AN- This is a sequel to Spiral of Doom although it can be read alone. I admit there is something very lack luster about my writing that makes it feel dull and somewhat emotionless. If anyone has suggestions on how to improve this, I would gladly listen.

The first thing she could hear was the slight sound of buzzing in her ears. An irritating noise that she tried to push to the back of her mind while she slept, but the sound was persistent and refused to subside. Within minutes, it grew in momentum into a large wailing, like sirens. Petra opened her eyes but immediately closed them from the harsh lights, her eyes dimming as the colors of red and blue streaked across the sky and she slowly allowed the darkness to once again consume her amid the buzzing noises of shouting and screaming.

Deeply, within the voids of her mind, she could barely hear the sound of crying and sobbing right beside her.

The next time Petra woke up, she was immersed with the sudden feeling of pain. There was the slight constant ache that pounded against her head, the dull thrum of her heartbeat against her ribcage and the painful ragging breath that was forced out of her lungs and raked against her throat. With a pained groan, Petra arose, her eyes slowly adjusting to the light that penetrated from the window. Her fingers slightly twitched in irritation from the sudden onslaught of light before her hand reached upward to block and defend herself from the oncoming sunlight.

What had happened?

Blinking away the pain, Petra could feel a heavy weight settled against her side forcing her eyes to widen as she craned her neck slightly. She blinked back her surprise upon finding a man siting on the plastic chair near the bedside, his body leaning forward until his arms rested on the bed's railing, his head still buried within the mounds of a pillow that he was holding. Petra could hear the sound of snoring almost as much as she could feel it, the slight tremor of each breathe that came out sounding more like the snore of a carnivorous bear than that of a normal human.

There was a moment of hesitance and shock as Petra could not remember having ever seen this man. Her body immediately recoiling away from the foreign body and her immediate reaction was to flinch away from the unknown. This, however, jostled the man awake as he bolted upward in surprise, while, at the same time, letting out an undignified snort. The man let out a wide yawn and took a moment to stretch before opening his eyes. He then, upon seeing Petra, jumped in shock causing the pillow to fall onto the floor as his eyes widened and he shouted, "You're awake!"

Petra immediately flinched at the sudden action and loud noise as her eyes widened in a slight moment of fear. The man immediately sat back down while letting out a slight cough to hide his embarrassment, his cheeks noticeably a deeper shade of red.

"Are you alright?" he asked. Petra only stared at him in confusion which gave the man a wrong impression as he had immediately backtracked, waving his hands in the air as some form of an apology while stuttering out. After the man continued to stutter with no sign of stopping, Petra decided to butt in.

"Umm, excuse me …. ," she started quietly while flinching at the sudden ache in her throat and the sound of sand paper grating on wood that was her voice., "But who are you?"

The man stopped his ramblings, his hands frozen in the air in mid-sentence with his mouth still open in shock. His eyes only stared dully back at Petra for a long moment before he narrowed his eyes at her, his hands slowly falling back to his sides with a stoic look making its way permanently across his face. Petra immediately knew this was the wrong question to ask and was about to apologize and demand he forget what she had said but the man beat her to it. "Is this some kind of joke?" he said quietly, all signs of happiness disappearing from his face, replace by seriousness and underlying sense of worry. "I know I've never been the best husband, but please tell me your joking."

Petra's eyes widened as she reeled back in surprise at the sudden confession. Husband!? When did she have a husband?! No, that can't be right. She would have remembered if she ever dated someone much less married them! Surely this man was trying to deceive her, but what ludicrous was this?

"I don't remember you," Petra said simply and was about to smack him if he dared say otherwise because obviously this man was not her husband. Did she even have a husband?

The man stared back at her for a long moment before he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder which surprisingly soothed Petra and stopped her immediate reaction of mistrust and to shrug off any sense of familiarity and comfort. He paused while taking a deep breath as if unsure of what to say at that moment before whispering in a quiet yet soothing voice that made Petra's heart lurch. "Do you remember anything? Anything at all?" he asked, somewhat desperately.

"My name is Petra and … ," Petra trailed off as she racked her brain for more information. My name is Petra and … and what? Surely there was more? But no, for the life of her, she could not remember what else was her life. She couldn't think of a single other fact to give the man standing before her other than her name. That was to say if Petra really is her name. Desperately she scanned her surroundings in an attempt to reawaken a lost memory, to jostle some familiar presence that could remind her of what had transpired, yet she was met with nothing but the slight dull headache that protested upon the sudden haze of searching.

She had noticed the white walls, the beeping machines, the needles and tubes, and the heavy, acrid smell of medicine. Immediately recognizing the familiar surroundings of a hospital, Petra couldn't help but startle in surprise. Why was she in a hospital? What had happened?

Watching her every movement like a hawk, the man gave out a deep sigh of sadness and regret upon seeing Petra's wildly panicking face, her eyes filled with sudden fear at the lack of memory and knowledge. All of which had obviously escaped her. The man rubbed his temple slightly before squeezing Petra's shoulder in an attempt to calm her. "Don't worry about it, maybe the memories will come back on their own."

But that had been a week ago. Petra had already been allowed to return home although home was far from anything that she recognized. The two of them, her and Oluo, as he later told her, lived alone in a small four roomed apartment as they could not afford anything larger. Oluo worked at the police station while Petra worked as a nurse in the very same hospital that she had just been omitted from which explained all the staff members constantly doting and fussing over her.

The two of them had been high school sweethearts back in the days and married against their parents wishes as soon as they had graduated from community college. Since then, they have been together for a little less than a year while still trying to rack up all of the money to pay the rent and debt which Oluo would not tell her from what it came from.

