Disclaimer: The copyrights of any and all Marvel's characters that may appear in this work belong to Marvel and their respective owners. I claim no ownership over any trademark present or implicated during this work. The only things I own here are my plot ideas and my original characters (OCs).
AN: Hello my dear fellows! I'm here to present you to the first chapter of my newest fanfiction, "Forsaken Howls"! Now, for those of you who are familiar with my other fanfiction, "Down With The Fallen", know that this is part of Down With The Fallen's universe, and the events described here will have an impact on the later chapters you might end up reading up there.
Do pay in mind, though, that you do not need to follow Down With The Fallen to be able to understand and enjoy Forsaken Howls. And expect chapters between 2 and 4 thousand words, as opposed to Down With The Fallen's recent 9 thousand.
ENJOY!
PS: This work is unbetaed. If you happen to find any mistakes with the text (that are not deliberated), feel free to review or pm me with details. To the ones who aren't found of registering themselves into sites, pay in mind you can review someone's work as a guest.
Arch 1 - The Lost And The Damned
Chapter 1 - Blank Space
She had lost count of the many hours she spent staring out the window. The movement outside grew and dimmed as it saw fit, and there was no doubt in her mind that the image of each tree branch and falling leaf was forever imbued in her brain. She was hard-pressed to understand if such a big range of details were the cause of her strong headache, but she didn't knew when it had started, and anything she might concluded would be but speculation. Even more so when she couldn't bring a lone memory to mind.
The realization sent a shiver up her spine, but it might have been the wind. Someone had left the window opened, and it wasn't shy of entering her room, after all. But it didn't really mattered in the end. Not when the face the window's glass reflected back at her was far from the one she expected to see, anyway.
A loud metallic sound broke her from her thoughts. Her eyes left the stranger in the window to gaze at the stranger in white that entered her room with a notepad almost glued to his face. It took the door to close itself behind his back for him to look up from his notes.
"Oh!" His voiced betrayed his surprise. Could it be that he knew who she was? Was he the one that put her in such a situation? Did he knew what had happened to her face? Was he the one to blame for it? "I'm really glad to see you awake, Miss Craterside." Her eyes narrowed. It did not felt like her name at all. She made sure to look around the room to see if there was someone else she hadn't noticed before, but the only other bed was emptier has her memories seemed to be.
"I understand that it's been a quite traumatic experience for you" he went on when she offered him no reply. She knew better than to trust a stranger's words. "But it's essential that I evaluate your health before I even begin to consider letting you out of this hospital room -even more so now that you're finally awake. Sadly, the process is a little complex, and thus I would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to cooperate with me. Besides, I believe it would be best for all these tests to be done with when your parents arrive, don't you think so?"
So many things were terribly wrong that she couldn't pinpoint what weirded her out the most: the fact his parents were dead and gone and surely would never, ever, visit her again; the face she knew not to be hers and yet refused to be replaced in all of her reflections; the bizarre way in which she knew such things about herself when she had literally no memories to hold onto, or the strangely cold tone the man used to speak of her "parents".
Her insides burned with a hunger for her to bolt out the window never to look back. The fall to the floor would be a high one, but something kept telling her it would not harm her at all. That particular fight, though, was not won by her insides, and thus she gave him a simple nod and waited for his instructions as how to proceed.
The doctor - as he called himself - conducted a small variation of tests on her and was surprisingly able to obtain far more information than she was willing to give. She did not expected him to jolt down so many notes when she refused to speak a word to his seemingly endless waves of questions. She had not even noticed her lack of words until said fact was mentioned in a break between questions. She knew perfectly where her desire not to speak grew from, but was far from ready to acknowledge what such realization entailed.
Another surprise was the comprehension she was able to see hidden deep inside the doctor's eyes. He was far too understanding of her wishes and seemed a little too pleased by her nods and grunts for his own good. But it did not last long, for as soon as the other tests were done with, his focus zeroed back on her ability to speak.
"I am not oblivious to how taxing this whole thing can be for a patient's mind..." He began with a gentle tone. She braced herself for the inevitable demand, anyway. "But I need to know why exactly you refuse to speak."
Her eyes stare at him as her mind drowned itself in it's turmoil. His decision not to aid her was final and he refused to ask her the questions they both knew he could. Her heart drummed wildly in her ears and she could feel an ache crawl up from it's resting place inside her chest. It only grew worse by the second and there was no doubt that her breaths were fuel to it's raging fire.
