Somewhere above my head, a crow screeches and I’m tumbling back in time, wrestling with Alice on the track. It wasn’t the stuff of nightmares, that fight. It really happened, and now it’s happening all over again. My world has contracted to this one point in time and space. We’re swiping at each other with our hands, slapping the air and what bits of each other’s flesh we can find. We keel over in slow motion, arms flailing, legs buckling, mouths open in shocked concentration.

It seems to last forever, this dance of ours, as if regaining our balance is simply a matter of time and finding the right steps. Needles of light glint sharp and silver off the tracks. Her face is so close to mine I can see the raised blue vein throbbing at her temple. The raw pinkness at the back of her throat.

Now more memories emerge from the darkness. Is that what these are? Memories? I can’t be imagining them; they’re too real. Too familiar. Like phantoms long repressed.

I used to wonder about all those missing pieces of my life, the things that happened to me before seizures. I used to think, if only the memories would return, somehow the picture would be complete and I’d be whole again. But what if the thing I can’t remember is just too awful to contemplate? Aren’t I better off not knowing?

My fingers clench tighter and I lean against the steel cage, willing my mind to return to the here and now. This can’t be what happened. Please God, tell me it can’t! I might have hated her in that moment, but I wouldn’t have hurt her. I couldn’t have!

Her eyes are frantic, her voice beseeching, just like the nightmares that have plagued me all my life. My grip tightens and the steel mesh digs into my fingertips as the scene plays out in my mind. I lash out at her, striking the tops of her arms, her face. She tries to grab me, but I’m too wild, too strong. I can’t hear her voice, only a buzzing noise getting louder and louder till it feels like it’s coming from inside my body, but I know she’s still screaming at me. I can see the black gaping hole of her mouth. The fear in her eyes. The fear.