The time is 3:00 A.M; a storm rolls in from the north entrance of her mind. Rewind ten seconds to when the first bolt of lightening struck. Her thoughts were illuminated; glowing in shades of fluorescent violet. Thirty seconds later thunder sounds, numbing her eardrums. Four minutes of silence follow.
The time is 3:05 A.M; her first remembrance comes with silent pain. She is eight years old again. She is eight years old and her body is a mystery; a mystery not even her hands can illustrate. Her skin stretches over a recollection of events; the first lasting no longer than sixty seconds. A silhouette appears; its touch peels back a second layer of skin. Five minutes pass, and, now, she wanders the maze of a twelve year old mind. Confusion, hollow as a wooden bat, beats her. This continues for nine minutes; each second unveiling another hidden bruise. The agony does not cause her distress. The storm roars on.
The time is 3:20 A.M; scabs from the past twelve years conceal her thoughts. There is a five second pause before she is eighteen. She is eighteen and, for the first time, foreign fingertips trace her interior. Suddenly, her enigma is outlined into a portrait which she can not recognize. The silence carries her for thirty minutes. Another bolt of lightning strikes; time rewinds. Someone else’s hands continue to explore her mind, a repetitive cycle of movement causing her to show more of her skin. This image replays for seven minutes. She can not escape the stranger’s touch, nor does she want to. The two bodies communicate invisibly to the sound of thunder in the distance.
The time is roughly 4:00 A.M; her ability to acknowledge existent elements is weakening. The storm is intensifying; the thunder begins to scream. Time stops; motion stops. Her mind hesitates to trace back to when she was eight again. She can no longer recognize herself; she sees an unfamiliar body and is distracted by a series of vibrations emitted from the child’s skin. It reminds her of the silhouette that used to whisper to her at night. Time does seem to pass; she remains in a daze. Rain pours down, pattering against her thoughts.
The time is unknown. She begins to lose feeling; her perception is paralyzed by one single thought. But, she can not seem to tie remembrance to its significance. Soon, that too slips away. All thoughts subside. The rain continues to pour. Flashes of lightning continue to illuminate the room in which she lies. The walls continue to breathe, imitating the rain.
The clock is blank; her mind glows in dull shades of grey. The rain slows. As the storm nears to an end, her mind is stripped of memory; elegantly naked. She disappears, no longer a product of humanity. She transposes into a breathing artifact of the storm.