Dana was completely pissed off.

She hadn’t got a single nights uninterrupted sleep since moving into student quarters, five months ago. Just when she thought she was dropping off, one of the other students started practicing music, and singing. The trouble was, because the girl was wearing headphones, she had no idea how loudly she was singing.

The only real problem apart from the time of night was, in Dana’s opinion, she couldn’t sing for toffee. She was off key, rasping; she also kept forgetting the words. Then, she listened more closely to the words that she was using in place of the real ones…

Her eyes widened in shock. That skank was sleeping with her boyfriend!

Dana lost it.

She went charging round to the other girl’s room and, not bothering to knock, shoved the door open.

“You bitch! How long have you been sleeping with Darren?”

The girl, Skye, just giggled.

“Why, what’s it to you? Oh, wait a minute, you must be the ex. He said you were camped out around here somewhere…!”

Dana just hit her. Hard.

Skye went down. There was a loud crack as her head hit the corner of a table. She didn’t move…

Dana bent down, aghast. She couldn’t find a pulse…

‘Oh my god!’ she thought. ‘I’ve killed her…’

Dana flew into a panic. There wasn’t any blood, as the blow hadn’t broken the skin, amazingly, but it was still obvious that there had been an argument. Also, if she could hear Skye’s warbling, she was sure others would have heard the argument.

She looked down at Skye. They were both about the same size; Skye’s hair was actually a wig, as she changed colours from week to week.

Working quickly, she stripped Skye completely, then dressed in her clothes and wig. She then squeezed Skye’s body and her old clothes into a wheeled suitcase.

Making it sound like Skye was getting annoyed and frustrated, she then left the flat as Skye. People, half awake, looked out and saw her leaving, and thought just what she wanted them to think…

Slinging the bag into the back of her car, she drove out into the countryside…

She pulled into a drive up to a disused farmhouse that she used to visit as a teenager. She knew the area was empty; the old landowner had refused to sell on several occasions, preferring to keep the place unused and fallow as they were an environmentalist and they wanted the land left free to nature.

The place was very overgrown.

There was a load of industrial strength plastic bags hanging around; they’d once been used throughout the farm. Dana grabbed two of them.

Skye’s body went into one, her clothes into another. Skye’s wheeled bag was sunk into the slurry pit.

The vacuum sealing kit was still working at the farm, so it was an easy matter to seal both bags shut. It was only when Dana was dragging Skye’s wrapped body toward the slurry pit that she realised it was still warm…

Oh god, she was still alive!

Skye wasn’t dead, just unconscious, almost comatose, as the blow to her head had given her very bad concussion.

The cold from her being naked was starting to revive her, however. Weakly, she tried to move, and found herself pressing against something…

Dana started panicking again. Skye could identify her…!

She threw the bag with the clothes in, weighted down, into the slurry pit. Then, knowing that Skye was sealed in her bag with no chance of getting free, she threw her in as well…

Skye’s eyes just started to open as she went under…

This was where Dana had made her mistake, however.

The slurry pit at the farm had been prone to blockages; because of this, the farmer had installed a filtration system into it. It picked up the ‘foreign objects’ that Dana had thrown into the pit and filtered them out, spitting them out into a gully further in the farmland. Dana had no idea of this. She drove away, thinking that she had got away with ‘murder’…

Skye still wasn’t out of the woods yet.

She was still sealed in her bag and rapidly running out of air. As she fought, she opened a tiny hole at the top of her bag, letting air in, albeit very smelly from the slurry caked over the bag.

She lost consciousness again still trying to get free…

By sheer chance, the gully that Skye and her clothes had ended up in was alongside a little used footpath.

Adele was out along it, taking her dog for a walk, when the dog suddenly started barking and pulling on its lead.

“What’s up, boy?”, she asked.

Then she saw the bags and the suitcase in the gully.

“Oh no… Someone’s flytipping again. I’ll have to report…”

Then, Skye’s bag moved.

With a shriek, Adele raced down into the gully. Someone had thrown out an animal, sealed in a plastic bag!

With no thought for herself, she grabbed the bag. She and her dog managed to rip it open…

Skye’s semi-conscious body rolled out.

Adele was straight on the phone to the emergency services…

A few hours later, Skye woke up in hospital. The damage from the head injury and the concussion had been done, however…

She was now permanently amnesiac. She had no memory at all. Not of the incident, or who had attacked her, anything. She didn’t even know who she was…

The police had investigated the other bag that had been with Skye, as well as the briefcase. There had been a still legible address label on the case…

Her clothes and wig had been examined for evidence, then cleaned and returned to her. She was staring, mystified, at the wig…

“Why on earth would I wear that? I’ve got perfectly good hair already.”, she said. “Also, these clothes look way too gaudy for me. They can’t be anything to do with me.”

“They were found with you, as was the case”, the police officer said. We’ve managed to get a picture of this ‘Skye Harris’ as she’s a student at the local university.”

The officer showed her the photo.

“Oh! It’s me. Wow, did I actually look like that…!”

Skye gradually recovered in hospital. Her mother flew in to visit.

Her daughter saying, “Do I know you?” on her first visit, however, was enough to move her to tears…

“What’s wrong with my baby?”, she asked.

“She’s had a head injury of some kind”, the doctor said. “She’s got total amnesia. Doesn’t remember anything. Who she is, her life, anything. It’s all gone. We’re lucky she can still talk.”

“You must be able to do something!”

