Please Note: I do not own inFamous, or any related works and characters. All rights go to Sucker Punch and Sony Computer Entertainment.

"It must be for real,

'Cause now I can feel.

And I didn't mind,

It's not my kind.

It's not my time,

To wonder why." - Glycerine by Bush.

A pulsing sensation; a repeated pouding that rattled his skull. A grunt, a gasp of air and he was breathing. Life returned to his body, slowly and painfully, the numb feeling replaced with a screaming fire pain. Whatever he was laying on, even with the pain he felt, was hard and uncomfortable. The man eased himself up, sight returning from the hazy, blurry vision.

The surroundings were ruined. Smoking buildings, blasted concrete, devastated cars and bodies of the dead. The air was heavy with the stench of smoke, burning urban material and death. He stood for a moment, taking in the carnage. And then, the urge to run overpowered him, his legs moving on their own, racing down the ruined street, leaping over chunks of upturned concrete, weaving past pieces of buildings and fallen metal beams

'What happened?' he asked himself. 'Where am I?'

He ran until he could run no further, collapsing into an alley way. As much as his body ached, sleep overpowered him, drifting off into that dream world that masks and hides away the cruelities of reality.

But his sleep did not last long. He was awakened by a prodding, and then was struck by a blunt object. He hit the pavment, blood dripping from his lips and nose. Standing around him were ragged people, searching his possessions, meager as they were, the remains of the clothes he had on his back.

"Hit him again, just to be sure." said the lone woman of the group. "Then we can take his crap without a fight."

"Should we? I mean, just look at him...guy's had enough shit already, being that close to the blast." said a man's voice.

"Yeah. What's the point? This guy has nothing but shit on him anyways." came another voice, the man holding the now bloodied pipe.

"Hit him anyway," said the woman.

"Yeah, yeah."

The people were ragged, some bloodied and injured. They all had fear in their eyes, and perhaps a little madness from that fear. The ragged man with the pipe raised the metal tube over his head, poised to strike, like an executioner hefting up his axe. The downed man raised his arm as a shield to protect himself. As the pipe came down, the downed man squeezed his eyes shut. All sound was drowned out by a loud bang. His eyes opened, and the crowd was on the ground, hands over their heads. The man with the pipe was crushed into the adjacent wall of the alleyway, as if pushed there by a great force.

That was when the man realized his hands weren't normal anymore. In the center of his palms, both of them, were strange holes...and they didn't look like they were made by an explosion or anything. Along his arms were smaller, similar holes. As he stood and faced the frightened crowd, a new sensation filled him; like a static charge, a vibrating, moving energy that filled every fiber of his being.

"Did you see that? He fuckin' blasted Tim!" whispered one of the scared crowd-goers to another. "Did you see that?"

"Shut the fuck up, man! He'll fuckin' kill us if he hears you!" retorted the other.

He looked down at the crowd.

"You tried to mug me, to kill me, for what? What do you think I should do to you?"

"Hey, man," said the woman, starting to get up. "We didn't mean any harm, okay? Take it easy, pal, and we'll just get-"

He pointed his hand at her and a screeching blast of concussive sound flared out of the whole in the palm, blasting the woman away like a rag-doll.

'What the fuck happened to me? What is this?'

The rest of the crowd were beginning for their lives, but he felt no sympathy or regret. Anger was welling up within him instead, and disgust. They had the balls to try and kill him to take his stuff, and now they're asking for mercy? The nerve! He grabbed one of them, lifted him to his feet and stared into his face.

"I'll tell you something," said the man to his hostage. "I'm gonna let you go. Your friends? Ain't so lucky."

He unleashed another sound blast at the crowd. The force crushed concrete and sent the men flying about. He then turned back to his hostage. A reverberating echo rattled the alleyway.

"You leave this place, and you better tell whatever pieces-of-shit friends you have left, that...Echo isn't gonna take any of their shit, you hear?"

The man nodded, quite frightened.

"And if I see you again, you're dead." Echo let the man go and watched him race down the alley and disappear behind the corner.

Echo looked up at the buildings and the sky. Something was beginning. He could tell that, at least. But he had no recollection of what happened before, why he woke up in a crater, who he was, what he was now. He looked at his hands and arms. His powers were strange...like something out of a damn comic book, and he didn't know what to do or make of them.

'No going back now,' he thought. 'Wherever "back" is...'

As he walked down the alley, he tried to remember but couldn't. He did, however, come up with a plan. Survive. And find answers. This city's got to have some, anyways, and he was determined to find them.