Tip #1: Be Aware

Watch what you're doing, where you're going, who's around you. Danger can come from anywhere and obliviousness can get you killed. Be aware of everything around you.

Words. Loud and overwhelming, drowning out every other thought. Just putting one foot in front of the other is an arduous task under such a barrage of noise.

Test. That word is repeated over and over again, a constant background drone. It brings a feeling of dread and fear, casting a dark shadow over everything else.

Train. This one brings the sensation of countless hours of hard, soul crushing work, never completely understanding the purpose but still pressing on until I collapse from exhaustion, all under the intense scrutiny of people without faces or names.

Failure. This word makes me flinch. It comes less often but brings a stronger feeling of pain and loss, but there is a certain inevitability about it. It is expected. Eventually I become numb to it, letting it slide past without registering in my mind.

Experiment. Is there any way to describe how that word makes me feel? It is the root of all the others, making my physically ill. It makes me want to break down in tears and hide away, it makes me want to scream and rage against everything.

It's too much to handle. I press my hands over my ears, but it does no good against the noise in my head. I try to concentrate on the ground directly in front of me as I trudge along, try to focus in on the dirt, dust and rocks in an attempt to block it all out. It works for a moment, the sound receding, but the words come back with a vengeance to smash through my flimsy mental barricade.

Test. Test. Train. Failure. Test. Test. Train. Failure. Experiment.

They come faster and faster, slicing through my mind with flashes of images that intensify everything by tenfold. I fall to my knees with a cry of pain, cradling my head in my hands.

TestTestTrainFailureTestTestTrainFailureExperiment TestTestTrainFailureTestTestTrainFailureExperiment.

Success!

This last word, new and frightening, represents a vast unknown. It comes with a second hand triumph but with a slight flounder ending in a questioning tone, an unexpected outcome they weren't sure what to do with. It reverberates through my head, cutting through all the others and leaves only ashes in its wake. Success burns away everything, my thoughts, my memories, my experiences, until only it is left, but the fire is yet to be sated and the word consumes even itself.

Blessed silence. After the ceaseless noise, the sudden emptiness is an unimaginable relief, like an iron spike had just been removed from my mind.

I pitch forwards and land face first on the rocky ground. I don't care. I'm barely even aware that I've gone from standing up to laying down. Completely exhausted and feeling like my head had just been gutted, I fall unconscious.

...

The first thing I become aware of is the heat, pounding down on my back. I shift around, trying to ignore the discomfort, but I'm eventually driven to turn my head around. I squint and raise an arm to block against the sunlight.

And then I realize I'm in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dust and dirt. I scan around the sun baked area. Aside from tall rock formations rising up from the rocky ground, I am completely alone. I crawl into the shadow of one of these natural statues and sit with my back against it, and try to think of what was going on and how I had gotten here.

I sit there for a long minute. Then another. I squint up at the sky and gently bump my head against the rock face. I spend the next several minutes absently rubbing my raw throat and smacking my tongue around my drier than dirt mouth. Nothing comes to me, not a damn thing. I don't know where I am, how I got here, where I'm from, my name.

Ok, let's try not to freak out just yet. There must be some clue around here about who I am.

I look down at myself and see I'm wearing a plain black shirt under a heavy, black and red jacket made of a tough, durable material. My long, black pants with a red and white stripe down the side are cinched tight around my waist with a thick belt. The ensemble is completed with a pair of heavy, steel toed boots that fit my feet perfectly, and the whole thing has the feel of a uniform, stiff and new.

I shrug a pack off my back (Also red, white and black. I'm starting to sense a theme here.) and look inside. There are five bottles of water within, one almost empty. Fucking score. I unscrew the cap and finish it off before grabbing a second one.

I reach back inside with my free hand and pull out a handful of wide, thin bars in bright, silver packages, each with a thin strip down their length of either red, purple or yellow. Curious, I put down the water and tear open a purple to find a thin, reddish bar with a sticky texture. Cautiously I take a bite, and my face screws up at the sudden sourness, then to a sweeter aftertaste. Some kind of dried fruit bar.

Satisfied, I take another bite and dig down deeper in the pack. I pull out a ring with a single key, the number thirty-seven stamped on the side. No idea what that's for. I set it aside.

I reach in again and this time my hand finds a hard covered book. I take it out and open it up. On the inside cover I find a neatly printed note.

