Amnesia

Chapter 154: S2 - Amnesia

'Where am I? Why does my body ache?' The young girl asked herself as she sat up in a white hospital bed.

After three days of sleeping, the shock had filled the young girl's mind as she watched her mother bleed out in an alleyway that day. She couldn't see the man who'd attacked them, but she recalled that he had bright blonde hair and bright blue eyes and wore a long black trenchcoat and a black fedora hat.

She'd just met a young boy earlier that day and made some happy memories with him, but she truly didn't expect that it would quickly turn tragic.

Remembering that day's events were too much for her to handle, but she couldn't erase it from her mind. Every single detail that happened, she recalled. If only she could forget, that'd be for the best.

"Keiko! Are you alright?!" Her father asked her at her side after he noticed her sit up. She could see on his face that his face had shrunken, and the bags under his eyes were apparent.

What had happened to her father?

Right across from the hospital bed was a flatscreen TV that showed a mother and daughter walking down a busy street. The city's bustling cars reverberated, and people flocked to the sidewalks to get to their designated places.

"Keiko! I'm going to need you to tell me all you know about what happened on that day, ok?!" Kenji said hurriedly, grabbing his daughter's small hands in desperation. But somehow, the girl was entranced by the movie on the TV screen and paid no mind to her father's dire words.

As the mother and daughter walked down the street, they came across a crosswalk to get to their location, which was a bakery.

The pedestrian light turned green, and the two began walking hand-in-hand.

Clip clop!

Their feet went as they walked the crosswalk. But for some unforeseen circumstance, a red car rushed down the road at full speed.

The mother just barely noticed this before it was too late and pushed her daughter to the sidewalk where it was safe. Finally, within a split second—

*CRASHHHHH!!!*

The woman was flung across by the red car as her child stood on the sidewalk, watching the scene unfold.

'Yes… that must've happened…' Keiko thought in a trance.

"Keiko! Snap out of it! We don't have time for this! Tell me about what happened that night with your mother! Who was it?!!!" Kenji said impatiently, shaking the girl's shoulders back and forth.

From within, he could see that the girl's lively, bright blue eyes were lost in a sea of darkness.

"Momma and I were walking across a crosswalk until… a red car ran a stop light and came at us at full speed… Mom saw it and she protected me by pushing me to the sidewalk and I-I saw her get hit by the red car…" Keiko explained with a far-off look in her eyes.

Her facial expression and tone of voice didn't seem like she was lying, but Kenji was visibly distraught at her words. None of what she said matched with the events that happened only a few days ago.

But when he looked up, he could see the scene she described on the television.

"Oh no…"

* * *

Seeing how the young 8-year-old girl falsely recalled a memory that never happened, Michiko Kenji was at a loss. He tried to force his daughter to tell him about the events of the night her mother died, but to no luck, Keiko repeated the same story again and again.

"Mom died in a car crash after trying to protect me… That's all I remember."

'It's no use… she doesn't remember anything… She's in so much shock from that night that she has dissociated amnesia,' Kenji pondered to himself as he grabbed the strands of his hair and tugged out of anxiety.

As he got up to leave his daughter's side, a small hand grabbed ahold of his arm.

"Daddy… why do I feel a stinging pain in my side?" Keiko asked him, but he could see that her bright blue eyes were clouded by darkness.

She couldn't even remember a knife touching her skin. She couldn't even remember running to the reception hall during the celebration and screaming for help….

Seeing how obscure her current state of mind was to the point where she couldn't recall those traumatic events, Kenji tightly gritted his teeth together as he put his hand on her.

"You accidentally cut yourself when you were playing around with a knife. We rushed you to the hospital to have you stitched up," Kenji said light-heartedly as he lied through his teeth. Many things were running through his head as he spoke to his daughter.

"Oh, okay," Keiko said faintly as she laid back down on the bed again and faced away from her father. She never questioned how far-fetched it sounded and accepted it as it was.

From her actions, he could tell that she wasn't in the mood to speak.

Although she couldn't remember the grim details of that night, she still had to face a "memory" in which she witnessed her mother dying. If it went as far as developing dissociative amnesia, the events of that night must've been more gruesome than he'd ever thought.

Kenji got up and left the room, but standing right outside it was a woman with medium-length dirty blonde hair and jade green eyes. She usually looked fierce, but this time, anybody could see the expression written on her face.

Anger, sadness, withdrawal, denial, and fear.

"Oh," Kenji responded to her sudden appearance in surprise.

