Mobius
I've been advised to write down my story in case anyone in the future finds these notes useful. These events are written through my perspective and as far as I know, are all true and nothing has been embellished. All of the details have been written down, no matter how embarrassing, as requested.
The year was 1961. As far as I can remember, I've always been the weedy little kid in school that was always picked on. I had friends, sure, back then but they never really helped me. I don't blame them though, the jocks in school were huge, not much they could do about that. Jumping in to help would have only earned them a serious beating too.
There was this one bully in particular though that scared me. Billy Creel. He was scary, even for a 17 year old teenager. He was not a big guy, definitely not the strongest even. He had a mean streak though, oh boy did he ever. Rumor had it he used to shoot squirrels with his BB gun when he was younger. Billy smoked pot (marijuana) regularly and was always chewing on a toothpick. He was unpredictable, even the teachers were cautious around him. He came to our school last year after being kicked out of his old school for hitting a teacher.
"Well looky 'ere boys" he'd say to his friends whenever he caught me outside of school "looks like we got us a little faggot. Boy? You know what we do to faggots in these parts?" he spit out his toothpick and step up in my face.
Why didn't anyone say anything? You ask. Well, times were different then, we didn't have laws that were enforced against that type of bullying. I mean, I wasn't gay but that was besides the point. To Billy Creel and his gang, I was the faggy little dork who spent his time in the school library with his faggot-ass textbooks trying to kiss up to our science teacher Ms Edwards.
"I said don't you know what we do to you faggots 'round these parts boy?" He jabbed his finger into my chest and pushes his chest out into me as he looked down at me. I was only 5'7" and weighed 135lbs soaking wet. In other words: Easy target.
I tried to come up with something but the words wouldn't come out. Anything to get him to leave me alone.
"Hey boy!" One of his cronies called out to me, Jake Edwards, my science teachers son "answer him!"
Still, I could not bring myself to speak so I just stared at my feet hoping they would just spit on me this time, push me over and then leave me to it.
I had no such luck today. Next thing I knew, I heard a loud thud on the side of my head. I fell to the floor immediately. I couldn't tell if it were Billy that had hit me or one of his gang. I saw stars and felt dizzy. I made the mistake of trying to get up. I saw Billy's foot cock back too late. Wham! He kicked me in the face as hard as he could. I felt my nose break and start pouring with blood almost instantly.
"Shit Billy!" One of them called out. "You try explaining that to his dad!"
"Hey that's cool. Little faggot here ain't gonna tell no-one. Are you, faggot?"
I couldn't answer him. The pain was excruciating and I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness.
Somewhere in the distance I could just make out a couple of young black women yelling at them to "leave that poor boy alone He ain't done nothin' to you!"
"Hey! Shut the fuck up niggers!" Billy yelled as he turned his attention to them.
The last thing I remember was a group of young working men calling out to Billy and his crew before they ran off.
"Who the fuck are you calling a nigger boy?!" then the sounds of pounding footsteps as a group of young working-class black men ran by me after Billy.
One of them stopped and knelt next to me. "Hey kid? Don't worry. It's gonna be ok." His voice faded into oblivion as I lost consciousness. And so, that was the last act of human kindness I knew for the next 40 years.
When I woke up, I was not in a hospital as I expected but on the streets. Except it was not the same street I was on before I fell unconscious. I felt dizzy and confused. It was night and a choking-thick fog was all around me. The pavement was cracked and heavily worn. The last memory I had was of a concerned face looking down on me, telling me everything was going to be alright.
I shook my head and my nose exploded with pain, almost certainly broken. It took a few minutes, but, the disorientation soon cleared and I found my way shakily to my feet.
Where the hell was I? It didn't look anywhere like I'd seen in Boston before. There was no street lights. The buildings were strange. I had never seen high-rises built like this before. Simply put: they were huge but crumbling and old. A strong wind blew and I coughed heavily. The air felt dirty, unclean. It was strangely warm despite it being an afternoon in January.
I looked for my book bag and it was not there. I began to grow frightened. Where the heck was I? In my mind I tried to piece together the last things I knew. Billy Creel and his gang of racist shit-heads had beaten me up and had only been stopped by a group of blacks. I was thankful to them, if only I could say thank you...
I started walking down the street, not in any direction in particular, I had no idea where I was. One thing that struck me was the lack of grass, the lack of anything that was...alive. This place seemed devoid of life. That set off alarm bells in my head. Maybe I was unconscious in a hospital room somewhere? Maybe this was all part of some kind of dream. I'd heard about people slipping into comas and not realizing it. Was this what that was like? Was I hooked up to one of them life support machines?
No, I didn't think so. This was all too real to be a dream. I could feel the wind on my skin, it stinged somewhat. Odd.
Out of nowhere I became aware that I was being followed by someone. They were trying to be stealthy, but out of pure chance I had seen a figure take cover in the doorway of what looked like it used to be a shop. Now a derelict, non-descriptive building made of cinder-blocks.
"Hello?" I asked, not daring to raise my voice at the moment. I heard footsteps take off in the other direction and I felt compelled to follow. I didn't want to be alone out here. "Hey wait! Stop! I just wanna talk to you!" I ran after the figure I could just make out through the smog.
