Insouciance

Chapter 1

As soon as Torquil regained consciousness, his mind became hazy, and his vision showed nothing but a blur of colour. The blur was so thick that he couldn't identify a single thing. His body felt numb, as if he was just a disembodied floating head in limbo.

His hearing sounded as if he had put in headphones and was blasting music. Except there was no music. It was just this somewhat high pitched tone that wasn't even exactly loud - he just couldn't hear.

Torquil couldn't stop his breathing from being heavy. He just couldn't. It wasn't exactly a problem, though. It seemed as if he needed it, and seemed to be lacking oxygen. That would make sense. After all, he had no idea how long he had been unconscious for.

A lot of new colours loomed over him. He could hear muffled yelling, but could make nothing out. His mouth kept gaping open as the colours grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him, trying to get him to wake up properly.

Torquil's breathing slowed to a normal speed. His vision finally focused, and he could finally make out the colours.

It was a man, who had a clear panicked expression. He was obviously trying to yell to him, but Torquil's hearing still hadn't fully returned. The man's hair was curled at the front only - just one curl that went to the other side of his forehead and stuck up over it. There was a blonde streak going through this odd styling of bangs too. The rest of his hair was short and relatively normal. The jacket he was wearing was light grey, and had slightly darker grey markings on it. It was zipped up. On his jacket sleeves were light blue circles. His jeans weren't skinny, nor baggy, and seemed to fit perfectly, and we're a light grey than the base colour of his jacket. Torquil couldn't see his shoes.

After examining him as best he could, Torquil's hearing slowly but surely came back to him.

"H-hello? Hello!? Can you hear me? Helloooo!? C'mon, we need to go! Please get up!" The man yelled, shaking him again.

Torquil's senses finally came back to him, and he was back into reality. His eyes flickered to the man kneeled over him and returned the panicked look. "Huh? What's happening?!" He asked.

The man seemed to be somewhat relieved that Torquil had finally responded. Although, the relief was not enough. "We have to go! Come on!"

Torquil had only just realised that the man had a British accent, which was odd, as he had an American one. "I'm not going until you tell me what's going on." Torquil's stubborn instinct snapped back into action.

The man seemed quite surprised to hear this, but he obliged anyhow. "A-alright. I think there's a fire."

"You...think?" Torquil repeated in a skeptical tone.

"Look." The man pointed upwards. "See those strange colours? I think they're, um, coming from a fire. They seem to be."

Torquil winced his eyes, and shook his head. "That wasn't what I meant." He said.

The man was taken aback. He leaned back, but still kneeled, giving Torquil some space. "I'm afraid I...don't understand?"

"Where am I? Why have you taken me here? Have I seen you before? Did I do something to you? To someone in your family? One of your friends? To a close-"

Torquil was nowhere near finished when he realised that the man kneeling in front of him obviously had no clue what he meant, which meant he was probably taken here too. He lifted himself up and into a sitting position, embracing his knees and sighing. "Sorry." He said in a guilty tone.

"Don't worry about it. I don't blame you." The man mumbled in a depressed tone. "I've also come to realise that there isn't a fire. It's just the weird orange, yellow and red lights that keep flickering. Probably not working."