The Royal Agreement

Chapter Six

“Who are you?”

My voice trembled as I uttered the question. The words barely escaped my dry and cracked lips. I looked around, wide-eyed and terrified, at the strangers surrounding me. The room felt suffocating as a strange mix of intimacy and unfamiliarity made my skin crawl.

The faces staring back at me were etched with pain and something else—something I couldn’t quite understand. I felt panic surging as I realized I didn’t recognize any of them.

Everything about the room felt wrong. The walls were too close, the air was too thick, and the steady beeping of machines around me was a harsh reminder that something was terribly wrong. I couldn’t place where I was or why I was there. My head throbbed with a relentless, pounding ache. What was happening right now was all in confusion that made it impossible to think clearly.

I closed my eyes. There I hope to find some semblance of order in the disjointed fragments swirling in my head. But all I found was a vast, eerie blankness where my memories should have been. It was as if someone had reached inside my mind and ripped away everything that made me who I was, leaving nothing but a hollow shell in its place.

“Where am I?”

The thought echoed in my head and panic still rose inside my stomach, threatening to spill over. I felt like I was drowning in an ocean of uncertainty, gasping for air as I struggled to make sense of the unfamiliar world around me.

A woman on my right reached out to grasp my hand, her eyes swollen and red from crying. I instinctively pulled away, my heart racing as I recoiled from her touch. Because of that, her face twisted with grief and recognition, her features soft and pretty but marred by an anguish that seemed almost unbearable. She seemed familiar, like a hazy figure in a distant dream, but I couldn’t grasp how or why.

“Who are you?”

I repeated, this time with a hint of desperation in my voice. The words felt foreign like they didn’t belong to me like I was someone else entirely.

The room fell into a heavy silence. The kind that presses down on your chest and makes it hard to breathe. The woman’s soft sobs were the only sound, a heartbreaking one that filled the space with profound sadness. Every eye in the room was on me. Their gazes were intense, burning into my skin, amplifying the disorientation that was already threatening to overwhelm me.

The woman reached for my hand again, her touch gentle but insistent. I wanted to pull away, to hide, but something in her eyes—something deep and sorrowful—kept me frozen in place.

“You are my beautiful daughter, dear. Your name is Graziella Serafina Ciella.”

Graziella… Graziella Serafina Ciella. The name felt strange like it didn’t quite fit, yet there was something faintly recognizable about it. I frowned, trying to make sense of it, but the more I tried to focus, the more it slipped away, like sand through my fingers.

“I’m your mommy, Gabbi, stellina…” The woman—Mommy, she had called herself—placed a trembling hand over her chest as she spoke. “And this is your daddy, Cris.”

She gestured to the man beside her, who was rubbing her back with a tenderness that spoke of years of love and shared sorrow. Tears glistened in his eyes, and he gave me a small, shaky nod, his face filled with a mixture of relief and heartbreak.

“You’re in the hospital, honey… You almost—” Her voice broke, and she dissolved into sobs again, unable to continue.

“Mommy?” I echoed.

The word fetlt foreign and uncomfortable on my tongue. It didn’t feel right, calling her that, but there was no denying the desperation in her eyes, the way she looked at me like I was her whole world.

I shifted my gaze to the man she called Cris, who nodded again, his eyes filled with a deep, sorrowful relief that made my heart ache, though I didn’t understand why. The whole scene felt surreal like I was watching someone else’s life play out in front of me.

Gabbi—Mommy—continued, her voice quivering as she spoke. “Your full name is Graziella Serafina Ciella. This is Victoria, a dear family friend.”

She pointed to an elegantly dressed woman on my left, who had been sitting silently, watching me with sad, knowing eyes. Victoria gave me a tight, strained smile, her eyes brimming with unshed tears that she was clearly trying to hold back.

My eyes darted around the room—taking in the painful whiteness of the hospital walls, the medical equipment humming softly around me, and the bandages and bruises that marked my body. I felt a sudden wave of nausea as the reality of my situation began to sink in.

“W-what happened to me?” I demanded, my voice mirrored my panic, a note of hysteria creeping in. I didn’t know these people, didn’t know why I was here, didn’t know why I felt like I was trapped in someone else’s nightmare.

Gabbi’s face crumpled, and she took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to compose herself. “You were in an accident, honey,” she finally managed to say, her voice breaking. “You almost didn’t make it.”

An accident? The word echoed in my mind, but it didn’t bring any clarity, only more confusion. I looked down at my legs, propped up on pillows, the pain in my body flaring with every slight movement. I wanted to remember, to understand, but it was like trying to see through a thick fog—everything was blurry, out of reach.

Gabbi brushed a tear away, her hand trembling. “You were kidna—” she stopped herself midway, not wanting to continue. She shook her head and another sob escaped her lips. “It’s something I don’t want you to remember. It was a terrible ordeal, and you’re safe now. That’s what matters.”

What happened? Why can’t she tell me? My mind reeled, trying to process what she was saying, but it was too much. It was like my brain was short-circuiting, unable to cope with the flood of emotions and the sheer terror of not knowing.

“Okay,” I whispered, my voice shaky as I tried to push the rising panic back down.

I could see the torment in her eyes, the fear of reliving a nightmare too horrific to recount. Part of me wanted to press for details, to understand the full extent of what had happened to me, but another part of me—an instinctual, primal part—knew that I wasn’t ready to face it yet.

The room was filled with a low murmur of voices, the soft sounds of the hospital, and the scent of antiseptic everywhere. I lay back. I can feel the weight of the unknown pulling me down like a heavy blanket.

I might not remember who I was or what had happened to me, but I felt a flicker of resolve deep inside. I would try to piece together my identity, step by step, and uncover the fragments of the life that had been stolen from me.

But for now, I was too tired, too overwhelmed to do anything but close my eyes. I let the weariness take over, dragging me down into a restless sleep, my heart was already heavy with unspoken questions and a lingering sense of dread that clawed at the edges of my consciousness.

And in that darkness, the last thought that echoed in my mind was the name—Graziella Serafina Ciella—a name that felt like it belonged to someone else.

Someone I had yet to find.