist. The sun sparkled off the droplets like crystals and it was utterly breathtaking. As the first visual memory of her life it wasn’t half bad. A large, blue bird flew over head, but she didn’t know the name of it. It’s cry was like a song though.

    My eyes wandered down to my legs. They where clothed in a white skirt, long and what appeared to be cotton. It was lovely, despite the fact that it was covered in dirt. I pulled the shirt that I was wearing out to look at it to find that it was the same material as the skirt and just as dirty. As I was looking down a few strands of hair fell forward and they where almost white, an extremely white blonde. I wish I could see my face. I knew I wasn’t fat, but I also didn’t know if I was ugly or not. I couldn’t recall anything to reference to ugly, but I knew if I saw it I would know.

    I decided to try out my legs. I pushed myself up off of my knees and, with a little bit of a wobble, I stood. I had to grab on to a nearby tree to steady myself. As I was standing I heard a small branch break and I looked up. There was a dark skinned woman standing there. She was large and wearing an intricate warp around her body. On top of her head was a beautiful vase. We both stared at each other in shock for a few moments before she started to say something in a language I didn’t know. She sounded scared.

    The woman then turned, let the vase drop to the ground, and ran. The vase shattered and splinters flew all around. I couldn’t understand what about me would scare her. As far as I could tell I wasn’t to impressive physically and, unless I was horribly ugly then I shouldn’t have frightened her so. I manage to weakly walk over to the vase and picked up one of the pieces. Something caught my eye and stared in amazement at it. The vase had been incrusted in gold and jewels. Even if I had lost my memory I still knew gold and jewels were priceless. How interesting!