Missing Memory

by Junmo Ahn '19
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I woke up from the white bed and sunlight was passing through the window. This is my first memory of my life now. I looked around the room and was able to figure out that I am in the hospital. Suddenly, the doctor came in and said, “Good morning Mr. Robert Edwards, I am Doctor Stephen Strange. Today is 2020 May 24th.” And he also mentioned that I had a car accident about two weeks ago on a rainy day. “I think I have a problem with my memory,” I told my doctor. “I still remember my childhood and place where I had an accident but no more than that.” “It’s just a temporary situation,” the doctor casually said. “Looking or staying in a familiar place will help me find a memory.”

After a few weeks of recovery in the hospital, I went back home. Actually, I don’t remember this place is my home. During the recovery, I was able to see the file that has my personal information that doctor left on the end table of my bed. Even though I don’t remember this place at all, I think my body remembers the place. Just by following my foot, I was able to find a place I need, such as a bathroom. 

After a few days of staying here, I found some neighbor who knows me. Mrs. Sarah Green was one of them. She is living in front of my house, second floor. She said “It’s been a long day since the last time you closed your store! What happened?” and she also mentioned that she had to find another store downtown just to get meat. Of course, I did not recognize her at first and said: “I have troubles with my memory after the car accident, do you know me?” Sarah said “Oh... sorry to hear that. I am Sarah Green and you are a really nice person and everyone in the town likes you too.” And she also said, “If there is anything I can help, just knock on the door.” With her help, I was able to collect this information about me. Here is information about me: 

I. I am a butcher.
II. My last memory is when I was 6 years old
III. Father and Mother died when I was 17.
IIII. This house has my store on the 1st floor and has three floors total.
V. There is a door under the stairs, Probably connected to the underground. 

Number five of this list is quite important. I tried to open the door, but it had a number of padlocks and was made out of metal. It seemed impossible to break the door. However, my hand was already touching the number pad on the door and started to press random numbers. After three times, my hand unlocked the door and I was able to see inside. 

The first thing that I saw was the metal stairs going down. I slowly stepped forward and headed down. It was dark but the air was dry and cold. Actually, this space feels like separated from 
outside. I was not able to find a light switch and I had to find a flashlight. With the flashlight, I saw some of the electric console and able to turn on the light. 

It was a white-colored clean room. However, it looked like an operating room. I don’t know why this place was creepy. I took a closer look at this place. After a few minutes of exploring this huge room, I saw the deck of papers and files. The files were black and the person’s face and the name were written in front. The more papers I handed over the files, the files, more and more brutal images appeared, and I easily figured out this was either a police murder case file or a serial killer’s murder diary. There was personal information of the victim and motivation for murder. I ran out of the room right away. I started to become suspicious of this house. Is this really my house? Then why are these things here? My reasonable guess was that this house was once a killer’s house. I ran down to the realtor and asked about this house. But what he said was that this house’s owner has not changed ever since it was built and its owner’s name is Robert Edwards. I was thrown into confusion. My first reaction to this room was just to close that room’s door and keep it locked so nobody could see it. 

If anyone sees this, they will for sure think I am a serial killer. I needed to hide this room from the outside world and at the same time, needed to figure out what is this room. Ever since then, whenever I had time, I went down to the room and read the files. According to the photos in these files, the murders happened in this room and bodies were removed in many different ways. 

In this deck of files, I found a paper called “psychiatric counseling paper”. There was my name on it. I slowly read through the paper. “Patient started killing people after his first kill, which was his father, who was patriarchal.” Right after I read this sentence I tried to find the name of the patient, but the name box was empty. There was only the doctor’s name “Homer Hovanesian”. I remember this name from the files. I keep reading through the paper. There was no name of the disease in this paper and it was not finished. I immediately read Homer Hovanesian’s file. 

● Personal information: Homer Hovanesian, Psychiatrist, 27 years old. 
● Processed Location: Reservoir 
● Reason: Knows too much information 
● Result: 

“Why is the result empty? Other files had at least ‘successfully done’ or ‘confirmed burned.’’ I said to myself. 

Right after this sentence passed through my brain, I picked up the car keys and drove down to the reservoir in town which I found in Google, the only reservoir in 200 miles, to figure out the ‘result’. 

Just about 2 miles away from the reservoir, on the secluded road inside of the forest, I figured out that this is the place where I had the accident. I didn’t even go to the reservoir and drive back to my house. I opened the main door and ran out into the underground to hide everything. As soon as I arrived at the house, I was able to hear two detectives were talking in the underground room.
 
“What is this....?” one of the detectives said. “Immediately call CSI and back-up!” I picked up the shotgun that was hanged near the stairs. I closed the door of the room and slowly walked down. 
“Freeze!!” one of the detectives shouted and immediately armed himself with a colt. I pulled the trigger, and at the same time, after that confirmed the detectives were dead, my memory came back and murder did not surprise me anymore. 

“Let me write a paper about these guys after I clean their bodies,” I said to myself. “This is the best part of this work.”