I had to stop after a few seconds and cough up the crud that had built up in my lungs already. And by cough up I really meant cough up. I knelt over hacking and coughing, it was that bad.
The figure stopped running and turned around. It approached me cautiously. Only now, in-between explosive coughing fits, could I make out that it was wearing a black cloak of sorts. I could not make out its face but whoever it was, this was a big big dude.
"An Overlander..." it spoke in a deep, gruff voice.
What the heck was an Overlander?
"Where...where am I?" I asked.
The figure came within just a few feet of me and knelt down next to me. "What are you doing here, Overlander? Do you not know where you are?"
"What? I just woke up here, please, what's going on?"
"This is not the time for games Overlander, what are you doing in this place?" the gruff voice demanded.
"I..." I fought to find the words "What is this place mister? I really don't know what's going on"
"You sound like one of Kintobor's experiments" he took a step back. "What is your unit code, robot?"
"I...don't know what you're asking. Please. If you know where I am, can you tell me how far away I am from Boston? And what is a robot?" I really had no clue what he was talking about.
"Memory wipe." A gentle, soft female voice said and another figure materialized behind the one who was questioning me. "Poor thing, probably...wait..." she paused. She was also wearing a cloak that covered her face. "blood, Knuckles! This is a real Overlander!"
I looked between the two, just as confused as they appeared to be.
"OK, Overlander, let's get you somewhere safe" the male said, sounding somewhat in shock "But don't try anything, I will rip you to pieces."
I nodded wordlessly and the female helped me up. Strange. Her hand had fur on it. I decided to keep my mouth shut. Maybe she had one of them birth defects.
I followed the two wordlessly for what had to be over an hour. I wanted to ask where we were going but I was too thankful to have found other living people to say anything. That, and I was too nervous to ask. The big guy could probably have me for lunch.
"What do you know about Kintobor, Overlander?" the man asked me.
I didn't know what to say, so I just sputtered out "Um...nothing, is he a Russian or something?"
"Russian" he asked quizzically, sounding just as confused as I was.
"Um, yeah, a Russky, y'know? Cold War?"
"I think he's hit his head Sally" he whispered to the female.
"We need to watch him then, have Tails take a look at him when we get him back Knuckles" said the female I assumed to be called Sally.
Knuckles. Tails. What kind of names were those?
After a few minutes, the man I assumed was called Knuckles paused as we appeared to have left the city, if you could call it that "Ok, Overlander, our ride will be here any minute. But I must ask. Why are you not wearing a mask?"
"Huh?" I asked, thinking of those gas masks they used back in the second world war. Was this smog poisonous gas? My chest suddenly tightened in fear.
"He's definitely out of it" he said to Sally.
Then he pulled his hood down and I was dumbstruck. This was no man. This was a freak. A god darned monster. For one thing, he had red fur. Bright red, not like them red foxes you see. But this was crimson red. His eyes...they were a funny shape, they seemed to be two eyes merged into one with a dip in the middle and two separate pupils.
My expression must have said it all as the female mentioned something to Knuckles about me never seeing something I think she called a 'Mobian' before.
Then she flipped her hood back. She looked equally as strange but not as shocking as the man-thing. She looked like kinda a chipmunk but her fur appeared comic-bushish in color. She had a slightly pointed nose. A caricature of a chipmunk I would have guessed. She was covered in very fine and short fur but yet, had a full head of hair.
I back away in shock "What the hell is this?!" I cried out, not fully able to comprehend what I was seeing.
"Hey, easy now. We're friends" Sally said to me in a soothing voice.
Almost at once I felt quite a bit more at ease. If they were going to hurt me, they would have done it already. I opened my mouth to say something but stopped myself as a low roar came from the distance growing louder. My mouth hung open as this type of flying machine came into view in the dark. It looked like some kind of flying car. I know, the concept sounds ridiculous to us humans, but bear with me.
It came to a stop beside us and a thing with light brown fur – again – looking as if it had leaped straight out of a comic book was at the wheel of this flying machine.
"Come on, get in, the radar-jammer won't protect us from a visual sighting" The thing shouted to us.
Knuckles put his hand on my shoulder and guided me to the back of the machine. If I had to describe it, I would have to say that it was some kind of flying automobile. Crazy I know...but that's what it was.
The pilot, who Sally called 'Tails' took off and before I knew it we were flying...in a car! The concept was madness to me but yet, here were were. Flying through the night sky. The wind blowing my hair back and making my eyes water. I clung on to the seat in front of me in fear. What the heck was this thing?
After a few minutes I begun to relax and for some silly reason, remembered my manners.
"Um, Mister Knuckles, sir?" he turned to me "Name's David Whitby, pleased to meet ya" I extended my hand.
I don't know why I was not expecting him to shake it, but he did. I repeated the same to Sally and Tails, minus the hand shake, because he was flying the car-thing.
"You really ain't from around here, are you?" Knuckles asked, his well-defined jaw relaxed a little.
"No sir, I mean, I just woke up, I don't know where here is."
"Chuck's gonna have a field day when he sees you" he flashed what I assumed was a friendly grin, bright white teeth flashed at me.
And this is how I started my new life, in a new world.