Chapter 1
Flashes, horrible vivid images coursed through his mind. Images that made no sense, barraged his brain. It was a horrific freak show, a dark and macabre first person view of what must be the most traumatic horror film ever, fragmented and sketchy, which just made it all the more confusing and terrifying.
These were the first images the boy's brain conjured up upon gaining a faint consciousness. His brain, once it had sorted the fragmented memories into their rightful places set to work on restoring his body. It activated his heart; blood began to pump through him, the first in a long time. Synapses began firing, nerves began to awaken. One by one, the boy's bodily functions all came to working order. There were only two places that the brain could not yet figure out how to manage. One was its own cerebrum, its own memories, which were damaged and unfocused. And the other, was the boys right arm, or what was left of it.
It would have to wait. Now it was time to wake him up and let him take his first breath, the first in a very long time.
The boy gasped, taking in salty sea air and sand. His pale blue eyes shot open and blinding light menaced them instantly. Smells drafted up through his nose, salt, water, fresh air, the smell of the ocean. That much he remembered. The sunlight was hot and bright, and it felt like it was scorching his skin mercilessly. He took in more breaths and his vision came to focus on blue sky, with a giant nuclear ball shining in its center. He turned away from the damned thing, and saw sand, and the brilliant blue of the ocean. Yes, he remembered, he knew what this represented. An instinct spoke one word to him. Home.
He sat up slowly, everything in him aching. He was naked. His fevered brain tried to process its contents.
Where was he? It had no answer to that.
Why was he here? No solution could be found in his mind.
Who was he?
That question gave him pause. No answer came, nothing, he didn't know who he was. He slowly stood up, not even taking notice of his exposed state. Then as he brought his hands up to wipe sand from his face he realized something terrible, his right arm was gone. He yelped and stumbled in shock, hyperventilating as he stared at the stump that was once his arm, a nub of flesh, with what looked like dry scales and dead skin flaking off of it and disappearing into the sea breeze. This was wrong, completely and utterly wrong. Who was he? Where was his arm? Where was he?
As he plagued himself with questions, faint memories came back, memories through the eyes of someone who was not entirely human, who couldn't be human. Terrible visions of death, suffering, sadism, monsters… and a whipped hand.
He feared something, one thing, more than all the confusion at this time. He feared that these were his own memories. He hoped they weren't. With shambling steps on shaky legs, he began to walk, heading down the stretch of beach he was now on.
Within fifteen minutes, he found something, a faint shimmer in the distance. As he moved closer, he began to realize it was moving towards him. A black SUV was driving along the beach. It continued on until it was just 30 feet away from him. He stumbled towards it. Three men in black body armor exited the vehicle, approaching him with caution. They each had a taser and a pistol strapped to their belts.
"My God," one muttered, staring at the pitiful teenager.
"He… help me, please, where am I?" croaked the boy, stopping just ten feet from the nearest man.
One of the men unfurled a towel and wrapped it around the boy's shoulders. The boy was tall, and had a mop of matted blonde hair.
"It's OK son, you're safe now," exclaimed the man who had put the towel around him gently.
"Can you tell me your name?" asked another man.
The boy hesitated.
"I… I can't remember," he somberly declared.
The man who had asked him nodded and pulled out what looked like a small PDA from his pocket and held it up in the boy's direction.
The last man spoke into a radio on his shoulder, reporting their discovery to a base somewhere. The man with the towel spoke to the boy.
"I know you're confused and scared, but it is all going to be ok. We will get you back to your parents soon. You're safe n-"
The man with the PDA spoke up, a furrowed expression on his face as he gazed at the screen on the small device;
"Sir, you're going to want to see this."
The man with the boy walked over to the man and looked at the screen. A confused expression swept over his face. Soon, however, it was replaced by an expression that was a mixture of fear, worry and shock. He turned to the boy, gazing at him with piercing eyes of disbelief.
"It's him," he stated. The boy's relief quickly turned to fear and worry.
"It's who, sir?" the radio man asked. With a pause, the towel man answered.
"It's Drake Merwin."
All three of them stared at Drake in disbelief and shock. Drake was utterly bewildered. Was that his name? Why did it unsettle these men so much?
"Please, I don't know what's happening, just tell me what's going on?" he pleaded as he took a step forward.
The towel man grabbed the taser strapped to him and leveled it at Drake and yelled;
"Don't move! Don't you take another step or I will take you down!"
Drake froze. What was this? Why were they now so hostile? What did his name mean? All he could conjure up were those gruesome images. Surely they couldn't be his memories.
"What? No, please, you don't understand, I don't remember anything! Please just-" he stopped as the two prongs of the stun gun connected with the flesh of his chest and all of his muscles began to burn.
He crumpled to the sand as PDA guy and towel man rushed over to him and held him down as radio man frantically spoke into his walkie talkie. As the two men tried to subdue him, Drakes terrified mind managed to pull something out of its hurt and convoluted contents. Not a memory, but an instinct. A deep fire suddenly consumed his mind that was even more intense than the burning in his muscles. With a feral roar that escaped his mouth with the force of a roaring lion, Drake swung around and punched towel guy straight on the nose. As the man fell back, his nose instantly bloody, the new rage spurred Drake on. He turned and gave PDA guy a lethal head-butt to the face. As the man yelled and snapped back, Drake advanced on him, pinning him down and punching him again and again, fiery hatred now completely consuming him. He did not notice, but he began to laugh wildly as he threw fist after fist at the man's increasingly damaged head, a Picasso painting of blood forming on his attackers face. Then another surge of power caused him to spasm and collapse to the sand. He stared up at the blue sky, immense pain wracking his body, as radio man stood over him with a stun gun that trailed two wires into Drakes back. As consciousness began to slip away, a thought re-entered Drakes mind, just one sentence.
"Those memories couldn't be mine, could they?"
Then, lights out.