Chapter 1- The Girl Without A Memory

Bright light made me flinch in pain, as I tried to squint my eyes to peer through the glare.  But for whatever reason there just seemed to be nothing but that painful light.  I tried even to reach out for the source of it, but I never got any closer.  I wasn't even sure that I had moved anywhere.  However I would suddenly be left wishing for the light as I felt like I was being pulled somewhere with great force and was left in darkness.  As overwhelming and bright as the light had been, the darkness was complete and everywhere.  I hadn't known where I was to begin with, and this would serve to confuse me only further.  I dont how long I was there in that darness before a new sensation assaulted me.  Pain filled every molecule of my body as if I was being stabbed everywhere at once.  Writhing I tried to escape it, but there seemed to be no end to it...
I awoke with a gasp, starting to a sitting position and with sweat pouring down my face.  One of those dreams... nightmares that always left me with chills and quaking with fear. It wasn't often that I would have dreams, but when I did they weren't ever pleasant.  Lifting a hand I would wipe away the sweat that beaded my forehead with the back of my sleeve before I tried to swing my legs over the edge of the bed.  However because I'd gotten my blankets and sheets wrapped around me I would find myself on the floor with a loud thump, followed by my whimper of pain.  Although the cold hard floor didn't make a comfortable resting place I stayed there for a moment, my cheek pressed against the cool surface, eyes closed.  I wondered as I lay there if I'd ever had good dreams in my life, if there'd been a time that I didn't wake up in a cold sweat during the rare times I dreamed.
"Are you alright Nora?" A voice intruded into my thoughts as a hand tentatively touched my shoulder.  My eyes snapping open I saw it was one of my roommates that was leaning over me with concern on her face.  Nodding I rolled over and climbed to my feet, pulling the blankets away from my body and placed them back onto the bed.
"I'm fine, thanks Emily.  Didn't realize I was tied up in my bedding," I gave a short laugh and flashed her a smile, before turning back to the bed to begin making it up, "Sorry if I woke you up."
"No its cool, I was already awake anyways," Emily responded as I heard the springs on her bed squeaked, letting me know she'd flopped down onto it.  "Another nightmare?"
"Yeah," My reply had been soft, just barely audible as I finished smoothing out the covers of my bed.
"That sucks," She said, making me roll my eyes in response, since it seemed to be such an understatement to me.  But since she had said it to be nice I just nodded in agreement and faced her with a faint smile.  It was then I had realized there hadn't been any noise from the other girls we shared the room with.  I looked to the two sets of bunkbeds and the other single bed to see that the other 3 girls weren't in the room.  Normally I didn't sleep so late, but whenever I had a nightmare I slept later so wasn't too surprised to just see Emily still around.
"Have we missed breakfast?" I asked her, to change the subject, tired of dwelling on the disturbing memoriese of my night.  She stood up then and shook her head to answer to me before pushing her black hair out of her face.
"I don't think so, the others left only about 10 minutes ago," Emily told me and I nodded again.  The rules were that you had only a certain amount of time to make it to breakfast and it had been rare that I was up so late.  It wasn't that rare for Emily to miss breakfast or come late on the other hand, either having slept late or because she would stay in bed awake for awhile.
"That's good," I stated before I turned and walked towards the door, Emily following me.  We both left the room and made our way down the hall to the dining room in silence.  Although Emily was fairly chatty I'd always been more quiet and she'd quickly found that she couldn't draw me into conversation when I wasn't in the mood. When we had reached the dining room we did the usual by going into the kitchen and serving ourselves the food that had been made for breakfast before going to our assigned seats.  The seating had me between the one other girl that was near mine and Emily's ages and the smallest of the younger children.  
"Wow, you almost missed breakfast today, Nora," Kathy stated with a slightly wry grin from behind her fork, as she had waved it at me.  I smiled back a little and nodded before I turned back to my food.  I wasn't in the mood to discuss the reason why I had almost missed eating that morning.  Seeing that I wasn't about to continue the discussion, Kathy shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her food and continued to eat.  I took a glance at her before picking up my toast and nibbled at it, my eyes staying on my plate.
As I sat there, eating my morning meal I fell into reflection once again. At that point it had been about 6 months since I'd been found on the door of the orphanage. A little cliche perhaps, but I had literally been found upon their steps unconcious, by myself and with only clothes on me.  Most would think that wouldn't be a problem, considering that I was about 17 at the time. However, I had no memories before that day, and all I remembered was my name.  My first memory was waking up on the day I'd been found, in the bed that they had lain me in.  Over the 6 months after I had arrived there I was put through many exams and tests to find out the cause of my peculiar blank memory.  Eventually they gave up though as they couldn't find any sign of physical trauma and could only guess that I had suffered some mental or emotional trauma.  I know that over that time I had thought many times on how frustrating it was that I could only remember my name...
