Author's Note: So I said I wouldn't post this here. Whatever.
Warnings: Swearing I think
Disclaimer: I disclaim my use of everything, including all ideas drawn from Alex Bell's 'The Ninth Circle'
My name is Jack Tanner. Despite knowing this, it feels strangely unfamiliar. Having a name makes me human I suppose, so I am writing it down before I forget it, for as a I pace the small confines of the rooms I find myself in, the name begins to slip from my mind. Forgetting my name so easily unnerves me greatly and I wonder what might be happening or perhaps has already happened to me.
I awoke on the floor of a small apartment. As I cracked my eyelids I could see across bare polished floorboards to the end of the room where I saw splintered skirting boards. There was blood pooling and my head felt peculiarly fuzzy. When I tried to lift myself I found that my face, where it had been resting upon the floor, was glued steadfast by the sticky blood. Grumbling I unstuck myself and rose to unsteady feet.
Suddenly the small, dark room flipped over and I felt as though I had forgotten to breath. I nearly fell to floor once again but managed to keep upright as I gripped the corner of the wooden table to my side, blanching my knuckles. After a moment I allowed myself to sink to the floor once more, hunched over like a baying heifer with my throbbing forehead pressed into the floor. My breath had escaped me, which made me panic and it took several minutes for me to find it. Once breathing properly again I sat back on my heels and took deep calming breaths. I decided that panicking was no good. In spite of my lack of memory and the alienating situation I had found myself in I knew that panicking never got anybody anywhere. This conviction feels deep-set in my person and this warms me – I have beliefs. I am human. I am writing this down too, in case I forget it like my slippery name. Jack…
After my small meditation I ventured to my feet once more. The air stayed breathable but my head remained fuzzy. Ignoring this I stalked through the apartment, taking in all I could. It was sparsely furnished. The lounge, where I had been unconscious on the floor, held only a scrubbed wooden table, a spindly chair and a tartan, threadbare sofa. I moved over to the table where I saw a pile of papers and grabbed a handful. They were merely blank sheets of lined paper, not a thing written or doodled upon them. I saw a black ink pen also; perhaps someone had been intending to write? I frowned and flung the sheets back onto the table, most of them fluttering onto the floor, soaking up the blood. What use were these bits of paper? How was I meant to determine my location? I had hoped it would be the post, bills and junk mail with a name on them. Was I in someone else's apartment? Did I live here?
I huffed and turned around, my eyes coming to rest on the god-awful sofa. It looked disgusting and old, as though dirty tramps had been living on it for a century. One arm of the sofa was adorned with cigarette burns and I saw on that same arm a chocked ashtray, fag ends and ash spilling out onto the material and onto the floor where there were more piles of it. Did the person who lives here smoke? They must smoke a lot and be very careless for it seemed that as soon as the ashtray got full it was simply tipped out onto the floor beside the sofa. I wrinkled my nose, hoping with all my might that I was not the tenant of this apartment. I sniffed the air; it stank of cigarettes, and then I sniffed my fingers and the skin on the back of my hands. They too smelt of cigarettes but I couldn't be sure if that was because I smoked or because the smell was so thick inside the room. With my jaw clenched I ventured through the rest of the rooms.
Eventually I came into the bedroom. The other rooms, of which there were very few in fact, just a kitchen and a small larder, had been as equally fruitless in terms of tenant information as the blank paper in the lounge had been. There were no bills, no letters, no flyers, no newspapers. Nothing. Nothing at all. I became increasingly nervous as the thought occurred to me that I might actually live here but that I might be a squatter. This terrified me – did that mean I was unemployed? Am I a criminal? Am I drug addict? I paused and remembered my earlier belief, panicking will get me nowhere and I settled to believe for the meantime that this was not my home and that something awful had happened to me. I had merely woken up here in a pool of blood. What if I'm a hostage and this is my captor's home?
No, I must not panic!
