fandomhighdorms | The Roof; Saturday Afternoon.

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The Roof; Saturday Afternoon.

It had been an odd sort of morning, really. At least, Adah could only assume that it wasn't exactly normal to awaken and have no idea who you were, where you were, and what you were doing there, beyond waking up. In fact, she could only assume that she was even Adah. Waking up confused, the first thing she thought to do was scour through the room for signs of identification: she dove into the books, the notebooks, that she found around her for insight into who exactly she was. She could discern that, barring any odd sort of displacement, her name was Adah Price and she, thankfully, took very careful logs and journals of things, but they were so confusing. Aft first, they looked like a foreign language but, quickly enough, it became evident that, if these were in fact her notebooks, she had a bizarre obsession with writing backwards and being...generally overly nonsensical. If this was her, it only left Adah even more confused. She then decided to walk around, trying to get something, a gleam of a memory from her surroundings, and had been wandering the island all day, only to find nothing. Top to bottom, bottom to top. She was back on the top again, the roof; the air was nice up here, and she had another one of this Adah person's notebook, trying to find some sense of self within.

"Ada, of essence, the is that, broken and bent, slant it, tell, but truth! the tell!" she read outloud from the notebook cradle in her hand, frowning at it as she paced back and forth. "But what the hell does that mean?"

Perhaps nothing; perhaps everything...Adah planned to pace until she figured it out.

[[ OPEN as roofs can be! Just an OOC note (and kind of spoilerish): it gets discovered that Adah's disability is mostly all mental and can be fixed; it's only so persistent because of how she remembers being told she couldn't walk and thinking that it was impossible. Having, of course, forgotten this influence on her behaviour because of Tabula Rasa, she now walks and speaks....somewhat normally ]]

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Troubled, distraught (but, then again does one retraught herself?), Adah frowned at the notebook in her hands and read out loud. "Now is the winter of our discontent, but there is no snow in Africa." She turned her head toward the girl who had only just arrived, as if hoping she carried in her pocket the understanding of all the world. "Does that mean anything to you?"

It should be meaning something to her, to Adah, but she couldn't understand what and it was bothering her. So much. her pacing continued, steady, even, frustrated strides.

Charlene frowned, and perched on the edge of the balustrade around the roof. "I think the first part's a poem, but the second part sounds off. I kinda recognize it, and then I don't?" Like everything else around here. "What is it?" She watched the other girl pace, and bit her lip, wondering how she was going to cross-examine her when she was already upset. "And hey, have we met yet? I'm Charlene."

Because if this person *did* know her, then at least that was a step to finding out what was wrong with her.

"It's something I wrote," Adah answered the second question with her forehead creasing in a frown, her voice drawling along in a light American Southern accent, but her voice was tight, dry. "I'm Adah. At least, I think that is who I am. I can't be entirely certain." She flipped another page of the notebook and looked the next page over. "It's very frustrating to not understand yourself, but, at the same time, I feel that even if I did, I'd still be confused."

"You too?" Charlene blurted out, not sure whether to be horrified or relieved. "I mean, not about the not understanding yourself. Although I get the frustration. I have all these books with 'Charlene Roberta McGee' written in them, and I have no idea who that is. Except she doesn't write anything personal, just stories and stories and she really hates someone named Griselda, I think."

"...That's a terrible name," Adah commented, not critically, or sympathetically, or supportively. Just commented. "I suppose, if anything, this is quite the testimony for keeping a journal regularly, but, if this is me in this book, I wish someone would have told her to be a bit clearer about things. I gleaned my own name from the books in my room, too...I suppose that, even if that wasn't me, it is now."

Charlene winced, not sure how to take that. "You think? I'm not really crazy about it either. I wonder if I have a nickname?" She sighed, the cocked her head, curious. "Not clear how? Did you write down stories too, or more of the almost-poetry? And.. are you sure it's yours, if you can't figure it out?"

Maybe it was an experiment. Maybe she wasn't even Charlene. Maybe they were testing her.

They who? demanded another part of her brain. And she didn't have an answer for that.

Adah arched an eyebrow. "I meant," she said idly, "Griselda." But it was interesting how the other girl took the association. "But almost-poetry is a good word for it. Of course I'm not sure; how could I be? But, it's the best lead I have, and, after following it for several hours, perhaps I am....assimilating into it regardless. Who is anyone, anyway? I can't remember anything as it is, so I will make my new memories."

Charlie grinned. "It is, isn't it? I wonder if I'll know her, when I meet her?" She shook her head. "And I'm assuming she's real, from the way I-- or whoever-- wrote about her. Blonde and snotty and constantly being pushed off cliffs. Maybe I made her up, though." She groaned and rubbed her head. "We can't know anything! About anything! Since we don't remember anything! And this isn't normal and how did it happen and okay, I'm freaking out."

Charlie hugged herself hard, trying to breathe normally, and resisted the urge to throw her notebook across the roof. She was going to need that, if she was going to figure this out.

