The silence of his penthouse apartment was a stark contrast to the chaos that still echoed in Damien's mind. He took a shower, changed clothes, and sat in his armchair. Johnny came to place a makeshift bandage on his wound.
Half an hour later, Dr. Vance, his childhood friend and personal physician, entered. "Johnny called. He said you were in a car accident and injured. Let me see the wound."
Vance gently unwrapped the bandage, his expression serious. "It's bad. You're lucky; it wasn't too deep of a cut. But it will leave a lasting scar."
"Did you let your grandfather know about the accident?" Vance asked.
"It's late, plus, I don't want to worry him," Damien replied, his gaze distant.
As Vance cleaned the wound and re-bandaged it, Damien asked the question burning in his mind.
"Vance," he said, his voice low, "do you know anything about the two people in the accident?"
Vance hesitated. "From what I've just heard at the hospital from my colleague about the accident," he said carefully, "the driver... he was killed. And the passenger… a woman. She was taken to the operating room."
Damien nodded. Vance was already at the door when Damien called after him: "Can you text me to let me know how her surgery went when you find out?"
Vance looked at him with a slightly worried expression and nodded.
It was around four in the morning when Damien finally fell asleep. He was tossing and turning; the fever was high, and the wound was painful. He swallowed a few pills. The high fever warped his vision, and the throbbing in his bandaged arm suddenly felt exactly like a phantom pressure on his cheek.
The smell of gasoline and rain twisted into the coppery scent of blood that had filled the car twenty years ago. His mother's bloody hand cupped his cheek; she wanted to tell him something, but she struggled to speak. He remembered her words, muffled by blood, but the words were clear to him: "You're bleeding."
Then the young woman's voice, "You're bleeding," cut through the foggy memory. That same fear in her eyes. This was the second accident, and the similarities chilled him to the bone.
He didn't know the woman's name until the morning came and Marco arrived.
Marco: "The dead driver's name is Ethan Evans and the woman's name is Sarah Walker." Damien repeated the name, his voice a dry, rasping sound. "Sarah Walker." Why does this name sound familiar?
Then Damien's phone rang; it was Vance. He called to say the woman had woken up, but...
Damien felt a pang of sadness pierce through his chest. "She's suffering from amnesia," Vance said.