I Among Dogs

Chapter 1: Lost and Disoriented

~ Day 0 - ?:? ~

The damp and cold feeling of the current atmosphere was the first thing I felt as I came to consciousness. As I blinked and was faced with the brightness of the morning light above, my fingers twitched in a vain attempt for me to feel any possible movement, but all I felt was how stiff my muscles were from how they hadn't been used for hours. People who had been in a coma for maybe a few months or years will tell you that every muscle in their body was near impossible to move during their first waking minutes from how immobile their entire body had been for so long. It's the same feeling I was suffering through.

But on this occasion, there was no doctor to tell me how long I had been out cold for so I couldn't figure out how long it had been since I passed out. I couldn't even remember even a second of the events that lead to how I fell unconscious. It was like I had no memory of anything that happened prior to me waking up just now, and yet the only thing on my mind was to try and find my feet. I flexed and clenched my fingers some more as I finally started to feel warmth in my arms and legs whilst with my face still facing the sky above, I saw the leaf-filled tops of many trees surrounding me, the sunlight seeping through the cracks of the overgrown roof of foliage providing enough light for me to take in my surroundings. The current area I inhabited appeared to be a small opening of some kind of forest. The question was, which forest? Where was I? And what was I doing here?

Still feeling mild stiffness in my leg muscles, it took some effort for me to get on my feet and stand upwards without staggering or feeling weak at the knees. I looked down to find myself in a pair of jeans coated in faint stains of dirt, presumably from the ground underneath me that mostly consisted of soil and very few blades of grass were visible. I also had some converse sneakers on and on my torso was a simple plan white shirt, which too had suffered the dirt-stain fate of my pants. One look at my arms was enough to see some dry patches of dirt on them also. Whatever happened that lead to my supposed coma, it must've involved a possible scuffle.

I attempted to brush some of the dry soil off my pants in an attempt to clean them up a little when my hand felt something protrude from within the side of them. I felt around where I thought I felt the lump and my soon felt something at my pocket area. Digging my hand in, I felt something inside with a somewhat squishy and leathery texture, pulling out the source to reveal it to be a black wallet. I opened it up and found nothing inside other than some kind of card in one of the front pockets. Taking it out, revealed it to be an ID with a picture of the ID holder's face and their name and date of birth. Judging by the face's appearance, they were male.

"Nathan Faulkner"

"Date of birth: 7th March 2007"

Who was this Nathan Faulkner and how did their ID end up in my pocket? But there was another question I couldn't figure out the answer to: "Why did that name sound familiar to me?" Putting the ID back in the wallet which I put back in my pocket just in case, I felt inside my other pocket and felt something more solid but with a smoother texture. What I pulled out was a smartphone, a Sony Xperia L1 to be exact. I lightly pushed the power button and the screen booted up, displaying the current time and date.

3rd August 2021 – 9:43AM

On top of that, I noticed that the current battery power on the phone was fifty-three percent. More than enough for me to call for possible help. ...That was until I looked at the top of the phone screen's display.

No signal.

Damn it. I didn't think it would be this difficult. No idea where I am and no possible way to contact anyone for rescue. I was either in a location that was miles away from any civilisation where my phone could possibly pick up even a bar of signal or I was actually in an uninhabited island. I could only hope to god it wasn't the latter. I looked around some more to see if I could spot anything out of the ordinary that would hopefully give me a hint to how I came to this situation, but I was only met with the untouched nature of trees and shrubs, alongside the not too distant bottom of a steep hill behind me. Perhaps I had somehow fallen down this said cliff before being knocked out, which would explain the dirt on my clothes. Other than that, anything else I found on me was just a watch on my right wrist. Not a digital watch and even though it had a small yet noticeable crack on the glass, it appeared to still be functioning so I at least had something to keep track of the time should the inevitable moment where my phone dies from low battery power happen. Inhaling and exhaling softly, with no other options, I started to walk forward, already gotten used to the movement in my legs from standing up.