She finally gave in to all the pressure, but her whisper was just too raspy and low for her own ears. She had not noticed the dryness of her throat until she had tried to make an use out of it, and now it seemed like sand could drip from it's walls.
"I-" she almost made it, but her throat hurt and she couldn't hold the fit of coughs she let out. She took some time to regain her breath before she tried again. "I'm just unsure of how my voice will sound" She managed, but even though the raspy aspect of her voice wasn't as present, she had no doubt that the voice was not hers. The most bizarre of it all, though, was the fact that it did not sound foreign to her ears, too. It was like it belonged to her and yet it was utterly misplaced at the same time.
"Understandable" the doctor went on with his explanations of 'whys' and 'hows', but she only half listened to his voice. None of his explanations would be close to her reasoning, and, even if somehow they ended up close to it, she wouldn't know it, anyway. His last words owned her full attention, though. "...you've been out for three days, after all."
"Three days?" She wondered out loud. It did felt like many restless days had passed, but if the information was true, then what the hell had happened to her? Three days was far too long of a time for someone to remain unconscious. It was unhealthy in so many levels she'd waste a great deal of time just to try and list it. But, most importantly, what could have happened in such short time to change her whole self? Things didn't felt right. Thing didn't felt right at all.
"Indeed..." He made a brief pause, as if to weigh his own words. "To be completely honest with you, we believed you to be a goner from the very beginning. The shape in which you arrived was really far from acceptable, I tell you. Many would consider you healing from it a miracle on itself - imagine doing so in three days, no less. Not to mention our searches found no signs of the X-gene, so your healing was not triggered by any mutations to your DNA."
"X-gene?"
"The mutant gene." He explained. As if such a brief thing could somehow make her comprehend the science behind it. Her eyes must have told what she thought, for he went on with his explanation as soon as he gazed into them. "Many patients have been showing up in the last three decades with a genetic mutation present in their bodies. The scientific community decided it was a good idea to call it the 'X-gene' for no other reason than it looking like an 'X' when observed through the lens of a microscope." He allowed her a moment for the information to sink in before proceeding. "But, as a doctor, I'm personally aware that there is no use in dwelling upon such things as 'what ifs'."
She offered him a nod, but made sure to retain the information for later. There was no telling how useful it could prove to be, after all. Even more so when the range of things her mind proved unable to remember was far bigger than she originally thought.
"What is the last thing you remember?" The question caught her off guard. Her memory was but a fading blur she couldn't always make sense of, and the few times she could were filled by unimportant things whose meaning she couldn't understand.
"I was eating dinner in my room." The words were a bucket to her rational thoughts. She had not intended to say such things, for they were part of a memory she knew not to possess. Yet, bizarrely alike to the sound of her voice, it did not seemed to be misplaced. It was like it made sense. "It was raining hard and I watched it from a window. I remember fear, but don't know from what. I think it might have been the downpour itself, but I am not sure."
"There was a storm about six days ago" he nodded as he took some notes. "The skies have been emptier than my wife's promises to leave me alone ever since" he joked, but did not strayed from his notepad. "But enough questions for now. You need to rest for a while. We'll need some hours until we're able to decide if you're free to go."
There was a despair that filled her core ever since the time she woke up on that bed, and it grew worse as the thought of leaving the room found a way to sink enough to reach her heart. Many truths waited for her beyond the door, but she knew that she was not ready to face them at all. Not as exhausted as she felt, anyway.
"Well..." Her eyes followed the doctor's footsteps as he made his way to the exit. He stopped short of leaving the room and stared back at her eyes. "I need to go now. But don't worry too much about them, kid. They are not here yet."
He left her alone before she had the chance to ask him what he meant. All she managed to do was to fall back on top of the bed and release a frustrated grunt. The man knew exactly how to infuriate her, and the fact he did not realized it made it all worse.
It didn't took long for her eyes to drift back to the landscape outside and for a heavy breath to escape from the clutches of her throat. It was strange how doing nothing could prove to be so taxing to a person's body.
Things were about to get too complicated for her own good...
##
Many thoughts raced through her head during the hours she was forced to rest on the hospital bed. A nurse had once entered to check on her but left soon after. These people weren't the most friendly ones she had ever encountered, that's for sure.
Her mind drifted back to the past and it hurt her more than it probably should. She had suffered from amnesia before, but it had not hurt as much. She knew not how such knowledge were part of her when said memories were not at her grip's mercy, but she was not about to look a gifted horse in the teeth. At least not yet, anyway.
