บท 3: The Amygdalae

A pair of strong arms quickly pinned Halia down. She kicked and flailed, trying to break free, but the person holding her down was too strong and she had no energy. There was so much adrenaline coursing through her veins that she didn't even realize someone was talking to her.

"Miss Feng, calm down..."

"Miss Feng..."

Finally, she recognized a familiar voice.

"Miss Feng..."

"Dr. Li?"

Halia shook her head and blinked a few times to clear her vision. That's when she realized, she was lying on a bed, while Dr. Li was staring worriedly at her from the door. On top of her, was a man in a white cloak, holding her down with his arms. He was much younger than Dr. Li, probably in his early 30's. When he noticed that Halia had stopped struggling, he slowly let her go.

"This is Dr. Ren, he is my assistant."

Halia looked at the man called Dr. Ren, he was a handsome young man with perfect skin, perfect hair and a pair of super gentle eyes. His eyes! They were the eyes she saw before she fell unconscious the first time.

But, what about the second time she fell unconscious?

Halia quickly grabbed the front of her neck to check for a wound, but there was not a single scratch. She was confused and her mind began to throb, she was sure she got slashed across the neck. She could still remember the pain...

...and the blood...

"Halia, did you see something when you were unconscious? You seemed really distressed when you woke up..."

"I...I was slashed across the neck...There was blood everywhere...and so much pain..."

Halia's eyes grew teary as she remembered the traumatic experience.

"Do you remember the culprit's face?"

Halia tried hard to remember, but she shook her head, "I only saw his eyes. They were the most evil eyes I had ever seen."

"Do you remember anything else?"

"His laugh. I never knew a laugh could send chills down a person's spine."

Dr. Li looked at Halia helplessly. These two features were of no use. Even if they got an artist to sketch out the eyes, it was almost impossible for Halia to describe the eyes in enough detail to be used as an identifying factor. Then there was the laugh, how was one to describe a laugh?

Unable to get any useful information out of her. Dr. Li stopped questioning Halia and comforted her instead, "Halia, you've been asleep for 12 hours. During this time, I drilled a tiny hole into your head and fed a thin wire to your brain. Through this wire, I downloaded Sara's memories into your head. The wound is tiny, so you won't even notice it. But, we left the wire connected to your brain in case we need to use it again in the future. It will not affect your life in any way and you won't even notice it's there. The wire comes out of your head like a strand of hair in the middle of your head. The strand is red, but it's so thin, that no one will notice it. Just make sure not to cut your hair at a salon, we can cut it for you instead. Next time, we won't need to go through a 12 hour surgery. We simply need to connect our machine to the wire and we can download memories directly that way."

"Memories? My head? Sara?"

"The experience you had earlier...it was your colleague's memory..."

Halia was confused but amazed at the same time. The surgery actually worked...but how? And why did she remember that particular memory? Why couldn't she remember something pleasant to ease her into the experience?

"Scientists have been studying the human brain for as long as science has existed, trying to understand how it works and where information is stored - especially memories. We've known for years that different regions of the brain store different types of memories. For example, our frontal lobe stores short term memory and our hippocampus and cerebral cortex stores motor memory. But, there are a pair of small almond-shaped clusters in the brain called the Amygdalae that most people don't know about."

"The Amygdalae?" Halia asked, "What type of memory does that store?"

Dr. Li adjusted the glasses on his nose and looked into Halia's eyes with seriousness, "Emotional memory...most notably...fear..."