I can't breathe. I'm suffocating. The world is darkening all around until the only thing that remains in my sight is the ugly collage of burns and bruises.

How?

I don't understand. How did this happen? I wasn't in any accident...I fainted. That's it. Simple. From dehydration, maybe.

So how did this happen?

The doctor that was tending to the machines surrounding me comes in again, followed by a tall woman. She's practically running, but when she sees my face she stops, and takes in a shaky breath. Her eyes are filled to the brim with tears, and one lone tear makes its solitary path down her pale cheek. She takes another step towards me, her legs wobbly.

"Bianca...oh...my sweet, lovely Bianca...".Her voice is trembling with the tears, and her posture is struck with grief. She takes another pace towards me, and another, until finally she is kneeling next to me, her body shaking with the tears, her cold hand enclosed around mine. 

My heart is captured with the freezing hand of fear. Who is she? I tug my hand away, and she looks up, confusion clear in her eyes.

"Who...you?" I manage to choke out. Her eyes cloud over with surprise and astonishment and even the male doctor standing behind her takes a visible step back. He places a hand on the woman's shoulder, squeezes it and gently pulls her away.

She stands up, but doesn't move back. Meeting my own eyes with her bronze ones, she says clearly, with no hesitation, and no confusion.

"I'm your mother."

I'm dumbstruck. How dare she? How dare she even try to tell me that she was my mother? I may not remember how or why or when I got these bruises, but I remembered the sweet sound of my mother's voice, her melodious laugh, the way her bright blue eyes sparkled when she told a joke. 

This woman is not my mother.

She lets herself be dragged out of the room by the doctor, and this only strengthens my belief that she is not my mother. My mom would have burned down this building before she ever allowed herself to be separated from me. 

I turn my face away from her, because the heart break visible in her eyes is too much for me. I close my eyes, pleading sleep to take me so I can escape this nightmare. And before long, my mind slows and I fade into the darkness.

After all, even the dark has a heart.