There was something troubling her underneath about her foggy memories. There was some kid of urgency and danger there, and they made sure to creep up her spine every time she tried to remember. It put a nasty taste in her mouth she couldn't pinpoint. Of one thing she was sure, though: whatever secrets her memories held, they held the key for whatever had happened to her. So just wasn't sure if she wanted to know what it was all about, after all.
A soft breeze penetrated the open window and she took a moment to gaze back outside. The scenery was just the same from before, but the sun already started it's descent from the skies. Some clouds gathered here and there, too, and she wondered if there would be a downpour at night. It was possible. The climate of Blosa was quite rainy, after all.
Suddenly the door opened once more and in went the same doctor from before. She prepared herself for another round of questions and notes, and was not disappointed when he proceeded to do just that. The questions were slightly different and his tone a lot less caring than before, but they served the same purpose, anyway.
"Well..." He began after he had wrote down all he wanted. "We have absolutely no power to hold you here any longer, seeing that you have no..." he cleared his thought. "Physical injuries as of now. I won't lie and say that it would be my decision to let you go if I had any real say in this, but I believe that it won't bring you any harm to leave this room today."
She gave him a look. The man was a quite enigmatic person, and the thought of braving through his psyche and learning of what it was that drove him gave her a small trill. She didn't really knew where it came from, too.
"Look..." he rubbed at his neck. He was nervous about something. "Take this card" He handed her a small piece of paper that was far less soft than she expected. It had a sequence of numbers in one of it's faces. "It's the number of a friend of mine. He is a police officer and he might help you if you remember anything or feel like you are not safe."
"Your mother is waiting for you outside" he leaned back from the bed and gave a few coughs. Did he had a throat problem? "I would advice you not to show her the card."
"Why is that?" She titled her head. If the woman was her mother - which she knew she was not - shouldn't she let her know about a possible source of help? What was it that the man was hiding from her?
He looked at her as if she was the dumbest jester in the palace. It was but a second later that he wiped the look out of his face and offered her a far more professional one. It would have offended her if they discussed another topic, but something told her that she was, indeed, the dumbest jester in the palace.
"You know full well why, kid. Just don't show her and I know things won't go sour." He walked to the door and once more stopped to glance at her from above his shoulders. "I sincerely hope you reconsider your thought on that particular judiciary matter, Kiara. As your doctor, I don't believe such environment is healthy for you. But it is not my place to tell you what to do, so, if anyone asks you, I never said a thing."
Once more he left before she had the chance to question the oddity of his words. What the heck was he talking about, anyway? The way he spoke, the way he acted, it seemed as there was something terribly wrong with her parents - what a surprise! - and she just couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was. Whatever it was, she was sure she would know as soon as her memories were recovered.
She smiled despite all the trouble she was sure the future held in store for her. The doctor had called her by a name, and even though it had sounded far too foreign to her ears, she had something to call herself, and, for the time, it was more than enough.
"Kiara Craterside" she tested, and was pleased to notice the hoarseness was almost gone from her voice. It still sounded weird and too soft for her tastes, but it was all she had to deal with. Maybe it was best to just move on from such things and into the more troubling matters. Who knows what she might end up missing if she let her focus be held by such...small details, anyway?
She eyed the open door and waited a little while to see if anyone would enter it's metal frame. When no one did, she considered the option to simply fall back down on the bed and let it's crappy covers drag her into a dreamless, yet reinvigorating sleep. The ticking clock on the left wall told her that such thing was not an option, after all.
It was with shaky legs that she got up from the bed. She had the use a wall for support as she did so, but what really mattered was the ending result. It didn't took long for her to notice clothes folded on top of a nearby table. She was sure the doctor had told her to wear them sometime into their "twenty questions", but she did not knew when.
There was no ounce of doubt that they were better fitting than her current garments, and so it was with a heavy sigh that she approached them and put all her efforts in making herself presentable. There were no mirrors to help her, though, so she only hopped her hair wasn't as messy as she had previously seen through the window's reflection. She didn't knew why she cared, but it sounded like something important then, and she knew better than to mistrust her own self.
She wasted no time with small details, though, and pushed open the green hospital door. A blinding light suddenly assaulted her eyes - who knew hospital halls were so illuminated? - but she made sure not to keep her composure intact. She could barely recognize the presence of someone at the end of the hall, and it was with a heavy heart and a clenched stomach that she put her feet to good use and approached it's slowly focusing silhouette.
