Faint sunlight poured in through the partially uncovered windows, diffusing into the bedroom and illuminated the sleeping figure of a young girl. 

Brown hair splayed out on the pillow, wide blue eyes obscured from view and pale features set into a pristine expression, the girl stirred softly as the sunlight struck her eyelids. Her eyes fluttered open at last, striking blue gazing up at the plain ceiling.

"Wake up, Alyssa, you're getting late for breakfast," a familiar voice greeted accompanied with the routinely tap on her bedroom door.

"Just coming," she sat up, stretching her limbs as she suppressed a yawn. 

The clock was indicating that she had little time for breakfast after which she would have to rush to the station and catch the bus to her university or else she would get late for the morning class.

Pushing all thoughts of sleep aside, she got off the bed and made her way to the bathroom to freshen up.

When she came downstairs, her housemate Andie had already made breakfast and the woman offered her a bright smile.

"You look really pretty in this outfit" she remarked, handing her the plate of pancakes, "and see, I made your favorite breakfast."

"Thanks Andie," she smiled as well, staring down at the plate the woman had given her.

Pancakes were her favorite breakfast... It was one of the very few things that didn't feel like a lie.

A lot had seemed like a lie ever since she had recovered from the road accident that had gotten rid of a major part of her memories. That night, she had barely survived and it was a miracle she was able to recover.

Her second chance at life, as Andie had told her.

She had forgotten almost everything about herself after that accident and if it hadn't been for Andie, she wouldn't even have come back to her home nor would have known about her life.

A month had passed since then but she couldn't help thinking that nothing was the truth anymore.

Her own life had started to feel like a cleverly fabricated lie to her.

She had no memories to confirm that but almost everything she was told about her life before the accident seemed untrue.

"Hey, you're late already. Eat up," Andie's voice shook her out of her thoughts.

"Oh yes, thanks," she mumbled, taking a bite out of the pancake.

It tasted different. The pancakes she remembered being her favorite had a different taste as compared to the one she was eating.

But then whether she actually remembered that or not was still a mystery to her with no possible answer.

Finishing her breakfast reluctantly, she said farewell to Andie, grabbed her bag and then stepped out. The station was close to her house so she took a brisk walk to reach there.

Luckily for her, there were a few minutes left in the bus to arrive so she stood in the calming breeze along with the other passengers, waiting for her bus. When it arrived, she got in along with the others, finding herself a seat.

Her head was cluttered with thoughts nevertheless but the ride to the university was long so she plugged in her earphones and put some music on in hopes that it would distract her for the time being.

***

She unlocked the door using her key when Andie didn't open up after the third ring of the doorbell. And true enough, a note was pasted at the wall saying that she had had to leave on short notice as a friend of hers needed her help.

Alyssa flicked off the note and switched on the lights as it was almost dusk and the sky was darkening. Locking the door behind her, she went to the kitchen to grab something to eat then headed upstairs to her bedroom. 

However, as she was making her way to the stairs, her eyes landed on the door that had always been locked and Andie hadn't let her check the room out.

Each time she had tried to ask about that room and why it was kept locked, the woman had either made excuses or changed the topic. By then it was clear to her that Andie didn't want her to find out what lay behind the locked door.

But as she was alone at home and curiosity as always got the better of her, she decided to find the keys to that door and see for herself what it concealed.

She knew where Andie kept the keys to all the rooms in that house so she retrieved the bunch, searching for the key to that particular door. Surprisingly, she didn't have to search through the entire bunch of keys as her eye got caught by an ancient looking key that was different from the rest.

Carefully, she took the key and turned it in the lock and much to her surprise, the door opened.

As she pushed it open, the strong smell of dust struck her and she coughed, hand clearing away the powdery substance. That room seemed to be locked for years and was completely dark.

Her hand brushed against the wall to search for a light switch that she flicked on shortly after. 

Blue eyes wandered curiously round the dark room in which that dim light was shining partially. Even the curtains were of a jet black hue and shut tightly over the windows, not permitting any ray of light inside. Everything about the room seemed to be drenched in mystery and darkness.

Cautiously she stepped further in, a faint recognition sparking in her mind as she observed the furniture. A part of her felt as if she had been there several times before as well but had somehow forgotten about it.

To be honest, she had forgotten such a lot that she was no longer certain of what was true about her and what was a lie.

She searched the room and found an entire shelf filled up with stuff she could faintly recognize. She tried to open it and another wave of dust engulfed her as the wooden cabinet opened. She took out everything stored in there and found a lot of photo albums, old cards and other such things that seemed awfully familiar to her.

It felt as if she had finally unlocked the door to her hidden past.

But it was then she realized that her head was throbbing with pain. Either it was due to the fact that the room had been kept locked for such a long time that it was very suffocating and dusty in there or it could be something else altogether.

Ignoring the pain, she sat down on the floor, taking out the albums and began to flick through the photographs.

In those old pictures, most of the snaps were of a little blonde girl with blue eyes exactly the same shade as her own. Her brow furrowed because she hadn't known that she was born as a blonde and the brown shade of her hair was in fact a permanent dye.

By each photograph she looked at, the confusion in her head increased.

Along with her childhood pictures, there were pictures of two equally striking men who seemed rather close to her; one having jet black hair and bright blue eyes that resembled her own and the other having light brown hair and soft green eyes.

She must have known the two and they could have been her relatives but as she tried to recall them, she only found darkness cluttering up her memories. The headache was getting worse as well but she was too focused on the pictures to notice.

In the earlier pictures, the man with blue eyes seemed old enough to be her father and she had come upon that conclusion but was shaken when she noticed a rather weird fact about those men.

In all the rest of the photo albums, she seemed to be aging at a normal pace as there were pictures from her preteen and teenage years but those men stayed the absolute same. Not a single wrinkle dented their skins, not a single grey strand peeked through their dark hair.

Her eye got caught by a pile of journals buried deeper in the cabinet and she would have taken those out if not for the violent throbbing in her head. It felt as if an invisible force was making her stay away from the place and the pain was getting hard to bear.

"Alyssa, what are you doing in here?"

Andie had come back and much to her horror, she found her in the forbidden room, clutching her head tightly with a clutter of albums all around her.

"Hey, what's happening to you?" She had crouched down beside her, holding her by the arms, "are you okay? Look at me."

But then the girl's head swayed and she lost consciousness, falling into the woman's arms. Andie's hazel eyes were wide in alarm as she looked down at the unconscious girl as well as the proofs of her forgotten memories lying around her.

Hastily she piled all the stuff inside the cabinet and closed it then heaved up the unconscious Alyssa and dragged her out of the room.

"I shouldn't have left her alone in here for so long," she was mumbling in panic, eyes wide in worry, "Damon is going to kill me if he finds out..."

***