Dear Creepypasta [#Wattys2016]

List

It all started with an unfamiliar line of dried blood on my cheek. Where did this blood come from? Not from me – I examined my entire body in the bathroom and I couldn't even find a scrape. My head felt... empty. It's not just that I couldn't remember where the blood came from – I couldn't remember anything.

It all began this morning. I awoke to a ray of sunlight sitting on my eyelids. Groaning, I rotated my neck towards my alarm clock. 11:00 AM. I pulled myself out of bed reflexively and walked a few feet to the bathroom. I saw the blood in the mirror and realized that I couldn't remember anything.

What's the word again? Amnesia. I found the answer somewhere inside my head. Standing in the empty bedroom, staring at the unmade bed, I realized that the word "amnesia" wasn't quite correct.

Recurring... Recurring Dissociative Amnesia.

Somehow, I knew that was the correct expression. The thought stuck out in my brain like the dried blood on my light complexion. Nothing else would come. My mind was a lockbox and I hadn't yet found the right key. My bedroom was empty. The blinds were drawn. A few feet from the bed stood a new-looking faux-wood desk. On top of it was a laptop. The screen was dark but light emanated from the computer's on switch.

Sleep-mode.

I walked out of the bedroom. The hallway outside looked so familiar – its white walls and gray carpet felt very natural to me.

My house.

I meandered past a closed door. As I reached my hand out to turn the knob, an uninvited word came to mind.

Guestroom.

I left the door closed. Somehow, I felt like what I was looking for was somewhere else.

The hallway ended in a carpeted staircase. At the bottom of the stairs was a large wooden door with a glass pane, clearly the front door. An unknown reflex guided me away from the door, towards an open kitchen and dining area. I caught a glimpse of a loveseat and an armchair in a room adjacent to the kitchen, and a glass door beyond that.

Living room. Back yard.

This kitchen was familiar as well, but it was in a particular state of disarray. Dirty dishes filled not just the sink but the surrounding counter area. Cupboards were torn open and a bag of sugar and cans of vegetables lay broken on the floor. The fridge was standing open and the smell of spoiled milk poured out of it. With a hand up to my nose, I closed it. My gaze turned towards the dining room table. In a room of chaos, it was the only thing that was pristine. On it laid a sheet of notebook paper filled with writing.

My list.

Instinctively, somehow, I knew that the contents of this sheet were important to me. As I grasped it, I discerned that all the words filling the page were not just familiar – they were mine. From the first Y on the page to the last N, I could tell it was my handwriting. I wrote everything on this sheet. I had no recollection of doing so.

The list is composed of ten items numerically placed from top to bottom. All of the letters near the top - the first five entries - are written in my neatest handwriting (handwriting I somehow knew was reserved in a past life for filling in tax forms). These entries are all written in black ink with a ballpoint pen. The sixth entry is also written neatly, although it's written in blue ink, presumably at a different point of time.

The seventh entry is written in red ink, a long handed, messy script – clearly mine, but also clearly demonstrating a lack of concern with its appearance.

The last three entries are written in a fat, green marker. They're messy and rambling and take up more than half the page. My eyes scanned the page. None of it made any sense to me at first, like I was reading a foreign language. Obviously I knew what each word meant but it was as though they didn't fit together.