Whatever you may think of me, whatever ill feelings you may harbor, they are irrelevant. Follow the route within and you will find someone you can trust. Kvasir should help you once you show him the flash drive.

When it is discovered that you are gone, they will be hunting you. Avoid all Authority personnel and keep your head down. You are too important to get yourself killed and I will not have my achievements burned to ash.

Umm... what? Who's Kvasir? And the Authority... Merde. I don't need to remember my name to know not to mess with an angry bear, and the Authority is one pissed off grizzly. What did they want with me? Of course, considering I can't remember anything, it could be for a lot of reasons.

I flip through the book and find page after page of well detailed maps. I find some marked in red, outlining a route. The one mentioned in the note, perhaps? I have no idea where I am, so I have no idea if I am anywhere near the marked path.

I trace the line, which abruptly ends with no indication of what is there. I follow it back the other way, flipping back several pages. It leads to what looks like a large compound, labeled simply as "Base R-3".

I snap the book shut and rifle through the bag some more, finding more of the silver bars and a flash drive. I'll need to find a computer somewhere and take a look at it later. Is this the whole reason I'm out here? Some stolen information or important plans? And then my fingers find something metal, cold and heavy. I pull out a pistol, expertly maintained and in pristine condition. I check the chamber and find eleven out of twelve chambers loaded, one shot missing.

I tuck the gun into my belt. The pack contains nothing else, so I put everything back inside, sling it over my shoulder and stand up.

I have no idea where I am, where I should go. I look around in all directions. I think I can see the hazy outline of something in the distance to the south. Or maybe north. I can't tell if the sun is currently rising or setting. Anyway, it's as good a direction as any, I suppose, and whatever's there will at least give me something to aim for so I don't wander about in circles. I shift my pack to rest a bit more comfortably on my shoulders, keeping my eyes on the outline. And then I smile. A clearly defined goal makes me feel strangely better when everything else is a big question mark.

With that smile in still in place, I start walking. It's a long way off and it's damned hot, so I strip off the jacket and stuff it in the pack. That helps. As I'm pulling off the sleeves, however, I notice something strange in the inside of my left wrist. In big, black digits, "18-006" is tattooed there.

What the Hell is that supposed to mean? I stare at it as I walk, having no idea what to make of it. I lightly trace it with a finger, not watching where I'm going but still wandering in a vaguely south direction. This is much more threatening and ominous than the note. Faded and losing its boldness, it had to be years old. A good decade, I think.

And so absorbed am I in questions and speculations that I don't notice anything is amiss until something comes down hard on the back of my head.

...

It's not every day one wakes up to find their hands and feet are tied together and they're hanging upside down on a chain connected to a hook in the ceiling. And if you do, well I think it's high time you rethink your lifestyle.

I struggle against the bonds, but only succeed in swinging myself around like a piñata. This doesn't make me stop, not at first. I twist and kick and fight until I'm spinning like helicopter blades. When I feel ready to puke and the world's still spinning even when I'm not, I force myself to try to calm down. Hey, I'm not wandering around lost in the wasteland, that's good, right? I've got a roof over my head and everything. I might be hanging from it, but it's there.

Ok, I've calmed down a bit, enough denial. Time to take stock of my surroundings and hope there's something real to hold onto.

This room had probably been some type of luxury bathroom back before the asteroid hit, but judging from the blood, gore and graffiti (mostly variations of skulls. Very original.) that decorate the place, it now serves a much darker purpose. A mound of fly covered bodies are piled in the old hot tube on the side of the room, not exactly a great sign of my chances, and other than me there is one other in the room, unconscious but still breathing as far as I can tell.

He's all trussed up and gagged on the floor, blood coating the side of his bald head. His clothes, weathered and dirty, are spotted with blood, his or someone else's I can't tell.

"Eh," I whisper, trying to get his attention. No response. "Eh," I hiss a bit louder, but still nothing.

Screams. I jerk around, but the sound is coming from outside the room. Another heart wrenching cry of pain, a young girl's by the sound of it, fourteen or fifteen maybe. I can hear her begging to someone, but her pleas are cut off with another scream.

Ok, calm's gone. I really start to panic now, twisting and struggling like a lunatic. The chain rattles as I swing around, but it is thick and strong, definitely not about to break any time soon.

The screams stop abruptly. After a long moment of silence, the door to the room slams open and a tall, wiry man struts in with all the self assurance of someone who knows they are in complete control of the situation.

