– Maybe you can draw? – Doctor Emmett asked, taking a canvas, paints, and brushes from the closet.

Nia tried, but she only managed to make some meaningless strokes. She threw the brush on the table.

– I can't do anything! – she said.

– What about sculpting? – Doctor Emmett suggested, bringing a piece of clay.

Nia tried to sculpt something, but only a shapeless mass came out. She squeezed the clay in her hand, feeling it spread between her fingers: I am no one. An empty space.

– Okay, let's try something more complicated, – Doctor Emmett said, taking an old, broken clock from the drawer. – Try to disassemble it and put it back together.

Nia fiddled with the small parts for a long time, but could not understand how they worked. She leaned back in the chair, feeling despair engulf her: I can't even fix a broken clock!

Doctor Emmett was upset.

– What can you do then? – he muttered, looking at Nia with disappointment.

– I don't know, – Nia replied, feeling completely useless. Her eyes filled with tears.

Doctor Emmett pondered for a moment, and then his face brightened.

– Wait a minute! I have another idea!

He ordered them to bring him all the musical instruments that could be found in the city: a guitar, a violin, a flute, a drum. Nia tried to play each of them, but nothing worked. The strings did not obey her fingers, only whistling sounds came out of the flute, and the drum responded with a dull, arrhythmic thud. She threw the drumsticks away, feeling tears streaming down her cheeks again:

– I can't even make a normal sound!

Doctor Emmett sighed and put the instruments aside.

– Okay, Nia, let's not rush. Everything has its time. Maybe your memories will return on their own.

After that, Doctor Emmett stopped offering Nia any activities. He just came to her room, asked about her well-being. Nia felt that he was not losing hope, but also did not know what to do next. He just feels sorry for me, Nia stated.

The days dragged on, one after another, as alike as two drops of water. Nia looked out the window, trying to remember at least something from her past life. But it was all in vain. Her brain remained clear and imperturbable. I am a blank slate. But who will draw my life on it? The girl pondered.

Sometimes Nia began to think that she had simply gone crazy. That all this was just a figment of her sick imagination. But then she looked at Doctor Emmett, at his kind eyes and sincere concern, and realized that this was not so. She really had lost her memory. And she needed to somehow live on. Or at least survive.

On one of the doctor's visits, Nia, gathering her courage, asked:

– Doctor Emmett, why is there no sun here? When will dawn come?

Doctor Emmett raised his eyebrows in surprise.

– Dawn? – he asked again, as if he had heard something long forgotten. – I don't even remember dawn ever being… I think my grandmother or great-grandmother told me about the sun, but I can't remember exactly.

– What kind of lighting is this? Where does the light come from? – Nia continued to inquire.

– These are generators, – Doctor Emmett explained. – They supply the earth with energy.

– But how is that? Why doesn't the sun appear for so long? What happened? – Nia didn't give up.

Doctor Emmett sighed.

– There are legends that once the day began to shorten, and the sun appeared for less and less time. And then it didn't rise at all. We call this the Day of the Great Darkness. No one knows when the sun will rise again.

– But why did this happen? – Nia asked. – Doesn't the earth rotate in orbit? And if the sun disappeared, the earth would begin to cool down, wouldn't it?