Oh, and Oluo had an odd habit of biting his tongue at an average of five times a day, seven if you flustered him.

Within the week after the incident, Petra had regained no memory of her life nor the incident itself that has left her in this state, and each time she had asked Oluo what had happened, the man had merely denied knowing anything, only saying that he had been asked to come to the hospital after she had befallen an accident. The only things Petra knew of her life now were the things that Oluo told her, and that wasn't much to go by. Yet, it continued to befuddle her as to how she could not remember. Why couldn't she remember anything?

However, within that week, she had also noticed how distanced the two seemed although she could not understand if it came from her sudden amnesia or if it had always been this way. The two were always awkward around each other and Oluo would often stumble over his words when speaking to her. Petra could not understand what type of relationship had befallen the two of them as Oluo seemed eternally afraid of upsetting her and Petra still did not understand the man enough to try starting a conversation without an initiative from the other. Was this really her husband? Although he was a very sweet and kind, they treated each other as strangers and Petra could not imagine ever seeing herself marrying him.

One day, as Oluo had left for work during a nigh shift. Petra was left alone at the empty apartment room seeing as the doctors had yet to approve she return to work. It had started raining an hour after Oluo's departure and Petra could only stare out the large window that lead to the balcony. Her eyes cast into the gloomy shadows of the proceeding storm, watching as the rain fell in torrents of heavy down pour. It was then that she saw it.

Everything was dark, the clouds thickened into a dark ashened gray, almost black. Rain was pelting against her face like arrows as she watched them fall from the sky. Was she lying on the ground, but why? She could not remember falling onto the ground. Her visions was blurry as she could barely make out the shape of someone above her. A boy? He was screaming at her and crying while his hands reached out to shake her arm and trying to force her to get up.

Petra slowly turned her eyes to look at him but, it seemed that the more she attempted to look directly at him, the less visible he became. His face distorting before her eyes as edges of her vision became blurry and succumbed to the darkness. She could feel the rain falling onto her cheek although it could have also been the tears of the boy. The boy. Who was he? There was a second of paused silence as Petra struggled to open her mouth and ask him what had happened, but as soon as she found the strength to attempt to speak, the boy disappeared and everything was black again.

Petra awoke to the smell of black coffee, the thick aroma wafting throughout the room leaving a sense of familiarity and comfort that delved deep into Petra's mind. A smell she recognized despite her waning memories. A moment of paused hesitation, Petra looked around the room in confusion. She was back at the apartment and she barely noted a slight throbbing pain that pounded against her head behind her eyelids even as she closed them, hoping to block the pain. But, if anything, this made it worse as there was nothing to divert her concentration from the pain which forced Petra to open her eyes towards the blinding lights and drink in the smell of coffee in an attempt to forget of the oncoming headache. She was currently laying on the old futon that Oluo had proudly claimed was the first present he had bought her on their fifth date which Petra had jokingly asked him if he had forgotten to get her something the first four dates which had left the man a spluttering mess. She could also see lights streaming through the doorway that lead to the kitchen.

It was Oluo who then appeared from the doorway, the sound of his feet shuffling against the kitchen floor, barely concealed by the sound of rain pattering against the window. The man was holding a mug of coffee, a newspaper in his other hand, but upon seeing Petra awake, his eyes widened and he immediately rushed towards her. "What happened? Are you okay?" he asked worriedly, checking her over as if worried that she had once again fallen victim to amnesia. Petra only smiled in amusement at his antics and found his quirky personality rather humorous yet surprisingly sweet.

Even as she insisted she was fine, the man continued to fester over her in obvious fear as if she had been on death row. "I came home and saw you collapsed! I was going to call for an ambulance but-,"

"Tell me what you know about the accident," Petra interrupted, knowing that the man wouldn't stop his ramblings for another hour if she didn't. Oluo paused, deep in thought, before he let out a heavy sigh of frustration as if he didn't want to remember the incident. "I don't know much, but it was a rainy day. You were walking home when you were suddenly struck by a car on the intersection and then administrated to the hospital after the driver frantically called for an ambulance." Oluo spoke hesitantly, and after a moments pause asked why.

"I think I remembered what happened," Petra spoke slowly. "Although everything is really hazy right now, and I don't quite remember how it happened." Petra then paused slightly in confusion upon seeing Oluo's eyes widen in surprise, and at the same time, a slight tinge of fear, but when Petra tilted her head slightly in confusion, wordlessly asking him what was wrong, the man merely waved his hand, prompting her to continue. Petra then paused, trying to remember what had happened in her vision before asking worriedly, "How's the little boy, was he hurt?"

Oluo reeled back in surprise. "What?" he asked perplexed. His eyes drawing in together in confusion, a sure sign that he was bewildered. "The boy," Petra insisted. "The boy at the accident, the one who was next to me crying when it happened. Is he okay?" Oluo hesitated for a moment before placing his forehead against her's.

"I think you should go back to sleep, your obviously delirious and you might be running a fever. Perhaps I should call your doctor and see if this is a side effect from that amnesia."

"But the boy, he was there. Please just tell me if he's okay," Petra spoke worriedly when Oluo refused to answer, the man still insisting she rest while trying to pull the covers over her in the makeshift bed. When Petra refused and continued to insistent on Oluo's answer, the man finally let out a breathe of frustration while squinting his eyes shut in slight annoyance. "There was no boy with you during the time of the accident. The driver only saw you, and you were alone."