The glowing letters on the clock read 5:32am. My eyes adjusted slowly to the dark and soon I could make out individual items. A glass of water. A sink. A box of tissues. Where am I?
The door opens and light floods the room. I squint against the bright light. A young woman in a white coat walks in, and I sit up.
"You're awake." Her voice betrays no emotion but exhaustion. "What happened to you?"
I try to remember. But before my dream, my memory is blank. "I... I can't remember." I say, ashamed.
The woman puts her head in her hands. "I was afraid something like this would happen."
I must look confused, because she smiles, just barely. "Your name is Lina. We found that stitched on the inside of your coat. We think you're sixteen. A helicopter found you in the Arctic."
I wrinkle my nose. "The Arctic?"
She nods. "Oh, and I'm Doctor Cummins, by the way. You got here a day and a half ago."
I try to take in all this information. "So... where am I now?" I ask, propping myself up on my elbows.
"Canada. We have no idea where you're from, so we took you to the nearest hospital."
"Do I have parents?" The question seems stupid to me, but Dr. Cummins is considering and answer.
"We can't find them. You must have parents, but all our searches have been inconclusive."
I wish I could fall back into a coma. This is too much. My head spins and my thoughts are tangled.
"I should let you sleep now." She gets up and leaves, pushing her chair back against the wall. The room is suddenly silent. I can hear my heart thumping inside my chest.
I must fall back asleep because the next thing I know Dr. Cummins is tapping me on the shoulder. "There's a boy here who wants to see you. I told him you were asleep. He'll be back in half an hour, so be expecting him."
She turns to go. "What's his name?" I ask.
She faces me again. I can see the light from the window reflected in her eyes. "His name is Peter."

There was a light in the distance. I hurried toward it, snow accumulating in my boots. It came closer and closer, until I could see the outline of a boy. He put his lantern down on the snow and I could see him clearly.
He was a bit taller than me, with light blonde hair and icy blue eyes. His skin was chapped from hours, even days, in the harsh cold wind.
"Lina."
"Peter." somehow, I knew his name.
"You're so close." His voice was musical. We began to walk, the lantern guiding the way. "You are almost safe. I left you already."
I nodded. What he was saying made complete sense.
"Peter, who am I?" I blurted the question out before he could say anything.
He shakes his head. "I can't tell you."
I felt like screaming at him. Instead, I sat down. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me who I am."
He laughed. "You're impossible."
I nodded. "I know."
He sat down next to me. "Seriously. They'll find you if I tell you. You can't know. It's too dangerous."
"Just tell me my name!" I pleaded.
He chewed his lip. "I guess it wouldn't hurt."
I'm rolled my eyes. "Just tell me already.
All around us were miles of snow. I was suddenly aware of our vulnerability. "But you don't have to tell he if it's too dangerous."
He sighed. "Thank you." Taking up the lantern, he began to walk away.
"No!" I yelled, my voice resonating eerily. "You can't go! Who am I!"
A pressure built at the back of my head. It felt like my skull was splitting apart.
He turned to face. "Your name is Lina."
He disintegrated into smoke.

I open my eyes to a knocking at the door. For a second, I panic. Where am I? My sheets are tangled around my ankles and I'm freezing.
I stand up and take a step. I'm fine. Then another, and I'm at the door.
The person knocks again. This time, I pull the door open.
He's about my age. He has white-blonde hair and green eyes. He's the boy from my dream.
"Lina."
"Peter."
"You know me."
"No I don't."
I flick on a light switch and blink at the sudden brightness. The chair that Dr. Cummins sat in is against the wall, and I motion for Peter to sit down. He does so awkwardly. I perch on the side of the bed.
"I dreamed about you."
His eyes so no emotion, but his mouth bends into an amused smile. "You remember me?"
"I didn't say that."
He sits forward. "Look... Lina. I..."
"Didn't mean to leave?"
"I didn't say that." There's a glint of humor in his eyes, but the rest of his face is steely.
"I dreamed about you. I dreamed that we were alone in the Arctic and you left me." Hot tears form in my eyes. I wipe them away, irritated. "You left me and you didn't tell me who I was. You said they'd find me."
He pales. "You shouldn't remember."
"You shouldn't be secretive. We're even."
He doesn't laugh. Instead he gets up and begins to pace. "They'll come for you. After all I did, all Dr. Evans did..."
"Who's Dr. Evans?"
He ignore me, his eyes cast upon the floor. He looks agitated, his face paler than usual, his eyes bright. "I have to go." He heads toward the door. I stop him
"You are going to tell me what's going on."
"Another day."
With that, he hurries down the hall and out of sight.

My boots broke through the top layer of snow, then sinking down to the bottom. I wanted so badly to stop, to rest my weary legs. I couldn't. Some force other than my own two feet was driving me forward, keeping me going.
The soles of my feet were blistered and raw, my lips and hands chapped from the cold. I tried again and again to stop, again and again to somehow slow. My footsteps stretched behind me, miles upon miles of tracks carved deep into the snow.
I closed my eyes so that the ice would not sting them and kept walking. I was hungry. I had no idea where to go, what to do. I followed the invisible tug that seemed to be pulling me forward.
It had been hours since any human contact. The snow was like a blanket over the land, I a tiny flea, trying to make it to the other side. I walked until my legs were numb and I no longer acknowledged movement. I was an empty shell, a body devoid of
spirit.
I nearly gave into tiredness, but the force wouldn't let me. I couldn't sleep, couldn't stop.
"How!" I screamed to nobody. My voice carried in the crisp air, magnifying it. "Why! I can't do this!"
I carried on, looking for any sign of people. A footprint. A discoloration in the snow. But for all I knew, I was the only one here.
The only one here. It was a scary thought, an I tried to put it out of my mind. But it stayed there, a quiet whisper that send chills down my spine.
You are the only one here.