Adah bit her lip, shifting slightly as she watched the girl's movements, the panic flashing across her pale face. Her eyes dropped, for a moment, toward her own notebook and its cryptic backwards messages, and then back to Charlene.

"...Does it matter?" she asked. "It isn't that we can't know anything; it's that we can't know the things we knew before. Maybe this is a good thing; maybe there's a reason we forget."

Charlie took another breath, anxiety ratcheting up another notch. "Terrific. Maybe we were traumatized. Or hurt. Or...." God, what could she have wanted to forget? Or maybe it wasn't her idea, maybe it was government secrets that made her like this. She took another breath, and studied the other girl. But that would mean it was the same cause for Adah, and that didn't exactly make sense. Who was being mild, and calm, and puzzled but analytical about all of this.

It suddenly struck her that she was going automatically to the worst-case scenario. And by worst-case, anything short of alien abduction. Which meant maybe she was being a little ridiculous. "Okay. One thing we know about me. I'm a pessimist." She tried to smile, weakly. "I wake up perfectly fine physically, no one threatening me, nothing on fire, and I freak out just because I don't remember my life."

Traumatized? Hurt? Adah grinned a little; she certainly hoped so. And not merely because then she could discern some sort of logic to these ramblings in the notebook. Clearly, she couldn't help it. Clearly, she was a product of unjust forces that made her see the world differently. She could only hope that she was that interesting. She found it interesting that the other girl didn't seem to quite feel that way.

And she felt her grin sharpen a little. "You're a pessimist?" she repeated. "Are you sure?"

The only thing certain in life was...

...well, she couldn't exactly remember the rest.

Charlene stared at Adah a moment, then crossed her eyes and let out a little screech. "No!" Then she laughed. "Okay, maybe. You didn't think of government conspiracies first, did you?"

"I'm afraid not," Adah admitted. "I almost wish I had; it's a lot more interesting that what did happen. I woke up, not knowing who I was. I looked around, not knowing where I was. I blinked at the walls and said 'huh,' got up, started poking through the books. Quite anticlimactic, really."

"Take that, and add in wondering if I was being watched, tiptoeing out so I didn't disturb my roommate because she might be a spy, being afraid to make a phone call because it might be traced, and hoping that something would make sense soon, and it was the same here." Charlene gave her a wry smile. "Things are so quiet though-- I think I was expecting someone to jump out at me by now. Or for a doctor to show up and drag me back to my room. But this just looks like a dormitory, or maybe a very nice sanitarium." She frowned, then shaded her eyes as she looked off the edge of the roof. "We're on an island somewhere, it's pretty, and you're from the south, but I'm not? So who knows where we are exactly. At least we both speak English."

"Is it English?" Adah asked. "Don't you think that it's peculiar that we understand all these things, communication, words for things, reading. We can walk, talk, speak, seek, ruminate, commiserate, but we cannot be sure of how old we are, where we're from, or what we had for breakfast yesterday morning. And yet, I still know what breakfast is. Bizarre, isn't it? Complicate. A bit too much to worry about, I think. If I start to worry about it like you do, my head hurts too much, and my right side....Look." Adah held out her hand. "It shakes a little..."

Charlene's worries had come back full force, because this just didn't make sense, and you had to be careful, and-- She paused, distracted by the tremor in Adah's hand, and said, "Seizure? Or temporary stress? Or drug reaction or-- crap!" She put her hands to her head, and took a deep breath. "I'm glad you're cool with this. I wish I were."

Adah might not know who she was, but she was certain that she was probably a terrible person. But she couldn't exactly stop. It was too easy, too much fun. "Who knows?" she shrugged, turning her eyes dramatically toward the horizon. "Maybe no one does. Maybe no one can remember..."

"Maybe it's a virus that completely wiped everyone's memories?" And in among the panic, Charlene was thinking, Ooo, cool idea, how would that work out? "Right. I think I might try to find a doctor. If they're in on it, maybe they'll give something away. If it's a disease, maybe they can tell me what happened." A plan. Plans were good. Plans were great. Even if she didn't like the idea of doctors. "I'm going to go, try to find stuff out-- do you want to come with, or hang out here?"

Adah was quiet for a long moment, feigning her indecision like she imagined some beasts of the wild might feign disinterest in their prey. "I think," she finally said, quietly, "it's best that I stay. The two of us together might harbor suspicion. I'm content with just trying to piece together my own puzzle right now." She gave a soft smile, lifting the notebook.

"Good point." And the other girl might not be up to running, if they had to, if something was going on. She seemed relatively safe right here. "I'll call and leave a phone message if I find out anything-- what room are you in?"

"I woke up in room 218," Adah submitted, "if that's what you mean."

"I'm in 419, if you want to find me later. I can get your number from information, I hope. " Charlene hopped off the balustrade and headed toward the roof's exit door. "Take it easy, and be careful, okay?"

"Times like these," Adah replied with carefully calculated darkness, her back turned intentionally away from Charlene, "all we can be is careful."

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The Roof; Saturday Afternoon.

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