His skin is covered in a white, chalky substance along with many occult tattoos that decorate his bare skull, chest and arms. His only clothing is a pair of loose, baggy pants and a dark grey bandanna that covers the lower half of his face.

He pulls that down as he approaches me, giving me a chilling, feral grin that reveals a mouthful of sharpened, yellow teeth in a mess of bloody gums.

"Ne me touchez pas!" I yell when he raises a hand to my face. His grin widens.

"Not just an Authority bitch, then, but a French, Authority bitch. Oh we're going to have some fun!"

My brain struggles for a moment, grasping at straws before switching to English.

"Get the Hell away from me you disgusting bastard!"

He laughs. The sound makes me flinch, a reaction that really pisses me off. So I spit in his face and give him what I hope is an unsettling, half mad grin. 'I'm not afraid of you,' I want it to say, but I'm pretty sure it comes across as 'holy fuck I'm trying to keep it together'.

"What a little firebrand you are. But I'll get to you in a moment. I have some business to attend to first."

He walks over to the man on the floor, now awake and staring at his captor with cold hatred.

"No one crosses the Ghost Clan, Hagar. After we're done here, I'm going to pay that family of yours a visit, burn that shithole to the ground!"

I struggle against the chains to no avail. I look around in a panic. The chains aren't going to break, but maybe...

I look up at the ceiling, where the hook is drilled into the ceiling. I jerk my feet downwards and see cracks appear in the century old, crumbling ceiling. I repeat this again and again, swinging back and forth as I try to get free.

He pulls out a knife and grabs the other by the shoulder.

"I promise this is going to hurt!"

He drives the knife forwards just as the ceiling gives way. My momentum flings me over to crash into his back. We fall to the floor in a tangle.

Hagar twists around and uses both feet to kick the man in the head. When he doesn't move, Hagar manoeuvres himself to his knees. I roll off the man and Hagar lips him over with bound hands, revealing the man's own knife impaling his chest.

Hagar pulls it out and uses it to awkwardly saw through the sinew (ew) ropes binding his hands together. He removes the gag, cuts through the ropes at his feet and stands over me.

"Where did you get that uniform? Are you Authority?"

"I don't know," I answer, looking him right in the eye.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I don't know."

He stares down at me for several seconds before starting to work on my binds.

"I'm taking a risk here, helping you out. Authority hasn't earned much love around these parts, and if they find out I helped one… Still, if we work together we might have a shot at getting out of here alive."

When I'm loose he pulls me to my feet.

"The name's Dan Hagar."

"Six," is all I can think to say, glancing down at the tattoo on my wrist.

He gives me an odd look, the shrugs and makes his way over to the door.

"All right then, Six. We've got a whole mess of Ghost Clan bandits between us and freedom. You up for this?"

Strangely, yes. I've woken up in the middle of the Wasteland with no memory and am now surrounded by a hostile bandit clan ready to fuck our shit up, and I'm oddly ok with it all. Or maybe I'm in shock. Either way, while I do believe things could be better, I am feeling focused and in control of myself. I give him a nod.

We go through the doorway into a short hallway, the end blocked off with a rough barricade of old couches and tables. A second door leads to what must have once been a lavish bedroom now destroyed by time and exposure. What we find inside leaves a sick taste in my mouth and is a stark image of just what would happen if I'm caught again.

A girl, surely the one I heard earlier, is a mangled, bloody mess on the bed. Her face is brutally bashed in, but there are signs that she had endured many horrors before her death. I quickly avert my eyes and try to hold onto my earlier calm collectedness.

I see my backpack on a nearby dresser, the contents spread out beside it. I hurriedly walk over, not daring to look anywhere else, and put everything back inside, sling it over my shoulder and tuck my pistol in my belt. Then I look up and see myself for the first time in a cracked and dirty mirror.

The eyes catch my attention first, a dark, murky green, filled with worry but with a hard warriness about them. They're set on a sunburned, dirt smudged face, mildly pretty but nothing remarkable, my expression twisted with the same worry and hardness. I don't like it. I focus and tweak the set of my mouth, the look in my eyes, until I outwardly look more hopeful, maybe a little confident. I run a hand through my bright red hair, short and tatted, sticking out of my head in messy spikes.