“No; you have to let these things come back on her own. I think she’s blocking a traumatic episode; to force her to remember may do more harm than good…”

Skye gradually recovered, physically, and the doctors allowed her to go home. She didn’t go back to the university; there was no point; she couldn’t remember anything of what she was trying to learn. As such, Dana didn’t find out she was still alive. She also started to develop some peculiar habits…

Because of being wrapped in plastic for so long, she felt that the plastic had made her safe and looked after her; she bought a load of plastic sheeting. Some of it she turned into bedding; some of it she made dresses from. She had no idea how she knew how to do it, it was all by reflex (she had been on a fashion design course; the music had been to de-stress).

Her mother walked into her room and gasped.

“Skye! What the hell? I know you’re not well, but this is a bit of a shock!”

Skye had picked transparent plastic for her dress…

“Get that off and put some normal clothes on!”

“No. You can’t make me.”

“I damn well can…”

Skye’s mother went to pull the clothes off of her. Then she found out Skye had locked them on…

“I thought you might try something like that”, she said, “so I’ve sealed myself in them. You’ll have to cut them off me.”

“You stupid girl!”, cried her mother. “Ok, you can wear them, but don’t you damn well go out in them!”

Skye giggled…

It was becoming more and more obvious that Skye had become badly unhinged from her experience. Her unhealthy interest in plastic was getting stronger; Her mother had come into Skye’s room on one occasion to find her with a clear bag sealed over her head. She had ripped it off with a shriek.

Skye’s response had been to hit her, then get another bag…

Her mother had pulled the bag out of her hands, gone round her room and removed all the bags, then slapped her. Hard.

“You silly bitch!”, she cried. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“I only feel safe in plastic!”, Skye said. “I can’t live without it!”

You won’t live with it if you keep doing that!”, her mother cried. “You’ll suffocate.”

Sagging to her knees, Skye started crying.

“Why am I like this, mum? What’s wrong with me? I can’t cope with this much longer…!”

Her mother hugged her.

“The police are trying to find out what happened to you”, she said. “People say that they saw you leaving your flat with the bag you were found with, but when they investigated the flat all of your belongings were still there. They can’t work out what was in the bag. Also, everything was disorganised, with some furniture knocked over. Even in your biggest extrovert phases, you were always tidy. Also, you would never have left your guitar behind…”

The police, investigating, picked up on the first signs about something being wrong when they were told about the argument that had happened shortly before ‘Skye’ stormed out. No-one could remember seeing the other person leaving the flat.

“It wasn’t on the phone”, someone said. “You could clearly hear both voices, just like we’re talking now; there was no distortion on one of them, as if it was coming from a phone speaker.”

The police concluded that someone else must have been in the flat, even though they didn’t have definite confirmation; the evidence was all circumstantial.

Then, as part of their enquiries, they started questioning Dana…

One of the officers picked up straight away on the fact that she went white as soon as she was told Skye was still alive; they also noticed her sense of relief when they said Skye remembered nothing. Noticing this, the officer pressed further…

Dana couldn’t help it. She cracked up and dissolved in a heap on her doorstep.

“Yes! It was me! I admit it!”, she said. “I’m not a ‘career criminal’, I just panicked…! I’m glad she’s still alive; I’ve been scared stiff ever since it all happened. I most regret putting her in the slurry pit…!”

“Did you know she was still alive?”, the officer asked.

“Yes…”, said Dana, quietly. “I couldn’t cope with her noise anymore! I hadn’t had a night’s sleep for months!”

“That’s no damn reason to try to kill her! As far as you know, you had done so.”

“Yes… and for that, I’m truly sorry.”

“Tell it to the judge. You’re being charged with kidnapping and attempted murder.”

Dana hung her head in shame…

Skye insisted on being there in person at the arraignment, before the trial itself.

She listened to everything that was said; she even heard other people’s comments; she was especially interested when she heard everyone complaining about the noise, up until her ‘leaving’. She also paid great attention to the fact that Dana was truly sorry for her actions, as well as looking at her mental state. She also remembered the many times that her mother had complained about the noise when she practiced at home, and the fact it had nearly driven her crazy…

She then did something quite extraordinary…

“Your honour, may I ask something?”

“Of course,”, said the Judge. “This trial is about how you were wrongly treated, after all.”

“What happens if I refuse to press charges?”

There was a gasp in the courtroom.

“My memory is gradually returning; putting it bluntly, I’ve been an inconsiderate sod for most of my life; Dana is not the first one that would have liked to do something to me or about me because of my music. I’ve listened to some of it myself, since; I’d have strangled me.”

“She also admits it was an accident, on the grounds of her mental state. I can quite believe that; I drove my mother to distraction with my so-called practising. I can understand what Dana did; as long as she agrees to some kind of psychiatric help, I don’t want her to get a custodial sentence.”

“That is very generous of you, young lady; are you absolutely sure that’s what you want to do? She did try to kill you, after all.”

“The only thing she did wrong was act on urges that everybody seems to have been having anyway. Please, don’t stick her in jail for that; she needs help, not prison.”

“So ordered”, said the Judge. “As long as Dana agrees to get psychiatric help, and can be seen to be doing so, a custodial sentence will not be applied in this case. You are a very lucky young woman, Dana.”

Dana cried in the dock.

To everyone’s further amazement, Skye went over to her, hugged her and kissed her.

“I forgive you”, she said. “If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have worked out that my music was rubbish or discovered my new love of plastic…!”

Dana did get the help she needed; she also found she had a new girlfriend. Skye…