Read Chapter 1 here and Chapter 2 here.

“Melanie slept fitfully as flashes of memories continued in her dreams. Most of them involved her mystery man who piqued her curiosity and frustration simultaneously.”

After gaining control of herself, she realized, “My name is Melanie…..He could have been talking to someone else.” But somehow the name resonated within her. “Maybe I’ll call myself that until I figure out who I really am.”

Then she decided to set up camp at the beach. “It’s where I woke up,” she thought. “So, I better stay here; it might be important.”

It was easy enough for her to start a fire. “I must have been a Girl Scout growing up,” she laughed bitterly to herself. After a supper of the last of the blackberries, she lay down beside the warm flames. Sighing, she fell asleep to the now surprisingly soothing sound of the ocean with a blanket of stars as her only covering.

Melanie slept fitfully as flashes of memories continued in her dreams. Most of them involved her mystery man who piqued her curiosity and frustration simultaneously. In the last one before she awoke, she was laying in pain in a hospital.  “I’m right here,” the man spoke while holding her hand.

She woke up with a start, sweaty and breathless. “I have to get out of here!” she thought. But she didn’t know where she was going or how to get there. “I’ll find a way,” she said to the ocean. Determined, she ignored her hunger and started traveling down the path through the trees.

After a few hours, without fruit; either in a meal or in finding a way out of the forest, Melanie sat down to rest. Suddenly seeing a clearing a few feet ahead, she got up and walked towards it. As the trees parted, a cabin came into view. With hopes for food and someone to converse with, she walked closer and knocked on the door. “Foolishness; there’s no one here.” The cabin had obviously not been inhabited for some time. The wood in it was rotten and the hinge on the door was rusted. Even so, she pulled the door open with a little effort.

Inside was what one would usually find in an old cabin masquerading as a set for a pioneer TV show: old pots and pans in the kitchen and an old bed and trunk in the common room. Not surprisingly, she tried to open the trunk. “Of course it’s locked,” she thought begrudgingly. Although, she thought it odd that it didn’t fit in with the rest of the cabin. “It looks almost new,” she thought astonished. Her stomach rumbled and decided for her that she was done with discoveries for the day. Sighing, she left the cabin as it was and headed back into the forest to find some food.