Note: I do not own Trigun / Vash "the Stampede": he belongs to the incomparable Mr. Yasuhiro Nightow.
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"Broken Memories"
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Chapter 1: Unfamiliar
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Date: Unknown
Location: Unknown
Vash's eyes snapped open. He was sitting rigidly upright, drenched with sweat, and breathing very heavily... as if he'd just been running for a considerable distance while in fear for his life. Adrenaline pulsed through his body. He found himself shaking, partly from the excess adrenaline, and partly from continuing the necessary internal efforts to completely contain his emotions.
It would not do to broadcast his feelings to Knives. That could have grave consequences, which he currently felt ill equipped to face. He could not afford to be sloppy with his self-control, not now.
Wait, what...?
He was sitting on a bed, in a darkened room.
His last memory was of being on the open desert, seriously injured and fleeing from a town whose people (with few exceptions) would have delighted in destroying him. He didn't know where he was now, nor did he have any idea of how he might have arrived there. He had no means of knowing if he had been recaptured by individuals wishing to take his life, or if he'd somehow found a temporary haven where he could recover safely.
The latter seemed more likely, but appearances could be deceiving.
He reached for his revolver, but it wasn't strapped to his thigh. Nor did he find it under the pillow, where he often put it when he slept. Had it been taken from him?
He brushed hair out of his face, and a shudder moved through him. Some of his hair had fallen between his eyes and the dim moonlight, so it had appeared black. That was probably only an illusion. He desperately hoped it was only an illusion!
If his hair had changed, it meant he was running low on Plant energy. He would die if he used it all. Plants should live for several hundred years, at least. If his hair had already turned black, and Knives had not yet abandoned his goal of destroying all humans...
Vash firmly reminded himself that panic would accomplish nothing. Either hair-blackening events had occurred, or else they had not. If, God forbid, his hair had turned black, then he would deal with it. He didn't need to start jumping at shadows, especially not when there might be more immediate concerns. He clenched his jaw and mentally pushed aside all of the many worries which would accompany significant amounts of his hair turning black.
In the space of time between two heartbeats, Vash quickly looked around the place where he found himself. He absorbed and assessed every detail as soon as he saw it.
In front of him, beyond the foot of the bed, he could barely distinguish the shape of a dresser. Left of it was a doorway with a door nearly closed, but not latched. A dim light shone on that door from the other side, faintly illuminating its outline. The same dim light informed him of a narrow strip of stained glass windows in that wall near the ceiling.
Left of his bed was a nightstand, with a lamp and a small clock displaying a softly glowing "1:14 am." A very dim band of colored light fell across the wall beyond it at about knee-height. From the light shining on the wall to his left, he could distinguish both the double doors of a closet and another partly open door. Through it, he saw a recognizable shape: a toilet. On the floor, between the closet and the bathroom door, was his duffel bag. The shape partly emerging from the top of his bag might be his gun belt.
Behind him was a solid wall, shrouded in darkness.
To his right, a large plain-glass window occupied the middle of an external wall. Its panes could be opened, but were currently closed. Faint, pale moonlight poured through sheer curtains, between heavier drapes that efficiently blocked both light and sight. A narrow strip of stained glass windows glowed dimly, up by the ceiling. Those windows were the source of the knee-high band of colored light on the left wall.
Since the moonlight was so very dim, only one, or perhaps two, of the smaller moons could possibly be in the sky. Otherwise, the moonlight would be considerably brighter. That dim moonlight spilled through the large window, across a wide bench placed directly under it, across the floor between the bench and the bed, and across most of the bed upon which he sat.
He did not recognize anything he saw around him, except for his duffel bag.
With his initial assessment complete, he briefly considered the bed.
The pillows were in deep shadow, but the rest of the double-width bed was faintly illumined. The blankets and quilt were rolled away from his side of the bed, resting on the other side. Nobody was sleeping on the other side, and the manner in which the blankets were laid across it suggested that nobody was expected to sleep there.
There was a measure of relief in that.
Usually, there was something comforting about knowing someone else was living and breathing in the same room. Partly because of that, sometimes he would cut costs by splitting the rent on a hotel room with a chance companion (after verifying that the man had neither amorous intentions nor expectations). He preferred a two-bed room when sharing expenses, but sometimes none of the two-bed rooms was available.
Although Vash craved companionship almost as much as he craved food, there were times when solitude was best. At the moment, he vastly preferred to be alone. Until he learned or remembered where he was (and under what circumstances), it was better to be alone than to be among others with unknown intentions.
So... he was alone in a bedroom with a bathroom attached, and another doorway connecting to who knew where. To his frustration, examining his surroundings had not answered any of the questions plaguing his mind.
He still had no idea where he was... or when.
Was it still the star year 0064, when he was 104 years old and not far from Tonim Town? Or had some forgotten amount of time passed, leaving him older and elsewhere?
He focused his attention on his other senses for a few heartbeats.
He could hear his own ragged breathing, and his slightly accelerated heartbeat. He could also hear the whirring of fans, and the soft whisper of circulated air. Since there wasn't enough air movement to suggest a breeze, it seemed unlikely that the door led outside. A hallway, or perhaps another room, must be on the other side of that door.
He could smell the stench of his own sweat, in addition to the fainter fragrances of laundry soap and spices. There were also lingering aromas of food, especially bread. Fainter still were scents of the desert, and, if he wasn't imagining it, hints of grass and sand-powder as might be inhaled at (or near) Seeds Village.