Dr Cummins wakes me up. One minute I am dreaming, the net moment I am sitting up with her standing next to me.
"You were screaming." she says. "I had to wake you."
I nod, my mind in the snow filled world. "We might have found your parents."
The words take a moment to register, but when the do I feel a twinge inside my stomach. "You know?"
"Maybe." She pulls a scrap of paper out of her back pocket. "Your mother anyways."
"Who is it?" I want to ask her where Peter is, but that will have to wait until later.
"Matilda Evans. She lives in Northern Canada. She's an Arctic Researcher. Something about snow."
Evans... Dr. Evans. "Peter." I blurt.
"What?"
"Where's Peter. I need to talk to him! Now!"
"I'm sorry, Lina. I have no idea where Peter is. But you do have another visitor."
"Who?"
"He's right here."
She slips out the door and a man comes in.
I nearly scream, but stare at him for a minute instead. Once I really see him, he looks more normal-slightly.
He has bright orange hair bristling from his head and above his thick red lips. His eyes are strangely purple, but look washed out, at if someone had taken a scrub-brush to them and erased most of the color. He is about five inches shorter than me, stout, and is wearing overalls. I take a deep breath. "What's your name?"
"Caleb." he grunts, his voice a few octaves below the lowest voce I've ever heard.
Suddenly he grabs my wrist. I gasp. I know him, his tight hold, the way his eyes stare into you as if pulling out your secrets and breaking them open on the ground...
"Listen to me. I know you don't remember. But we will find you. We can find you. And when we do you're going back."
I'm frozen in terror. I try to yell, scream, but I can't. He lets go of my wrist and walks out as if nothing happened.
I take a step backward, still reeling. An image flashed in the mirror. Me. I turn to look at myself.
I'm medium height, with blue eyes and blonde hair. I look like Peter.
"I need you, Peter." I whisper, and then climb into my bed.

Bleak. Cold. My mind wandered across the snow, stretching over the miles I'd crossed. A whisp of smoke drifted in front of me, and then thousands shot from the sky, forming the image of a boy.
"Lina."
"Peter."
"You need to know. But I can't tell you here." He began to pace, his lantern casting a warm glow on my feet.
"You need to keep walking."
The words that I dreaded. "Why?"
"I wish you could remember."
"I can't."
"I can't tell you here." he repeated, looking over his shoulder. "I have to go."
He blew away in the wind.
"Thanks a lot!" I yelled after him. I looked down at my hands. "I can't do this by myself."

Peter comes at dawn. "Is it true?" he asks. "Caleb found you?"
I nod, yawning. "Tell me."
He sighs, long and deep. "I have to, now."
He sits down on the chair. "We don't have parents. Well, we do, but we've never known them. For some reason, we got taken to ARI as infants."
"ARI?"
"The Arctic research Institute. Where they experimented on us."
Fragments of memories float to the surface of my mind. Running a maze, with the walls closing in on me. And then one night, pulling on socks and coats, slipping out the gate as it closed.
"We escaped," Peter continues. "We got away. We walked. Somehow we walked across the Arctic."
Long days of snow. Cold.
"Then Dr. Evans caught up to us. She had always been nice. She said that she would let us go and tell the scientists that we had died. But she wanted to take out memories.
"We argued, you and me. You were all for it. I was dead against it. So I ran. Dr. Evans just watched me go. You stayed. I saw her put a needle into your arm. Then you fainted."
I remember that. Her blue snowmobile, vivid against the white.
"I watched as you got picked up by a helicopter. Then I ran away again. Got to the ocean. Boarded a ship. Made it here fast, somehow."
I blink. "That's it?"
"Oh, now you want me to tell you you're related to some queen or something? Isn't being a test subject enough?"
"Yes, no... it's just... so simple."
"Simple for you."
I'm stung. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He scuffs a shoe on the floor. "Nothing."
"So that's all."
"Not quite." He leans over, and kisses me. I pull sharply away, I'm so surprised.
"How could I live with you for sixteen years and not fall in love?" he asks.
"I don't know you." I feel horrible, saying that, but it's true. "My memories are still coming back. I'm... sorry."
He nods. "I understand."
"But Caleb." I turn serious. "He knows where I am."
Peter nods. "We have to be ready.
I stand up and look into the mirror again. Who am I? What am I doing here?
"I have to get out of here. Out of the hospital. Can you do that?"
Peter stands up. "Ready to fight some scientists?"
I take a deep breath. "Ready as I'll ever be."
I step out of the door of my room for the first time ten minutes later. I find a pair of jeans and a t-shirt in my size in one of the drawers. This concerns me, but not enough to wear my hospital gown. I slip on the clothes in the bathroom, noticing for the fist time a scar below my lip.
I may not have my memories. May not know who I am. But I am Lina. And Lina is not going down without a fight.