The Kill Zones
The rain was hitting hard on the moving vehicle. The trees were groaning, and branches were falling and split under the merciless tires, they were not used to this form of a travel. There were no roads, as this side of the forest was real deep, and had never seen by human before. The only indication was left that there had been some structure was from the destructive trail.
The human inside it was a 45-year-old man, his grey eyes widen in fear and desperation, the perspiration stuck his brown hair to his face and his brows narrowed revealing soon to be wrinkles. His fingers grabbed the steering hard, and his eyes looked anxious around him.
As his phone rang he gave a frighten yelp and nearly drove into the threes he was trying too hard to avoid. The screen showed the name Ellie.
his heart clenched as he remembered his beautiful wife before him with their newly born son. He had already missed her thirteen calls adding one more to the tally. Before he knew he was sobbing hard, dangerously blurring the already blurred surrounding.
Out of the nowhere a silver sort of transparent shape, startled him enough hit the brakes hard. But the grass was slick with the downpour rain and the mud it had created, so the vehicle instead of stopping glided and hit the three enough force to knock him out of the front window with more broken bones to almost kill someone.
The man laid down gasping for breath after screaming what seemed to him for hours, his tears mingling with rain. There was only eerily silence, only broken by the rain and as numbness started to set in his tears of pain turned into relief.
Unfortunately, the very thing he was running from stepped into his sight. As the shape stuck his hands forcefully into his chest and grabbed his very soul, a peaking pain instantly rose. A raw bloodcurdling scream fell from his chapped lips. It felt like grabbing the wrong end of the curling iron, it surpassed everything he had ever felt.
The creature wore a malice smile and looked down on him with knowing eyes. It raised his hands slowly, and the man felt like it was ripping his limbs and organs one by one. In his haze of pain, he didn't know that he screamed or that he even begged and begged for mercy and prayed to god.
The creature licked his blue lips in anticipation as his hand was nearly out with a delicious soul. As he finally had torn it out of the vessel, he gave a cruel laugh and he ate the soul.
As the grey eyes lost their colours and the body died with one last shudder, Harry J. Potter opened his eyes.
000
When he woke up, he thought he had become blind. His eyes were open but all that he could see was complete darkness, threatening and formless shapes that moved in other shadows.
Luckily, before he had the chance to panic, the darkness had become a light mist, and then the mist dissolved into a white plaster ceiling.
He could smell clean cotton bed linen. Antiseptics, disinfects and the faint metallic tang.
He turned his head when the pain ran through his forehead, like an electric shock a drilled its way through from side-to-side. His sight immediately blurred. When it became clear again, he saw that he was lying in a hospital room.
He couldn't remember being admitted in a hospital. He couldn't even remember the hospitals name, which city or which country it was in.
'What's wrong with me?' he thought.
He lifted a scarily weak hand onto his forehead and discovered that the whole upper part of his head was covered in with bandages. His hair was short and slightly stiff. Hadn't it been longer before?
He didn't have the strength to keep his arm up and let it fall back on the mattress. This time turning his head slowly, he looked towards his feet, feeling sweaty and warm. The reason he now saw was that his left foot was in a cast. A surprisingly green one that looked like it almost didn't have any more room with all of the writings. He narrowed his eyes in confusion. Could it have been his friend engraving that? did he even have friends?
Moving his eyes to his right arm he saw that it was a syringe which was connected to a rubber hose. He received food intravenously. The metal rack and it is dangling bags of liquids stood right by the bed.
For a moment he closed his eyes convinced that this was all a dream. But when he opened his eyes, the room was still there, unchanged: white ceiling, white walls, green tile floor, pale yellow curtains pulled aside from a large window. Behind the widow were tall evergreen trees and a cloudy sky, with only few specks of blue.
There was another bed in the room, but it was empty. He was alone. The bed bars on each side of his bed were in upright position, to keep him from falling of the bed. He had a sudden burst of hatred. He was helpless like a baby. He didn't even know his name. Or age. Or something else about himself.
He banged on the empty wall in his mind, trying to recall his memorise but there was nothing. He tried again and again, each time a little harder, but with no luck.
Memory loss, amnesia, brain damaged.
Those terrible words hit him hard like a quidditch bat, not that he could remember what that was. Apparently, he must have had an accident and had been seriously injured in the head. He imagined, what if it was a permanent mental disorientation and shuddered.
Then suddenly completely unexpected and without tying he remembered his name. Harry. Harry James Potter. He was twenty-five years old. The awaiting flow of memorise that was supposed to come was nothing more but a tickle. He couldn't recall anything else than his name and age.
Though he stubbornly tried, he still couldn't remember where he lived. What his work or school was. Whether or not he was married. he glanced at his almost slender bony like fingers and saw no ring. Did he have children, well he must have had. He had a faint impression of holding a toddler in his arms. Where were the child born or better more importantly where had he been born?
What kind of music did he like? or what was his favourite food?
He had no answers to the questions.
Memory loss, amnesia, brain damaged.
Just before falling into a full panic-attack out of fear, someone must have taken pity for he could suddenly remember. He was rooming London due to his vacation. He didn't know where he had come from or what work he was supposed to go back to when the vacation was over but at least he knew where he was. Somewhere in London.
The last thing he recalled was, he had taken some double-decker bus and then walked a bit enjoying the clear sky and the soft wind mingled with the smell of newly baked bread. He remembered being inside a telephone booth and a turbulent lift. Then there had been a terrible argument and he fell through something soft yet cold. It had felt like an almost liquid veil of some sort and then…
Nothing.
he had woken up disoriented with pain in a hospital room.
"Well good morning dear"
Harry turn his head slowly, trying to focus on the person that had spoken. His vision had blurred again, and a dull pain slowly spread in his head.
"How are you feeling dear? You're certainly looking a bit pale but that's understandable after the ordeal you've been through." the voice belonged to a cheerful nurse that moved closer to his bed from the open door. She was a chubby, grey haired woman with warm, brown eyes and a beaming smile. She had a pair of glasses with white steel hanging in a pearl-chain around her neck. The glasses were reflected light from her motherly bosom.
Harry tried to speak but was unable to. Even the pitiful attempt to speak took too much of him, he was almost about to faint. That extreme fatigue was frightening.
The nurse then came to the bed and smiled soothingly "I knew you would make it dear, I just knew. Some of the others had their doubts, but I knew you were a fighter" she pushed the call button right beside the beds headboard.
Harry tried to speak again, this time managing to get a sound out. However, it was nothing else but a low of meaningless gurgle from deep below his throat. He frightfully wondered, if he might ever get to talk again. Maybe he was condemned for the rest of his life to only bring forth these grunting, animalistic sounds. Sometimes the concussion resulted loss of speech development right. Right.
A beat banged loudly and unavoidable in his head, he seemed to be in a merry-go-round, which was spinning faster and faster, and he wished he could stop the wickedly spinning of the room. The nurse must have noticed the panic in his eyes, as she said "Calm down, calm down dear. Everything is going to be alright" she checked the glucose liquid regularly droops, and then gently grabbing his arms to feel the rhythm of his pulse.
'Oh god' Harry thought 'If I am unable to speak, then what if I can't walk either?"
He tried to move his right leg, under the covers, but there seemed to be no feeling in them at all, they were just as numb and lead heavy as his arms. The nurse let go of his arm, but Harry grabbed the white uniform sleeve and tried desperately to say something. "Relax, there are plenty of times" the nurse said gently.
But Harry knew there weren't plenty of time. He was balancing on the edge of unconsciousness. The pain in his head was followed by a ring of darkness, slowly consuming him whole.