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I regained consciousness with a pounding headache.

I adjusted my sleeping position, lying with my right side, just to see if it would stop the hammering in my head. It didn't. With a groan, I opened my eyes...and stared at a white ceiling.

That was when I heard the noises.

Wherever I was lying was noisy. Every one was talking at once. I tried to understand the conversation but couldn't. The pounding in my head was just too much. I sat up from my lying position with a yawn.

My eyes connected with someone and instinctively, I cringed.

I was staring at something unbelievable. The teenager to my left was eating her own hair. She would pull a strand of her hair, stare at it with glee and put it in her mouth. She repeated the process over and over again.

What the....

I whipped my head to my right and almost barfed.

A man was in tears. He was crying profusely, with snot and all. That wasn't why I was disgusted. What irritated me was the way he was licking his snot like it was a lollipop.

The woman in my front was cooing and talking to a doll in her hand. When she noticed my eyes on her, she tightened her hold on the doll and glared at me, thinking I wanted to take her baby from her.

I looked around the room and everyone, I meant everyone, was doing something stupid, crazy, or both.

We were up to fifty in the room. The room was very large and dirty. Everything thinkable littered the floor: banana peels, biscuit wraps, empty bottles, broken plastic, sticks, everything. The room had no furniture, no window and one door.

Where was I? Was I in some sort of mad people's house? Why? I wasn't mad, was I? How had I gotten here? Who were these people I shared a room with?

So many questions filled my mind, questions with no answers. Questions that didn't help my headache in any way.

I felt a tap on my back. "My husband, you're awake."

I stilled. No, that was little compared to what I felt that instant. I literally stopped having the ability to breath. So many thoughts flashed through my mind. Was I married to a mad woman? Did we have little cute mad children? How many?

Oh God.

The person tapped my back again, more vehemently, while murmuring mad words I couldn't hear and wasn't interested in hearing.

Very slowly (a war would have been fought and won with the amount of time I used), I turned to look at the woman at my back. She was in her early twenties. She had flowers in her disarrayed hair and red lipstick was smeared across her cheek. She was pretty, but I didn't feel married to her.

My heart was still in my mouth when she said with a frown, "You're not my husband. Who are you?"

Very good question.

Who was I? I couldn't remember a damn thing about myself. Not one thing.

The scare the flower woman gave me was my last stroke. I couldn't stay in the room any longer. I needed out. I've had enough of the room, enough of the mad people, and most definitely enough of the smell oozing from the room.

I stood up, ran to the door and twisted it's handle. Imagine my surprise when the door opened. I thought we had been locked in.

I stepped into the busy street without so much as a glance back.

Every thing looked unfamiliar to me: the people, the posters, the sign boards. I grabbed my head with my two hands, wishing I could split it open and get answers. Answers I desperately needed.

I wandered round the street that day, hoping I could recognise something, praying a bulb would light in my head. It didn't.

At night, when everywhere became dark and I could wander no more, I found a closed shop whose owner had retired for the night and slept there.

The next morning I could only rely on people's benevolence to feed. I began walking up to people randomly, asking if they knew me.

I just needed someone who would recognise me, someone who could tell me who I was. I needed to know my identity.

It wasn't until the third day that something happened.

I was dejected, walking in the street when I hit a lady. Her purse and phone fell down and she bent to pick them up.

"I'm so sorry," I said.

The woman shook her head. "It's okay." She picked up her purse and stood up, looking at me.

She stiffened, surprise etched on her face. "Jidenna?"

I frowned. The name sounded familiar. The woman was in her mid twenties, slender and beautiful. Very fucking beautiful. Her dark brown eyes were watching me with shock.

"Do you know me?" I asked.

"Of course. I'm your fiancee, Juliet. You were involved in an accident and have been missing for two weeks. What happened?"

I felt dazed. "Fiancee? I don't remember anything, not even my name."

At once her eyes turned teary. "You don't...You don't remember me?"

I shook my head and a tear slipped down her cheek. She grabbed my face in her hands. "It's okay. I'll tell you." She tried to control her tears.

"You are Jidenna Ezekiel. You're thirty one years old and have been engaged to me for three years. You're..."

She couldn't go on as the tears wracked through her body.

Unconsciously, I raised my right hand and began cleaning her tears. I couldn't remember this woman but I felt I had known her my whole life. Something tugged at my heart. Deep down I knew I had loved this woman beyond measures. I knew I could've easily given my life away for her.

She sniffed, smiling. "You're still my Jidenna who hates seeing me cry. Oh God. What happened to you?"

I wrapped my hands around her, pulling her crying body into mine for a hug.

I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my neck.

I raised my head high enough and saw Juliet pulling a syringe away from my neck. I staggered, dizzy from whatever I had been injected. Just before I lost consciousness, Juliet brought out her phone and made a call.

"Agent Juliet speaking. Experiment 049 has been captured and will be returned to the base. Thankfully the two weeks away from his drugs didn't have a major effect on him. He still hasn't regained his memory."

In that instant she was no longer my Juliet but someone else.

My eyes closed and I fell.

---

SOMEWHERE IN THE BASE

A man drops his phone with a smile. He looked at his partner. "Experiment 049 has been captured, Pedro."

Pedro nodded. "That is good news. The lines you feed Agent Juliet were perfect."

The first man laughed. "Perfect indeed. She doesn't know they weren't all lies, that she was truly his fiancee. If only he hadn't come searching for her all those years ago he wouldn't have been captured and used as an experiment."

"049 is trouble, I tell you, Eze," Pedro said with a grimace. "Why can't he just be like 001?"

"Don't worry. He'll come around, especially with the new drugs being shipped from Russia." Eze raised his glass. "Now, my friend, let us toast."

"To what?" Pedro wondered.

"To Experiment 001. Agent Juliet, our very first successful experiment."

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