In the beginning, there was silence.
The silence was like an itch – no a tickle, a tingle – that was under her skin, all inside of her, that she couldn’t even begin to scratch. It made her sick to her stomach, the silence.

It didn’t take her long to realize that she was alone. But it wasn’t as if everyone had just poof! disappeared. Everything was in order. The beds were made, dishes washed, desks tidied, cars parked, stores fully stocked. It was if the earth had become a hotel, welcome to visitors now.
…
She looked up at a clock, something she felt that was a habit , and ending up tilting her head. The clock was rotated a bit to the left and stopped at 8:42.

Below the clock, she saw a box. It wasn’t very large, and made from perfectly smooth black stone, with just a slight break in the stone where it opened. Carefully opening the box, she saw that it was padded with soft velvet that hugged a single slit of paper, the size of a fortune from a fortune cookie, very carefully.

“Fact 1: your name is Ren”