She sat and watched as the leaves outside her window grew back. The trees were bare, and she wished she had a better vision of what time was. She shivered under the thin blanket her captor gave her only after she begged for one. It felt scratchy and didn’t keep her warm. But at least it was something.

She wished she could imagine her life away from here. What was it like? Did she have a more comfortable bed and blanket? Could she have had more than one, tiny window? Or maybe this was all she was worth.

Through her small but mighty window, she could see that the fluffy dust from the clouds had now disappeared. More patches of green were appearing, small flowers slowly blooming each day. She wondered what came next. Would it be more dust, or something else?

When she gazed out of her window the next day, she felt hopeful that her time in the basement would come to an end as there was an array of colours just outside. For one, flowers started blooming. It felt like an array of colours. Reds, greens, purples, pinks, and blues all thrown against the still and comforting background of the tree.

She found herself standing in front of something white, a box of colours placed strategically next to her. There were so many to choose from.

Huh, that’s weird, she thought. The flashes were back. She still didn’t know what they meant. Maybe they were parts of her imagination, since she had to be creative. This one was shorter than the others.

In another scene, she was standing in front of many frames. People were crowded around them, their voices overlapping as they shared their thoughts. The name on the frames was blurred, but she felt proud. Could they be hers somehow?

Even in this pit of loneliness, she felt warmth around her as the sun rose and set each day, giving her many hours where she could count the new dots of colours outside. She still didn’t know what they meant, or what her flashes were trying to tell her about her previous life.