The Blank Spot

The rain in Dunedin in '94 wasn't just water; it felt like the sky was shedding a million tiny, cold needles. Chloe pulled her threadbare woolen jumper tighter around her, the damp seeping into her bones despite the attempt. The air smelled of wet pavement, distant sea salt, and stale cigarettes from the pub she’d just stumbled out of. The band had been loud, the cider strong, and the walk home up the steep, winding street felt like navigating a different country.

She remembered the slip – a patch of slick moss on the footpath, a flailing attempt to regain balance, and then the sharp crack as the back of her head connected with something hard and unforgiving. The world went momentarily bright white, then swam back into hazy focus. She’d sat there for a minute, rain plastering hair to her face, checking for blood with numb fingers. Just a dull ache, nothing major, she’d told herself. Shaken, she’d pushed herself up and continued her soggy trek home, the incident already starting to recede into the fuzzy edges of the night.

Life had churned on, as it does in your early twenties in the mid-nineties. Days blurred into nights working at the Cosmic Comics store down on George Street, evenings spent nursing flat whites or lukewarm beer, talking about bands, zines, and whether the internet was actually going to be a thing. The dull ache faded, and the night of the fall became just another slightly sore-headed memory.

It was maybe six months later, standing under the harsh fluorescent lights of the bathroom mirror, tying her hair back before a shift, that she saw it. Right on her forehead, slightly off-center above her left eyebrow. A shallow, almost perfectly circular indentation. It wasn't a scar; the skin wasn't broken. It looked more like something had been pressed into her skull and left a subtle, lasting mark.

Chloe prodded it tentatively. It didn't hurt, but touching it sent a faint, unsettling shiver down her spine. She angled her head, trying to see it from different angles, wondering if it had always been there and she’d just never noticed. But no, she was sure she would have seen something so distinct before. It felt... wrong. Like a small, silent crater left by a meteorite she didn't remember falling.

A knot of unease began to form in her stomach. The night of the fall came back, clearer than it had been in months. Had she hit her head on something specific? Not just the pavement? Why hadn't she gone to the doctor? It had seemed so insignificant at the time. Now, looking at that strange, perfect circle, it felt anything but. It felt like a question mark etched onto her skin, and she had no idea how to answer it.

The circle on Chloe's forehead wasn't just an indentation anymore. It felt... deeper. Sharper around the edges, somehow. Standing in the bathroom mirror again, tracing it with a trembling finger, she could swear it was more defined than yesterday. And today, it came with company. A persistent, high-pitched ringing had started in her left ear, a tiny, infuriating siren that no amount of shaking her head could dislodge. It was accompanied by a dull, throbbing ache behind her eyes that no paracetamol seemed to touch.

Panic, cold and sharp, pricked at her. This wasn't just a weird mark anymore. This felt like something actively happening to her. She couldn't shake the feeling that it was connected to that night, to the fall she'd so carelessly dismissed.

She needed to talk to someone. Not her mum; that would just invite lectures and worry. Not just anyone. She needed Piper.

Piper, who lived just two streets over in a gloriously cluttered flat that smelled perpetually of incense and patchouli. Piper, who wore clashing patterns with defiant flair and could dissect a B-side lyric with academic precision. Piper, who was currently nursing a flat white when Chloe burst into his kitchen, breathless and wide-eyed.

"Pipes, I... something's wrong."

Piper, perched on a stool, raised an eyebrow, his expression a mixture of concern and his usual playful skepticism. "Chloe-flower, what fresh hell is this? Did Cosmic Comics get a shipment of terrible superhero capes?"

Chloe ignored the jab, pulling her fringe back from her forehead. "No, look. Look at this."

She leaned closer, tilting her head so the kitchen light caught the mark. Piper's smile faded slowly. He leaned in, peering closely, his brow furrowed.

"Bloody hell, Chlo. What is that?" He reached out tentatively, his finger hovering just above her skin.

"I don't know! I think... I think it's from when I fell months ago. Remember? That rainy night after The Chills gig?"

Piper nodded slowly, his usual flippancy gone. "Yeah, you came back looking like a drowned rat. Said you just stacked it."

"I did! But... I noticed this indentation later, and now..." The words tumbled out, faster than she intended. "Now it feels bigger, and I've got this headache that won't quit, and my ear is ringing like a faulty smoke alarm, and I just have this horrible feeling, Pipes, that it's all connected and it's not just... normal."

Piper straightened up, running a hand through his artfully messy hair. "Right. Okay. Deep breaths, Chlo. A headache and ringing ear? Probably just a bug. Or maybe you slept weirdly? And the mark... maybe you just bruised the bone and it took time to show? Like... a delayed lump, but inwards?" He offered a weak smile, trying to sound reassuring, but his eyes held a flicker of genuine worry. "You're just getting yourself worked up. You do that, you know. 'Chloe being Chloe,' spinning a minor mishap into a conspiracy."

Chloe felt a frustrating surge of desperation. "No! This feels different! This isn't just me being dramatic, Piper!"

