Chapter 19 (pgs.119-120)

LYN LAY NAKED curled in a fetal position, a bag of skin and bones devoid of consciousness. She was bereft of humanity, comatose-like, drifting in and out of a deep state of unconsciousness, and desperately trying to awaken and remember who or what she was. Alone, she probed a nebulous madness that stripped her of self. She fought a devastating drug-induced coma and amnesia when she abruptly roused.

“What’s happening?

“Where am I?

“Who am I?”

She struggled to find a way back to herself and life. Panic engulfed

her. I lost control—

Control of what? What was it?

A condition of chaotic nonexistence ensnared her. A psychic void of

pitch-blackness—suffocating eternal blackness—only the dead know.

Then emotionally charged memories swirled into her perception—

. . . A mommy breastfeeding a baby . . . a child swinging across the

blue sky on a backyard swing . . . two older sisters laughing and singing,

“Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes we all fall

down!” . . . the fallen consumed by the Black Plague . . .

. . . First love at 16 lost to a best friend . . . a young girl’s heart

broken . . . a boyfriend singing, “Who’s your daddy, who’s your daddy?”

knowing how much she loves her Daddy . . .

. . . a valedictorian speaks out for world peace . . . sultry jade eyes,

brimming with life; closed by merciless cancer . . . secret dreams crushed .

. . a young woman seeks adventure . . . terror . . . terror . . . terror . . .

Controlling images and emotions seized her.

What did it all mean?

What did she lose control of?

What was it?

It struck her, like the sickening bounce of a suicide off concrete. “My mind, my mind!” she screamed. “Oh my God, I’ve lost my mind.” Lyn cried like a baby. She could not remember her name as the emptiness she tried to climb out of closed in around her, leaving her lost in Aagaatar’s house of horrors.

She wrestled to hold onto the wreckage of her mind when blurred faces appeared. She saw an intriguing mouth without a face come closer; it said, “We are Stargirls.” Confused and weak, she mumbled, “S-S-Star—“ and collapsed, while the Stargirls sat like ghosts nearby, imprisoned in their own hell—oblivious to her plight and Aagaatar’s treachery.