"Leonora... Leonora Maisie!  Hey, Leonora!" Hearing my fully known name spoken broke me out of my thoughts at that point and I looked up to see Ginny, one of the morning staff, frowning at me.
"Oh, sorry.  I was just thinking..." I smiled sheepishly at her as my voice had trailed off and she gave me a reassuring smile.  I noticed that almost everyone else had already finished eating and left the table except for some of the younger kids.  Glancing down at my plate, it was also empty, although I had no idea for how long, and if I was the one who had finished everything or if any of the others had stolen from my plate.  Not that it mattered to me, I rarely needed to eat much.
"That's ok Nora, I'm just glad I was finally able to get your attention,"  Ginny had smiled and chuckled a little, the redhead had always been a good natured person during the time I came to know her.
"What's up?" I asked her as I slid out of my chair and grabbed my dishes, before making my way to the kitchen to slide them into the dishwasher with the others.  Ginny had followed me into the kitchen, watching as I cleaned up after myself.
"Just thought you would like to know that you'll want to get dressed soon.  We have some people coming today that are interested in adopting a girl in your age group," Her lips curled into a bright smile, having delivered the good news.  I knew that it also meant that Emily and Kathy were eligible, but that didn't bother me.  As the eldest of the three I didn't have much hope of being adopted before they did.  And it certainly wasn't often that anyone wanted to adopt over the age of 10, so I knew I wouldn't begrudge them if either of them were picked over me.  With Emily at 14 and Kathy at 15 I figured they needed a family more then myself with only a year or two left at the orphanage at worst.  
"Wow, I bet Emily and Kathy are excited!" I responded with a slight grin and she nodded in answer.  Knowing the two of them as I had, they were going to panic about looking perfect. Although I had understood the reasoning behind it, I hadn't ever been able to get up the motivation to be as worried as them.  
"They sure are.  Now get moving, they'll be here in an hour," Ginny shooed me out of the kitchen with a grin, making me flash her a smile as had obliged and started back towards the shared room.  Walking into the bedroom I would find that my thought had been correct, Emily and Kathy were already there with the few outfits they owned strewn over their beds.
"I was starting to think that you would stay at the table all day," Emily had greeted me as she turned to look at me when I'd closed the door behind me.  Kathy glanced up with a giggle before going back to staring at her clothes with a frown.  I smiled at Emily and shrugged as I'd gone over to my own bed and flopped down onto the blue and green covers.
"I don't understand how you can be so calm on days like today," Kathy turned a questioning look to me after she'd thrown one more top to her discard pile.  Her words attracted Emily's attention to me again as well as she nodded in agreement.
"Sorry," I had laughed softly in response,"I guess I just belive that I'd rather they like me for myself how I am everyday, instead of when I try my best to look good." Shrugging again I smiled at them again.
"Well I guess that makes sense.  But I'm not willing to risk it," Kathy frowned a little as she thought about it, but then had decided how to go with it.
"Yeah I guess I'd rather go with trying," After taking a moment to think about it, Emily had agreed with Kathy, speaking with a laugh.  I had just smiled then, turning to my own small dresser full of stuff.  It was their choice after all and I hadn't been about to try and convince them of something I felt was their choice. The two of them would begin talking to each other after that about their outfit options.  I faced my small dresser made of a light brown wood, and pulled open the bottom drawer.  It wouldn't take me long to pick out my outfit since I didn't have as many clothes as they'd had and was only changing because I still had to change out of my pajamas before meeting those coming.  Unlike the other two girls there, my dresser had been filled mostly with books instead of clothes since I spent any allowance I made on them.  
After I pulled the clothes out it hadn't taken me long to slip into the black jeans decorated with a blue rose and butterly on it, and a pretty dark green top with three quarter sleeves with a slightly plunging neckline.  Once dressed I moved over to the mirror in the room since it was free while the other two continued to fuss over their clothes.  As I'd held my hairbrush in my hand I took a moment to stare at my image in the mirror, something I had done everyday as I had hoped it would trigger the memories I desired.  But as usual I had only seen myself staring back with my mess of strawberry blonde hair, and dark green eyes.  After I gave up I had sighed and lifted my hand to begin brushing my tangle of long waves into being presentable.  Once I was satisfied with how my hair hung down I left the mirror to put away my brush before I checked the clock.  It had taken me longer then I thought to get ready, but it often had when I got absorbed in thought.  Only 20 minutes remained at that point until we were going to be called to meet the couple coming.
As I put my hairbrush away I took out one of the books I was reading at the time and flopped down onto my bed.  When I had found my place in the pages I opened the book, but before continuing I glanced at my roommates.  Emily and Kathy had finally decided on their outfits by that time and were now fussing over their hair.  I had snickered as I thought about how they would probably cut it close once again.  My curiosity sated I turned back to my book and began to run my eyes over the words, as I became absorbed in the book and it's fantasy world...