Face down in a ditch. Or a gutter. Or... I don't know. I can't tell. I'm not exactly sure who or what... or where I am. Face down in a ditch...or a gutter. In the midst of this...amnesic haze I find myself in, all I can think about is the sight of dirt and grime caked into the fine grooves of my hands. The dry blood that's made a home under my fingernails. The scabs, scratches... and semi-healed gashes enveloping my burly forearms.
"What...the fuck..." My desert of a throat barely manages to form the remark.
I push myself up to a kneeling position. I have no memories. Not a single one to call my own. Why am I in such disrepair? Why is it so hard to breathe? What... what-
"What's.." I try to shake the haze out of my head. "My name?"
And with that, I finally look up to analyze the scene around me. And would you look at that. Corpses. Many dismembered. A few appear to be purposefully disemboweled. And being...headless seems to be in style this season. Military uniforms as tattered as the bodies that adorn them. My lack of a terrified reaction only stands to further make me question, who the hell was I before now and what have I been through to get here? I crane my neck over my left shoulder to continue surveying my surroundings. A woman devoid of soul and consciousness clings to her child of the same status. Even in death, she's clutching him so tightly I wonder if her grip is what put an end to his life. All I can do is drop my head into my hands in an attempt to compartmentalize.
"Think. I need to think." I croak.
Stench and circumstance aside, there's nothing else left to impede my clouded train of thought. Who would have thought mass graves were so deafeningly quiet? It isn't until the first fly buzzes past my ear that I notice the distinct lack of more flies. As well as a distinct lack of decomposition among the surrounding bodies. All of the bodies that surround me are fresh. No more than an hour or two ago were they killed.
A few moments tick past, my head clears somewhat and I raise to my feet. I swivel at the waist to turn my attention back to the petrified mother and child...something about them rings peculiarly familiar...and that's when I feel it. I double over and instinctively place my hand over the throbbing pain in my chest.
"....." What could I really say to what I just discovered besides... "What the fuck..."
Now...mind you. From what I can tell, I'm no expert on human biology. But the two inch wide hole where my heart should be, would typically suggest I should be dead. As dead as anybody else in this pit. Out of either concern, disbelief or morbid curiosity I poke and probe at the wound. While my fingers dip in and out of the deep crimson fleshy mess of mutilation, the pain disappears as suddenly as it had arrived and is instead replaced by the most bone chilling shiver down my spine. Every hair on my body stands on end and the goosebumps...God the goosebumps are so intense I feel that I may spontaneously combust. In the following moments, gravity doesn't just overtake me. No, that would be too simple. Too...kind. Gravity seems to force itself unto me. It exerts an authority I didn't realize was possible and pins me down onto my back, where I am forced to lie motionless.
...Fear.
...Confusion.
...Questioning reality and terror.
What simpler way could I explain how I feel, watching the impossible descend unto me?
"Al...tirah. Al...tirah. Al...tirah."
...Fear.
...Confusion.
...Questioning reality and terror.
"Al...tirah. Al...tirah. Al...afraid."
The entity, hovers. The entity hovers over me. It could be either miles above in the sky or mere inches from my face and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. It's very...form was not one that obeyed the laws of this reality. It was a living, breathing hypothetical that spoke with the voices of everything that I've known to exist. I heard lions roar. I heard the wings of butterflies flap. I recognized the vocal pitch of children. The harrowing tone of plenty in turmoil. Others in complete glee. It's attempt to communicate, encapsulated the very means of the concept... and it was too much for me. I felt my ears begin to bleed.
"Al...tirah..Al-..be not afraid." What it had to say rippled through the wasteland with authority.
It's body, was both physically present and elsewhere. It was everywhere and right in front of me. I'm sure it was behind and underneath me. It was color. It was steel. It was gold. Machinery and steam. Fact and concept. It was a forgotten inconceivable thought and a vague, confusing idea. It was. It still is. It...was here and telling me...
"Be. Not. Afraid." Thus it spoke, with authority did it speak.
Slivers of moments stretched to eternity. The tears that ran down my cheek met the blood from my ears in a dance of futility in the soil beneath me. If I could move, I'd bury myself. With haste. Maybe, just maybe I'd be able to join my missing heart.
"Though they have left you, you have been found. Hunt." And with that, the entity was gone. No smoke, no effects, no dramatic exit. No flying away. Just gone, like it had been deleted. And in it's absence all I was left with was the fear, and the confusion. The terror subsided but questioning reality remained. And so... I lay. Back pressed firmly against the soil, knuckles tightening as I grip handfuls of dirt to brace myself. I try my damnedest to recall what I'd just seen. What I'd just heard. But nothing comes back to me. There is a void, a vacant space where memories of the event should be but all I'm left with is the word 'Hunt.' and a phantom heartbeat. I begin to tremble, slowly. But as the trembling picks up, so does the sweating. As does the nausea and smashing headache. As well as the screaming. I scream until I pass the fuck out, and continue screaming in my dreams.