This deserves Roger's "Holy ape shit Batman."
Currently, I am lying on asphalt - in the middle of a road between a block of 1-story and 2-story shopping joints and convenience stores with the time of day confirmed to be night judging by the moon not too unnoticeable over the heads of a few buildings. My head terribly aches and I am in need of Advil. My legs seem to be numb, probably from lack of sugar-intake or I've been lying here unmoved for some few hours. Reaching a hand to the bridge of my nose, I inhaled and exhaled rather wheezily. Shit... Wait - my glasses. Instantly, I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt the familiar frame and slight pressure on the bridge of my nose. My heart swelled in contempt to know that the lenses showed no cracks. Now that that's done, I needed to know what's happening.
Name: Nyla Conners
Age: 14
Parents: Gail Conners (F) and Ivan Conners (M)
Siblings: Hugh Conners
Current Situation: Tired; splitting headache; hungry and thirsty; lost in an unidentifiable place with no history of arriving here.
I reached into my sweater pocket for my school ID card. Everything fits my analysis and the card was still at the same state as I last used it - none of Elena's stick figure drawings on the back were smudged heavily enough to be undecipherable. At least I'm not entirely amnesiac, I thought as I placed the card back in the pocket, but just lying here makes me anxious over the matter of what I'd done to end up here. I definitely remember the leaking gas spout and the exposed chemicals; there must have been some sort of explosion. Hell, I might be dead and this somewhat ghost town might be limbo.
My heart tightened at the thought of death. To cool myself down, I sat up with my knees to my chest and performed breathing exercises and closed my eyes in an attempt to keep myself from crying. Using my thumb, I brushed away premature drops and checked my pockets to find my Nokia, Walkman, and headphones still present in my jeans' pockets. Then I felt around my other sweater pocket and found the granola bar I kept for later back at school. Why do I still have this? Shrugging after detecting that it was fresh by taking a peek in the inside, I opened the wrapper fully and ate the first bar of the pair. Feeling the pieces grow smaller, tasting the sweet wheat, and hearing the crunches gave a sense of serenity at the discovery that my senses were fine. I gripped harder at the smooth wrapper. I held back a sob. I still feel human.
I hadn't noticed a car approaching until I heard a loud honk. Realizing that I looked like some deranged idiot sitting in the middle of the road and eating a granola bar, I jackknifed onto my feet and stumbled out of the way. I didn't get far due to the sound of car door clunking open and a male voice shouting, "Hey! Are you alright there, kid?"
Halting my escape sequence, I turned around, grimacing at the glare of the headlights emitted by a black convertible, and faced a tanned, middle-aged man with a crooked nose, rosey cheeks, and really low-cut dark hair showing signs of greying. He was watching me with his eyebrows bent downward, steeling an expression of worry and suspicion. I couldn't see the passenger who was inside the car due to the light. However, the long hair suggested a woman.
What do I...? "I-I'm lost, sir."
"Are you new in town?"
"I think..."
"You 'think'? Kid, this is Tranquility. I would know a new face in this neighborhood when I see it."
"Hush, Ron! You're terrifying her! For all we know, she might be being chased by some madmen after committing a crime," the shadow of the lady in the car opened and closed a mouth in rapid movement. The turn of her head in order to admonish her traveling partner allowed me to notice she had reddish hair under the lights of the shops and street lights.
Ron? Tranquility? Why does that sound so familiar? My heart beat quickened as my mind clouded in several suspicions and wild assumptions. One possibility stood out of all of them: I had become mentally insane after the explosion. My family moved to this place to seclude me. Now, I'm breaking house arrest and have crossed halfway over the country, evading police and search parties. But that still doesn't explain why I haven't changed physically and clothes-wise, I argued internally, realizing I still had the clothes I had worn to school. The ID card confirmed the debunk altogether.
"Now, Judy. If she had done something bad, she wouldn't be lying there just to wait for her death!"
Judy? Red-hair! Ron and Judy of Tranquility, Nevada! Hang on, these people are from that robot-car franchise; Transformers! But... impossible! They're fictional characters straight from a movie series me and Hugh watched last month, right? But, they look far too much like the actor and actress. They just can't be?
Ron shook his head from Judy's wild imagination. "I'm sorry...? What's your name, kid?"
I perked up at that. Shit! Do I lie?
"Nyla..." I slowly pronounced. Ron seemed satisfied to at least get my first name. However, Judy opened the door of the black convertible wearing a small frown on her face. She started approaching me. My fight/flight decision-making system kicked in instantly, but was taking far too long to process the dangers in this situation and what was the best method to evade the couple.
"Ron! Have you gone blind?" she reached my face and cupped me with her hands, squinting her eyes demonstrating error-free examination. They flashed with a glint of worry. "Her face is burnt!"
I reached for my face with my right hand, when suddenly Judy tonged her own hands. Her face morphed into that of horror. "Her hand's burnt too!"