This lady was none other than Kashino Asa. One could see that she was a beauty with her medium-length dirty blonde hair, but her expression was usually as cold as her personality.

"Did you talk with Keiko? What did she say?" Asa asked Kenji impatiently as if she was trying to force the words out of him. On her face, he could read her emotions like an open book. He knew that this wasn't how she would normally act, according to his late wife.

All he could do was sigh and shake his head.

"What the hell does that mean?! What did she say?!" Asa raised her voice at him, yet Kenji rubbed his forehead to ease the incoming migraine.

"She doesn't remember what happened that night. When I asked her, she was engrossed by a scene on the TV and recalled a memory that never happened. I tried asking her a few more times, but all she kept saying was, 'Mom died in a car crash after trying to protect me… That's all I remember'," Kenji gave in, but as he finished explaining, Asa put her hand to her mouth in shock.

"She has amnesia?" Asa expressed shock.

"I'm afraid so. I'm not even sure if she will ever remember what happened that day…"

"No! That can't be true! We need to find out who killed Ella! Keiko's the only one who saw them! We can't just let Ella die in vain! She's your wife for f*cks sake!!!" Asa screamed at him as tears started to well up in her eyes.

She was never a sentimental person, but she and Ella Fournier had been tight-knit friends for a long time. It was a friendship people would envy.

Kenji knew better than anyone that Ella and Asa were the best of friends. Although they had opposite personalities, they balanced well with one another. He could understand her emotions since the two women met at the age of 14 in France, but how could she have the gall to say these things?

"Of course, I want to find out the culprit who killed her! We can't do anything if the eye-witness doesn't recall a thing!" Kenji raised his voice in frustration as veins popped out of his neck.

He loved his wife of all things in the world, so obviously, he wanted to find out who killed her. But it wasn't just his wife he loved, he loved his daughter too.

Realizing that he was beginning to lose his reasoning, he breathed out a heavy sigh and scratched the back of his neck.

"Look, I'm sorry. We both lost someone dear to us, so it'd be best if we didn't go at each other's throats," Kenji said while massaging his forehead.

"I… You're right," Asa responded while looking away in embarrassment due to her actions. 

"How is she doing?" She asked.

Kenji could do no more than turn his head away at the question.

"She doesn't remember being stabbed. Seeing how she quickly forgot that incident, we can conclude that what she saw was indeed traumatizing. I told her that she accidentally cut herself while playing with a knife, so I think it'd be best if we don't bring it up to her anymore. I… I wouldn't want to make her go through more pain," Kenji suggested as he looked far off into the distance, but there was also another meaning to his words.

If they couldn't use Keiko during the investigation of Ella Fournier's death, there was only one thing they could do—create a cover story. They would do anything to hide the incident of Ella Fournier's death, just so that the young girl would never have to remember the gruesome details of that night.

However, this meant that Kenji would have to give up the possibility of ever getting closure for his wife's death. 

"Do you even know what you're saying, Kenji?! You're giving up the only chance to find out who did this!" Asa screamed in frustration as this was what he was alluding to.

"All I can think of now is how I want to protect Keiko. After all she's been through... having her mother one day and then losing her the next, she should never know the truth," Kenji explained, his actions dismissive.

"So you're just going to let the murderer roam free?! Are you stupid?! That's exactly what the murderer wants!" Asa rubbed her forehead as her gaze towards him turned colder.

"Michiko Kenji, today, I've lost all of my respect for you. Go to hell."

She stormed off down the hospital hall as Michiko Kenji stood silently, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth.

"AGH, F*CK!" He screamed out, violently punching the wall beside him in frustration.

'Why'd they have to go outside that day? None of this would've ever happened if they just stayed inside. And Ella... she would still be here....'

In his mind, he'd already decided what he wanted to do. It wasn't a decision that people would agree with, but it was all he could think of as a man who lost a woman he loved dearly and his vibrant daughter on the same day.

Michiko Kenji and his team, along with the police station, would have to create a cover story that explained to the globe that the world-renowned patissiere, Ella Fournier, died due to a traffic accident. The medical staff that took care of Michiko Keiko and Ella Fournier were given a gag order and could not speak of the night of the murder.

Since the culprit who'd "run over" Ella Fournier was never found, this would be declared a cold case. 

For 6 long years, the case of Ella Fournier would remain unsolved and pending until the discovery of new evidence, that is until the Statute of Limitations of this case would last 7 years. As for now, only one year remained until this case was officially closed.