I take a step back and look at myself fully. I think I might be eighteen but it's hard to tell because I also look like a fifteen year old boy. Seriously, nothing to look at. I shift from foot to foot, trying to associate what I see with who I am. Yes, this is fine, this is me.

I ruffle my hair and turn away to see Hagar holding a sniper rifle picked up off a table, a pair of green tinted sunglasses now on his face. It makes it impossible to see his eyes, from the set of his mouth I gather that he's watching me with no small level of suspicion. What does he think of me, I wonder?

"Let's go," he says.

Out of the bedroom, we enter a large, wide open room with the walls and ceiling crumbled away. The outside world is clearly visible and I can see a barren, rocky valley far down below, enclosed on two sides by sheer cliffs. There's nothing else to see, no towns or settlements out there, just us and the bandits.

Through a torn down wall, we go through smaller, run down bedrooms, all empty. This place must've been some sort of resort pre-impact. It's certainly big enough with countless rooms.

Through one destroyed bedroom, we come to a place where a giant chunk of the building is just gone as if ripped away by a giant's hand. The walls and ceiling are completely gone, leaving only the floor that stretches out then drops away suddenly.

"Why haven't we run into anyone yet?" I whisper to Hagar.

He doesn't answer, just carefully steps down the stairs to the destroyed room, holding his sniper rifle tightly. I pull out my pistol as well.

We stop just short of the room, eyes darting around to take in the flat, open floor, the only cover being a few moldy couches. There is no where else to go, but we can see a single zip line at the far end.

"This whole place screams 'kill zone'," I whisper, looking up at the floors higher up on either side of the room.

"The way I see it," Hagar says, "our best shot is just a flat out run for the zip line."

"I only see one handle."

"You don't look that heavy. I'll grab onto it, you piggy back on me."

I hesitate before nodding. I don't know this man and it would be oh so simple for him to take the zip line and abandon me. It would be safer for him, both in the short and long term. Less likely to killed by bandits, less likely to get caught up in problems with the Authority. But what choice do I have but to trust him? Betray him myself? The thought makes me feel queasy, but if it comes down to it, I have to be ready.

All Hell breaks loose the moment we take a step out. On the upper floors, Ghost Clan members appear with guns, old and rusty but still deadly. Others jump down, screaming wordlessly as they charge at us with large, curved knives.

I shoot with a precision I didn't know I had. Each shot of my pistol brings down a knife wielder while each deafening bang of Hagar's rifle signals the end of a gunman.

But there is just too many, coming one after another without a though to their fallen comrades. My pistol clicks as I run out of bullets. The man I was aiming for flinches back, then continues running when he realizes I'm all out.

Instinct takes over. As the knife is raised upwards to end my life, I lash out with a closed fist, striking him in the solar plexus. He doubles over and I bring my knee up to crash into his head. He falls backwards and we keep going.

Almost there, just a few more feet…

There's a shout and I turn to see that Hagar has fallen, a patch of red blooming on his right thigh.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but for a moment the idea of just leaving him there, of saving myself and forgetting about Hagar, crosses my mind. Well, maybe for a bit longer than a moment. Ok, a lot longer than a moment. Don't judge me.

I cast a longing look at the zip line before running back and dragging Hagar behind the meager cover of an old couch. It won't stop bullets but it does mean they don't have a clear target.

"Take this," he hisses through the pain, handing me his sniper rifle.

I take the gun, set the barrel on the top of the couch and fire at anyone who got too close. The gun jumps in my hand with each pull of the trigger and the recoil slams the but of the rifle into my shoulder. It's a comfortable feeling, familiar, and I fell into a rhythm while Hagar takes something out of his pocket, bandages from the look of it, and wraps it around his leg.

"I doubt a couple of rags are going to help much with gunshot wound."

"They only need to get me to that zip line."

I keep firing. God, do they ever stop? It's like we poked an angry hornets' nest and the gun only fires so quickly.

"We need to get out of here before we're overrun!"

"I can make it. Help me up."

I grab his arm and pull him to his feet, still firing the whole time. Damn it, sniper rifles are not designed for this try of situation! I let go of Hagar and swing it around like a club, taking out one too-close-for-comfort bandit.

Hagar hobbles over to the zip line while I do my best to cover him. A patch of wooden floor at my feet explodes and I jump back. Hagar grabs the handle on the line and I don't hesitate to jump on his back.

And then we're off, picking up speed as we zoom through open air across to the other side of the hotel. This place is huge! Just how many bandits are living here? Too many would be my guess.