As I nosed about the bedroom I came across a laptop and a mobile phone. Both looked very expensive and then I pondered the possibility that the rest of the place was so shabby because the tenant spent all his money on these things. I flipped open the phone but it was completely empty; no contacts, no messages, no sent items. Another dead-end. I moved onto the laptop and was thwarted immediately by a password protection system. If this was my home then surely I would know the password? I racked my brains for a memory but found nothing, further unnerving myself. When I thought of it I couldn't even remember what month or day it was, I didn't even know where in the world I was. As a matter of fact I didn't know what I was. For all I knew I could be French or Japanese.
A fresh wave of panic overtook me, which I quickly quelled when I remembered my principle, and I darted to the window and ripped the thin, grubby curtains wide open. I squinted as bright sunlight hit me in the eyes, making me feel like I was being stabbed with long needles. Eventually becoming used to the light I looked down at the world around me. It seemed as though I was looking out of the top floor of an apartment building. An entire dingy city crouched on the ground before me as far as I could see. Tall, dark, ugly buildings like the one I was in perforated my view, the streets were narrow. I recognised nothing and cold dread began to take me once more. I pressed my face to glass to see as far as I could to my left and then to my right, where it seemed the nicer, richer parts of the city were. In the very distance I saw a soaring, sparkling building looming much higher above everything else. Lettering adorned its collar.
WAYNE.
Wayne? This was something I did recognise; it was the Wayne Enterprises Headquarters. I felt relief that I had found something in my memory bank, that something was familiar after all. I sighed, I knew where I was and I wrote it down.
'Gotham…'
I shrieked at the sound of the voice and spun about, getting tangled in the curtains. My eyes searched wildly for the source of the voice and I first I couldn't see anything until I moved around to stand opposite a doorframe that I hadn't noticed before. As I carefully sidled over a man came into view, moving equally as cautiously as I was. My breath hitched. He was horrifying. His face was painted completely white and one side of it was smeared with blood which had become black and bitty as it caked off. It had trickled down his thick neck and stained the shoulder of his purple coat. I wasn't sure if it was more blood but it seemed as though he had painted his lips bright red, the line smudging beyond the lips and up his cheeks which looked strangely lumpy. He had painted his eye sockets completely black and dark, alarmed eyes stared straight into my own. I shuddered but was glad that he looked as shocked as I was. As I moved slowly towards him he stepped towards me also. We met eye to eye, toe to toe on either sides of the door frame.
'Who are you?' I jolted in shock as he spoke at exactly the same time as me. His voice was exactly the same as mine and every movement he made was the same as mine. With a terrible chill I realised that I was not standing in the threshold of a door but instead before a large, full-length mirror. I was looking at myself.
Horrified I regarded this stranger before me – this image of myself. He ignited not even the faintest smoldering of recognition in my mind. It hadn't occurred to me before, how could I have not managed to picture my own face in my head? Perhaps it was his flaking make-up, steeped into the furrows of his face and the congealed blood. He looked old and strange. His hair was disgusting, long, greasy and lank and… green? I saw his face change as mine did, after all, he was me. We both looked dreadfully confused. I snapped my head to left and then quickly to the right, almost as if I thought I could outwit him. But it was no use. He was me. This really was my reflection.
I stood back a few paces and observed my attire. It looked like a custom made costume, consisting of purple pinstripe trousers, a patterned shirt, a green waistcoat, a lavender undercoat and the huge, hulking purple overcoat that was now stained with blood. My brown tie was loose and crooked. I bit my lip, frowning when I felt a strange texture. I leant in closer to the mirror again, still wary of my reflection who remained a stranger to me and inspected my mouth. Beneath the make-up and paint I saw that the bizarre lumps were in fact old scars. One split down the centre of my lower lip and a long swooping curve extended from the corner of my mouth over my right cheek. A similar scar adorned my left cheek but this one was deeper and more jagged; it almost resembled a star. I licked and chewed the slick insides of my cheeks and I felt the scars there too.