Later that week, trying to shake off the creeping anxiety and the incessant ringing, Chloe agreed to go for a hike with Piper up one of the local bush tracks – clear her head, he'd said. The air was damp and cool under the canopy, the scent of ferns and damp earth thick around them. They were chatting about a terrible movie they’d both seen, Piper doing impressions, when the world started to tilt for Chloe.

The trees seemed to stretch unnaturally tall, the dappled sunlight fracturing into confusing patterns. Piper’s voice became distant, echoing strangely as if he were at the end of a long tunnel. A profound sense of detachment washed over her. She was walking, she knew, but her legs felt disconnected from her body, the ground unstable beneath her feet. It was like watching herself from a distance, observing a puppet navigate a suddenly alien landscape. The headache intensified, a hammering behind her eyes, and the ringing in her ear became a deafening roar that drowned out the sounds of the bush.

She stumbled, her hand reaching out blindly. Piper stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening as he saw the vacant, distant look in her gaze. "Chlo? Hey, you alright?"

He reached for her arm, but she flinched back instinctively, the world around her fracturing further. For a terrifying few seconds, the familiar bush track dissolved, replaced by a fleeting, chaotic swirl of colours and distorted sounds, a fragment of a memory she couldn't grasp, dominated by that persistent, high-pitched whine. Then, as quickly as it had come, the feeling began to recede, leaving her dizzy, disoriented, but back in the present, leaning heavily against a tree, gasping for air.

Piper was right there, his face pale with shock, the playful glint in his eyes replaced by stark fear. "Chloe! What the hell was that? You just... you just went somewhere else for a second."

Chloe clutched her head, the headache slowly receding to its former throb, the ringing fading to a bearable hum. "I... I don't know. It felt like... like I wasn't here. Like I was floating away."

Piper looked from her face to the indentation on her forehead, his previous skepticism completely evaporated. His voice was low, serious. "Right. Okay. Not 'Chloe being Chloe'. Something is definitely wrong. We need to figure out what happened that night, Chlo. Everything. Every single detail you can remember."

He put an arm around her shoulder, helping her stand steady. "Forget the hike. Let's go back to the flat. We need to sit down and try and piece together that night. Every pub, every street, everything leading up to... whatever happened."

The mystery had just gotten a lot more real.

Piper's flat, usually a haven of organized chaos, was unusually still. The incense burner was unlit, the usual background hum of obscure electronic music silenced. A large sheet of butcher paper was taped to the wall, and Piper was wielding a thick marker pen with an uncharacteristic intensity.

"Right," he said, capping the pen and stepping back to survey their work. "Operation: Memory Lane. We start at the pub. The Chills gig. You left... what time?"

Chloe frowned, trying to picture the dimly lit interior of The Captain Cook, the music thrumming in her chest. "Late... maybe 11-ish? The last song had just finished, I think. I was heading home."

Piper jotted down "11 pm - The Cook." "Route home?"

Chloe traced a finger along the paper, where Piper had drawn a rough map of the streets between the pub and her flat. "Up Albany Street, then left onto Forth. Then... God, I can't really remember the exact spot where I fell."

"Think," Piper urged. "Anything stand out? A particular lamp post? A shop sign? Anything that could tell us where?"

Chloe closed her eyes, trying to summon the details of that blurry, wet night. "There was... a skip. A big metal skip. On Forth Street, I think. Near... near that weird little antique shop, the one with the dusty mannequins in the window."

Piper made a triumphant noise, circling a spot on the map. "Okay, skip. Antique shop. Anything else?"

This was harder. Chloe's head was starting to throb again, the ringing in her ear a persistent whine. "Just... the rain. And it was dark. Really dark. And I slipped. It was mossy, I remember that."

"But you said you hit your head on something hard," Piper pressed. "Not just the pavement. What was it, Chloe? What did you hit?"

Chloe's memory felt like a shattered mirror, reflecting only fragmented, distorted images. "I don't know! I don't... I just felt the impact. Then white. Then... nothing. Like a blank spot."

A chill went through Piper. "A blank spot? You mean you can't remember anything between hitting your head and...?"

"And waking up," Chloe finished. "Just... getting up and walking home. Nothing in between."

Piper stared at the map, then at Chloe, his face pale. "A blank spot... and a perfectly circular mark on your forehead. Chloe, that's... that's weird. Really weird."

He circled the "blank spot" on the map, then drew a small question mark next to it. "We need to go back there. To Forth Street. To that skip. To that antique shop. We need to see if anything there jogs your memory. And we need to find out what you hit your head on."

Chloe shuddered, a sudden, cold dread washing over her. "What if... what if I don't want to remember?"

Piper put a hand on her arm, his voice firm. "We have to, Chlo. Whatever happened that night, it's clearly affecting you. We need to face it."

He looked at the butcher paper, at the map of rainy streets and the circled "blank spot," and a determined glint came into his eyes. "Let's go back to Forth Street. Tomorrow night. Same time. Same rain, if we're lucky. We’re going to retrace your steps, Chloe. And we're going to find out what left that mark on your head."

To be continued...