"Jesus!" Ron exclaimed after getting a better look at my face.
What? The burns can't be that serious. Then again, that explosion in that classroom was pretty sudden and reactive. Or maybe this was the consequences of a struggle I faced here in Tranquility? Either way, I needed to get these treated. A hospital may be the best option, but it may risk my identity as a nonexistent person or an escapee of an asylum. I gulped at these thoughts; I can't expose myself either way! I still have to find out more about what happened. Think fast! I can lie about being endangered - I might as well have been.
"No!" I shakily yelled, causing the married couple to recoil from my outburst, "N-no hospital. Terrible people might find me. I-I-I was told that Tranquility would provide me a sanctuary until things died down. But I was already an amnesiac by the time I received the message. My passport and provisions were in a backpack that was destroyed by a bomb, so I've been walking around Nevada aimlessly with no clue to my past but my name and age; Nyla Conners; 14."
My fucking boba and milk; I'm Jason Bourne.
Judy showed compassion while Ron wore apprehension, but I continued, "All I need is a place to stay long enough to allow me food and water until I can find a job to provide for myself."
Silence impregnated the road with the exception of cars not too far away and the buzzing of neon signs down the block. These sounds all the more annoyed me since I was taking the hard hit of anxiety; I could be rejected my one chance of a place to stay with Internet connection - enough to investigate my home, my identity, and the explosion.
"You really have no place to stay?" Ron softly asked.
Reality crashed onto me like a tidal waves carrying cars, bricks, and boats. These debris represented my doubt of each person related and important to me. I shuddered and lifted my eyes to Ron, jaw tight. "Yeah, I don't."
Ron and Judy glanced at each other as if sharing a telepathic conversation. I counted my heartbeat to 17 until Ron's lips graced a sincere smile and he looked at me with soft eyes.
"You're welcome to stay with us...?" Judy snorted when Ron's epic fatherly-moment failed at the moment he realized he forgot my name, despite having said it twice.
My god. My eyes burned and my vision blurred; tears were rapidly forming. My breaths became hitched and unsteady. A situation like this had an intensity that was incomparable to all those times I misplaced myself at the mall, the airport, and Walmart. People actually cared to help me and call two strangers to pick me up. But now, I'm in another state halfway across the country. My family - my friends - are just gone. I'm in a place where a movie turns out real. There's just no way in hell I can cope on my own. Everyone and everything I knew doesn't exist. The stab of fear and loneliness prickled irritatingly at the center of my being. I know you, I hissed in my mind, futilely staring at the couple in front of me. Knowing something that could shred the last of my sanity if taken into the wrong hands or slipped out carelessly gripped my heart and mind. I could almost swear I heard wicked cackling in the air when there shouldn't be. Suddenly, the darkness that backed from the lights aligning the block looked almost too mocking. The signs; the wood and brick; the pothole-free gravel; the construction sites...
Everything started to look big, unfamiliar, and scary - because I just couldn't ground out the reality of the situation. This is Earth, but not my Earth. This is not my universe and I'm alone in this predicament.
You're such a kid.
I ran to Ron and Judy and whimpered pathetically as I crossed the distance to them and encircled them with my arms. It was a selfish and an unreasonable action, I know, but I told myself repeatedly through my thoughts that I was allowed this moment of helplessness, especially when I luckily found people who could've just minded their own business and left me to wander around on my own. So, I said my name over and over and over again, worried that I might lose my own name if I can't say it to the couple I was about to be taken under care of.
"Come on, those burns look bad," Judy guided me to the convertible by gently pushing against my shoulders. Ron followed her route and entered the driver's seat.
I compliantly sat at the back and peeked at the rearview mirror to see Ron glancing at me. Noticing me staring back, his eyes crinkled and his facial silhouette molded. I could tell by the raised cheekbones that he was sharing me another smile. Feeling modest, I smiled softly back as if in assurance. The man then pulled the lever to drive from neutral and roared the car in an attempt to check its state then smoothly glided the vehicle down the road. I felt the whoosh of the wind against my neck, ears, eyes, mouth - every nook and cranny on my face and torso. The flaps of the collared shirt I wore under my sweater lightly smacked my chin, tickling the skin on rapid impact. As lights soared ahead and my eyes squinted against the wind and the dark contrast of the night upon the town, I fought the sudden feeling of drowsiness, worrying that if I closed my eyes, my head would fly off or I'd wake up to another, stranger place. Then, Judy started to hum a tune strange in its own way; choppy but comforting enough to put me at ease, as if the melody itself was spelling me in a daze.
I wonder if Mom hummed like this at home.
Before I knew what I was doing, I hummed the familiar tune of The Spine (1).
(1) The Spine is an original song composed by Darren Korb, who works for SuperGiant Games and has prospered in his music career due to his contribution to SGG's game, Transistor. On the hummed version, Ashley Barrett plays vocals.