Chapter One: Bloody Awakening
Something was very wrong. The alarm bells confirmed as such. I could smell zinc, or perhaps iron in the air and there was a lot of it. Something about the smell made my throat tighten.
'Why am I restrained?'
I asked the silent question to myself after looking at my hands and feet. They were held down by metal cuffs. I was pretty much stuck on the table. No, I was stuck on the table.
'What's going on!?'
The next few minutes went by in a blur of panic, adrenaline and a lot of other emotions. It was so intense that I hadn't been sure that it had really been minutes and not hours. Eventually, though, I started to calm down. Finally came the not so comforting realization that I had been kidnapped. All I could really do was try to figure out what had happened, and then try and get out of here.
I couldn't remember the last place I had been. Hell, I couldn't remember what the last thing was that I should be trying to remember. I didn't know a lot about short-term memory loss, but from what I thought, it was supposed to leave more clues behind. Instead, as far as I could tell, it was like someone had done a full memory wipe going as far back as...
'Well I remember my family, my job, and my... my...'
The thought that had started to come to mind vanished just as quickly. It really pissed me off. I tried to keep myself from having another episode. It was just too much for my brain to handle. I yelled obscenities and other foul language. When no one came, I screamed and pulled against my restraints as hard as I could.
The sound of tearing metal knocked me to my senses. Maybe that isn't quite the right way to put that. I'm not quite certain that the realization that I had just torn my way through steel could count as 'coming to my senses.' All it really did was help me stop crying and screaming.
'That was too easy...'
I looked at the restraints on my feet. They couldn't be any different from the ones that had been holding me down by my wrists. I couldn't help my curiosity. So, I grabbed the metal and pulled. The one on the left snapped off and the one on the right followed immediately after.
I placed my feet on the ground and did the best thing that I could think of at the time. I followed my nose. Something about that smell and the way it made my throat constrict was oddly and paradoxically enticing.
I didn't know what I was expecting. I do know however what I was not expecting. The first of which, was a massacre that had killed well over a dozen armed and armored soldiers. This was like a bad movie, where the hero wakes up in a place where given the evidence, they should be dead too. Thoughts of the walking dead came to mind.
I took a look at my hands. I had been sixteen when I had seen that first episode, and my hands now looked like someone in their mid-twenties. Considering that I got my job when I was around twenty-three, I couldn't have lost more than five years of memories in a worst case situation.
'Wait. My reaction to this slaughter was to look at my hands and realize how old I am? Why am I not freaking out? Why am I not dry heaving? Why does...'
That smell was blood. I realized it later than I should. It was not the first time that I had smelled blood. It wouldn't be the last. It was, however, the first time that I had been in the presence of blood without feeling faint, and without wanting to vomit from the repugnant smell. No. This time, I felt a strange arousal. The smell actually smelled kind of good.
'I wonder if?'
I reached down and wiped my finger through the nearby pool of crimson. Every hair stood on end. I licked it. I liked it.
'I must be insane.'
The worst part was that I didn't care if I was insane or not. At that moment I didn't care about my most recent kidnapping. I didn't care about anything. Except for the crimson heroin that these poor dead soldiers had left just lying around on the floor for someone to lick up. That someone being me.
I had finally licked the last drop of blood up off of the floor.
It wasn't enough. I moved to the bodies and put my lips to their wounds and began to suckle them until every last drop was mine. I finished off the last of the dozen corpses.
It wasn't enough. I wanted more. At the time, I would even go so far as to say that I needed more.
Thum-Thump
My ears perked at the sound. I hadn't been paying attention to it at the time and I missed it. I had only picked it up on instinct. It was the most beautiful sound that I had ever heard and I already missed it even though it had only been a second or two.
There it was again, that beautiful sound. I couldn't let it get away from me again. I needed that sound to be mine. I'd make it my own personal song.
The world blurred past me as my feet carried me faster than I had ever run before until...
"Huh?" A soldier looked at me for a moment. His eyes went wide.
Thum-Thump
"I don't understand," I said. I couldn't find the sound. Instead, there was just a soldier. He didn't have a helmet on. He looked young.
"Stay back," the soldier ordered. He raised his gun and pointed it at me.
Thum-Thump
"I don't understand. Where is that sound!" I screamed.
Thum-Thump Thum-Thump
The soldier took a step back. His gun shook and for a moment I thought he was going to shoot me. Then he did. My vision narrowed into a red tunnel and my eyes tingled with electricity.
Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump
He fired his rifle again. It was really starting to piss me off. I tried to take it away from him, but he stepped back.
'Why is he...?'
He flicked his rifle into full auto and fired his entire mag off. It clicked. Dry. He raised the gun to throw it.
"Stop!" I yelled at him, finally pissed off.
Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump
He didn't move. Not a single muscle, save for the ones that moved his eyes as they darted back and forth before settling on me with a strange look.
Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump Thum-Thump
I screamed and pulled two handfuls of hair from my scalp. "Where is the sound!?"
I stared at the soldier but he didn't answer. He only stood there and looked at me with that strange look again. I couldn't understand what it was, not at first. But it slowly dawned on me. He was afraid of me and that noise was his heartbeat.
Author's Notes: That's a wrap for this chapter. Thank you for taking the time to read it, and I hope to see you again at the next update.