Seeds... he ached with longing at the thought of the nearest thing to a "home" he'd known since the ships fell. Firmly, he pushed aside those emotions, too. The last thing he recalled was being hunted. Until he knew beyond all reasonable doubt that he'd shaken off all pursuit, he dared not return to Seeds. He must never lead any trouble back to that secluded, peaceful community.
Besides, if he were at Seeds, he should be either in the infirmary or else in the crew quarters. He clearly wasn't in the infirmary, though his last known condition might have put him there. Crew quarters contained multiple bunk beds, unlike this room with its solitary double bed.
He might be near Seeds, though. A capricious wind might have blown those scents across many iles of desert to whatever town he was really sitting in.
Everything around him seemed peaceful. He began to relax, just a little.
Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he detected a movement to his left. He tensed, and began lifting his prosthetic... until he realized that the movement was only the clock changing its display from "1:14 am" to "1:15 am."
He relaxed again, and looked down at himself. He was wearing a loose-fitting sleeveless top made of a thin fabric, and pajama bottoms with a drawstring waist made of a fabric only slightly less thin than his top. A crumpled sheet was draped somewhat haphazardly across his hips, legs and feet... details consistent with the temperature of the room.
It had been summer when he crawled away from Tonim. It felt like summertime temperatures now, also.
His shoulders and right arm were covered with scars. Some of those scars were familiar, but others were not. He moved his unfamiliar prosthetic left arm experimentally. It obeyed his wishes smoothly. Seeds villagers had generously provided him with a prosthetic arm to replace the arm that Knives had cut off. However, this synthetic arm didn't match his memories of their gift. It responded slightly better than he recalled, too.
Puzzling.
He un-tucked the waist-hem of his sleeveless top, pulled up the lower part of that garment, and looked under it. He found many more scars on his torso. Some of those scars he knew all too well, but others were entirely unknown. He looked curiously at an assortment of closed scars that he had expected would be fresh wounds, possibly even still bleeding.
With his right forefinger, he gingerly touched one of the places that he'd expected might still be bleeding or, at best, barely scabbed over. It proved to be a closed scar by touch as well as by sight. It wasn't even particularly sensitive, as if it were only very recently healed. He experimentally touched an older, very familiar scar. He also ran his fingertips along a completely unknown scar. All of them yielded the same results of solid though uneven skin to his fingertips. His body sensed areas that were either under-sensitive or oversensitive when he touched them, yet all well within what was normal for older scars. He released the hem of his top, and let it fall back down to its original position.
If he wasn't imagining it, his body might be slightly more muscular than he remembered. From the last things he could recall, he should instead have been somewhat emaciated from hunger, and... other hardships. Neither his stomach nor his body had that nearly-starved feeling, as would be expected if it were only a short while after leaving Tonim Town. His stomach was emptier than he preferred, since he never knew when he might need extra energy to evade a bounty hunter...
Whoa, where did that idea come from? Was he imagining ... or remembering ... that the Sheriff of Tonim Town would put a price on his head, from still disbelieving that he hadn't been one of those who had so severely harmed that woman and the children?
Vash frowned slightly, in puzzled concentration. His most recent memories were of a very narrow escape. He knew that sufficiently painful or alarming situations had a nasty habit of replaying themselves in one's dreams. Sometimes such dreams could temporarily eclipse all later memories, resulting in time confusion.
Was that what had just happened? Was his mind temporarily locked in the past? If so, his other memories should return shortly. All he need do was wait.
Or... was that narrow escape what was real and recent, while this clean and comfortable room was only a dream?
He tensed again, when the clock silently updated its display to "1:16 am." He reached out and moved the clock enough that he hoped it would not startle him again.
He shook his head, but that didn't accomplish anything except for creating a need to push hair out of his face again. That hair seemed longer than it ought to be... he pushed the thought aside, determined to avoid getting distracted by anomalies with his hair.
His stomach gurgled, but he ignored it also. There was too much to think about, and he didn't know where he might find any food that he could eat without trouble following.
He briefly considered verifying if it truly was his gun belt in the top of his bag, but he chose to wait. Creaky flooring might inform others that he was awake.
He had felt an unfamiliar scar, both with his fingertips and with his body. He could feel the clothing he wore, and the fabric of the sheets. Every detail seemed completely realistic and consistent.
However, Vash already knew that he sometimes dreamed very vividly. Pinching himself would do no good, for his subconscious mind knew how that should feel. It would supply the necessary sensation, whether he was awake or asleep and dreaming. He must find some other means to determine what was real, and what was dream.
The idea of acquiring more scars was a reasonable extrapolation, if his life continued as it had been going since he'd parted from Knives. This room, and his current condition, might merely be his subconscious mind calculating probabilities and suggesting a possible future outcome... if he survived his last known situation.
He'd been in sufficiently poor condition when he left Tonim Town that he would have needed to find a safe place to recover. Could this be where he'd gone? Or was it merely a pleasant dream of safety, while he slept and bled on the desert sands?
Vash lay backward and rested on the bed. Something gleamed faintly near the center of the ceiling, briefly catching his attention. It was probably just a reflection of the moonlit areas of the room from a shiny spot in a light fixture.
He could not currently see or hear anyone nearby. At this hour, most people would be asleep and expecting him to be the same. This should provide him with a little time to himself. Perhaps thinking things over would assist him in remembering where he was, and under what conditions he had arrived here.
He slowly forced himself to calm in both body and mind. He closed his eyes and compelled his mind wander backward. His thoughts returned to the beginning of the most recent situation he could remember...