A hole is torn down in the wall and jump out into a stair well at the end of the zip line. I take the lead, eager to get out of here while Hagar follows behind, going much slower.

Having left such a large group of Ghosts behind, I don't think to check where I'm going, don't think that there might be more. When I catch sight of the hotel's rundown lobby, I make a run for it. So close to the end that I overlook the fact that I haven't actually reached the end yet. I sprint down the crumbling stairwell and straight to the exit, not thinking to check further down the next flight of stairs. The volley of bullets takes me by surprise, ripping through my gut and feeling like someone smashed my stomach with a sledgehammer before dripping molten steel straight through my body. I'm not even aware when I go from standing to falling to on the ground.

I hear people talking, laughing, and then there are shouts and more gunshots. All this sounds so far away, getting even farther with each passing second. A deep cold settles into my limbs and my thoughts move at the pace of thick syrup. Static fills my vision, steadily eaten up by a white blankness.

All this is erased when a blazing pain spikes through my chest, snapping me back to reality. I gasp back into full awareness, my whole torso alight with pain. It felt like lightning was striking my heart, ready to burst out of my chest, while hot iron bars are being stabbed into my stomach.

I've been shot. The thought seems impossible. Stupid, given where I am and what I'm doing, but it still seems so impossible. I stare dumbly at my stomach, slick with blood, then at Hagar, standing over the bodies of two dead men. There's a moment of silence as the situation is digested, and then Hagar kneels beside me and lifts up my shirt to get a look at how bad it is.

"Merde," I stammer. "Je vais mourir. Je vais mourir apres deux heures. Je ne peux pas souvenir qui je suis, et je vais mourir."

Hagar puts my shirt back down and stares at me. Merde, it must be bad. The pain is fading from a burning fire to a dull ache. That's bad, isn't it? I've been shot but it doesn't feel like it anymore. I must be in shock. I'm dying and my body is shutting down.

"C'est des conneries." I press a hand against my forehead.

Hagar stands up and levels his gun at me. He's going to put me down, out of misery, a mercy killing, before my body catches up to the situation and the pain comes back.

"Get up," he says, hardness in his tone.

"Quoi?"

"Get up."

"Would if I could," I laugh with a hysteric ring.

"I said get up you lying piece of shit. Helping an ark survivor invites trouble that I am not willing to put my family through."

"What? I'm not... what? I- fuck!" A shot of pain stabs through my chest and I press at my heart until it passes.

Hagar apparently has had enough and grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I scream. I press my hand against my stomach, feeling the bullet wounds stretch open and fresh blood pour out. Hagar doesn't seem to care as he hauls me along, stumbling and tripping.

My hand fumbles at my belt before my fingers find my pistol, empty of rounds but hopefully he'd be a bit too preoccupied to remember that when it's waving around in his face. I draw it at the same time I try to yank back my arm, landing on my ass when he suddenly lets go at the sight of the gun. The bullet holes in my gut scream with pain and I have to fight to keep my arm steady while I blink away tears.

Hagar frowns at me and adjusts his grip on the sniper rifle. Merde, he remembers.

I felt another spasm in my heart and the pain in my gut spiked before dropping off to more tolerable levels. I pressed my hand free hand to the injury while still stubbornly keeping the pistol raised. If I'm going to die then I'm going to die pretending I still have a chance. Fuck, may as well go out with a smile on my face.

I bare my teeth in a weak imitation of a grin. "Today is a good day to die, eh? Go ahead and add another bullet to my growing collection."

"I don't think that'd make much difference." He gestures at my blood soaked and torn shirt with the barrel of his rifle.

"Oh mon Dieu, it's that bad, isn't it? Gut shot and dying slowly." My faltering smile falters even more. "Merde."

"Put the gun down and drop the act."

"Fuck, should I break down in tears? Let me keep the brave face, eh?"

"You're a stubborn one, that's for damn sure. That doesn't change the fact that I can almost see them healing already."

"The fuck?" I pat my stomach, then pull up the bottom of my shirt to expose the wounds. It's a wreck, caked with blood, with what looks like four small craters scattered about. I get light headed at the sight and feel a sudden weakness, and have the pressing need to lie down.

I close my eyes and press the handle of the empty pistol against my forehead before forcing myself to look again. Then I start to see what Hagar meant.

"Oh, merde."