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future days I do not know.
But before I became who I am now, too. Dr Lysander says I fancy things in my subconscious, that there is no way to know if they are true or not. Applying sense to the unknown to order it, just the way I draw diagrams, maps. Faces.
Below, the glistening grass, fallen leaves in swirling patterns of so many rich colours, and most especially the fading flowers along the house, all beckon. All yearn to be captured, ordered, to become lines on paper. I pull the window in quietly and slip across the room. Amy lies silent and still, chest movements slight and even.
Two green eyes watch from the end of my bed. ‘Meow!’
‘Ssssh. Don’t wake Amy,’ I whisper, and run a hand across Sebastian’s fur. He stretches and yawns.
Where are my sketching things? Amy unpacked my bag yesterday afternoon. I was too fuzzy headed to get involved, all the new things and people taking too much attention.
I open one drawer, then another; carefully and quietly, until I find them: my folder of drawings, sketch pad and pencils.
I take them out and underneath spy chocolates, given to me as a parting gift by the tenth floor nurses that last morning. Just yesterday, I realise, surprised. It seems longer ago than that; already part of my past.
My levels are 6.1. Not low at all. I don’t need a chocolate. But who needs an excuse? I open the lid.
‘Interesting choice for breakfast,’ Amy says, then sits up and yawns. ‘Are you an early bird?’
I look at her blankly.
‘Do you always wake up early?’
I consider. ‘I think so,’ I say, finally. ‘Though that could be because at the hospital you have no choice.’
‘Oh, I remember that. Horrible morning buzzer. Breakfast by six.’ She shudders.
‘Want one?’ I hold out the box.
‘Oooh, tempting. Maybe later, when I’m more awake. What is that?’ She points at the folder in my other hand.
‘My drawings.’
‘Can I see?’
I hesitate. I rarely show them to anyone, though Dr Lysander insisted on checking through them now and then.
‘You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to.’
I sit next to her and open the folder, pull out the sheets of paper. Amy exclaims at the one on top. A self-portrait. Me, but different: half as I am in the mirror, the other half skin missing, eyeball hanging from an empty socket.
‘May I?’ she holds out a hand, and I pass the drawing to her.
But that wasn’t on top before. I start flipping through the sheets.
‘You’re so good, this is amazing.’
Not enough of them, not as thick a sheaf as it should be. Where are they?
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Some of my drawings are missing.’
‘Are you sure?’
I nod. And look through them more slowly.
Those of me, my room, imagined people and places, are present and accounted for. Many others are not.
‘I’m sure. Almost half of them are gone.’
‘What were they?’
‘All sorts of things. Nurses. My floor of the hospital, maps of different areas, rooms. Dr Lysander. And—’
‘Did you say, Dr Lysander?’ Amy’s eyes open wide.
I nod, still looking through the sheets, convinced if I look hard enough, they will all be there.
‘ The Dr Lysander? Do you actually know her?’
I stop looking. They’re not here. Gone.
Bzzzz . A warning from my wrist: 4.3 and falling.
Amy slips an arm across my shoulders. I’m shaking, but not from cold. Who would do this: take the only things I have that are mine.
‘You can make more drawings. Can’t you?’
3.9 and falling.
‘Kyla! Look at me.’
Amy gives me a shake. ‘Look,’ she repeats.
I tear my eyes from my self-portrait, from the dead eye in the socket. To Amy. Worry and fear for me in her eyes, whoever I am.
3.4…
‘Kyla, you can draw me. Do it, now.’
She pulls the sketch pad from the back, puts a pencil in my hand.
I draw.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
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‘Can I see?’ Amy asks. She cranes her head forward, but I angle the sketch away.
‘Not yet. Hold still, or I won’t be able to finish it.’
‘Bossy thing.’
‘It won’t be