In a daze I moved away from the mirror and into the bathroom, appalled and mystified by my painted and scarred face. Perhaps I didn't recognise myself because of the make-up? I sincerely hoped that I didn't dress up like this all the time and tried to imagine why I might have dressed like this in the first place. I searched my mind once more. A fancy-dress party? It was plausible. If I had gone to a fancy dress party then that means I might have been drinking, which might explain why I couldn't remember anything. But it was more than the previous night I couldn't remember, it was almost as if my entire life up until this point had been completely wiped away. I had fallen over though, I mused as I touched my fingers to my forehead. I drew back when I saw blood on the end of purple leathered fingers, gloves that I had somehow managed to not notice before. People fall over when they are drunk, this I know. I fell over and hit my head, now I have temporary amnesia. Yes! Yes, yes and yes again! I have solved my mystery!
Feeling like a weight had been lifted from my chest I smiled a little. I now stood before a small mirror cabinet above a grimy sink in the bathroom and faltered when I saw the state of my teeth. I bared them again and gasped. They were ghastly! They were completely yellow, some almost brown. It looked like I had eaten a tube of yellow ochre paint. I was appalled by myself; I must be a chain smoker! Frantically I scrabbled around the bathroom for a toothbrush and toothpaste and after repeated efforts I found none. Once again I hoped and prayed that this place was not my home. What kind of person doesn't have a toothbrush or toothpaste? Someone with horribly yellow teeth like me, I suppose. With a sinking feeling I began to realise that perhaps I really do live in this filthy little hovel.
Sighing about the lack of oral hygiene I decided to at least wash the rest of my body, there was a bath and a showerhead after all. I began to shrug my large coat off when I heard things clinking in the pockets. Curious, I spread the coat out wide either side of myself and stared. Knives upon knives lined my coat! Huge knives right down to small ones. I gaped, totally at a loss. Why on earth did I put all of these knives in my coat? What was I thinking when I went to a fancy-dress with all these things? I peered into the lining of the lavender undercoat and found more strangeness, several potato peelers, a pizza wheel, tweezers, thread and needles. In one of my pockets I found something a lot less threatening and wholly more inviting, a single bauble of Lindt chocolate. It was wrapped in red and I knew it was milk chocolate. I felt my mouth watering but I don't remember any previous favour for these chocolates. Then again when I first woke up I could barely remember my name... Jack Tanner… I must not forget. Shrugging I took the wrapping off, which was stuck to the treat and popped it in my mouth. I melted as the chocolate did and closed my eyes, the velvet bliss slipping down my throat. It was good. Perhaps I'll find more later when I go back to the kitchen. I put the wrapper in the mirror cabinet in case I forget that I like them.
Cautiously so as not to cut myself on the mysterious collection of knives I stripped out of my clothes, dumping them in the corner before leaning into the stained bath to turn the shower on. I twisted the handle around fully but nothing came out except the sounds of clunking from inside the walls. I panicked – no water? That meant no shower and I was certainly filthy. Suddenly a gush of water spewed from the showerhead. It was brown at first and I felt dismayed but it quickly cleared. Content with the non-brown water I let it run for a moment until the hot water came through. I searched for a towel and found one on the railing; it was dirty and stained with something that looked suspiciously like old blood. I shuddered, wary of what kind of person I might be. Then again, I have not yet determined whether this is my home, not for sure. Don't panic just yet, Jack. I then searched for some shower gel as steam filled the room but all I could find was a worn, cracked bar of soap. It will do. I grabbed it along with a flannel as equally filthy as the towel and carefully stepped into the shower.
The hot water hit me between the shoulder blades like a blessing, tumbling over my skin, the strong blast massaging what felt like a life time of knots in my back. I tilted my head back and let the water run over my face and wash the blood and paint away. I looked down at my feet and felt satisfaction, the filth on my body washing down the plug hole. I stayed in there for a long while, scrubbing myself over and over, rinsing my hair and lathering it up at least three times. I wish that I had proper cleaning things. My hair was riddled with knots and I remembered from somewhere in the depths of my mind that I would need conditioner for it, or perhaps I should just cut it. I will go shopping as this is what humans do. I have determined that I am human; I have a name and a belief. I am Jack Tanner and I believe that panicking will get you nowhere. I also have no memory and a coat full of knives and oddities, but I can sort this out later. I know I am human.
Today was May 23rd. I found my name on the inside page of this journal and this was my first entry. I will continue writing until I remember who I am.
Author's Note: REVIEWS PLZ