21's Legacy

Prologue

  It's dark down here. And cold. Very cold.
I can't feel my body. My arms. My legs. But I can feel a heartbeat.
   "Tug tug..." It says.
   Am I still alive? Or is this what it feels to be dead?
   "Tug tug..."
   I think my head is playing tricks on me. I think I'm dead but there are little hints that I might still be alive.
   "Tug tug..."
   There goes the heartbeat again. A very slow thumping beat on my chest.
   That's when I felt the warmth.
  Tug tug tug tug...increasing in rhythm. Tug tug tug tug...
   Soon the warmth hugged my whole body.
   I can feel them now. My arms. My legs. The tip of my toes and even the weight of my hair.
  I'm alive. I thought. I'm still alive.
  My heart started pumping blood through my veins but there seemed to be a leak somewhere on my left shoulder. A lot of blood escaped my body. My blood...my life... I've only just began feeling alive again and then this?..my blood...my life is wasting away.
  A couple of minutes passed when I think I heard a muffled sound. A voice. It took me another couple of minutes to hear what the voice is saying clearly.
  It says: "C'mon! Wake up! C'mon!" It belongs to a female.
   And then I heard her say "Uncle Johann please! Wake up! Wake up!" She knows my name. She knows me?
   The voice.. I can't recognize who owns it.
   Is it Mom's? No. Its too small to be my Mom's voice. Who could she be? Jean? No. A villager? Most likely.
  I gave up figuring out the person that owns the voice who had just called my name and focused on opening my eyes.
  They are heavily shut but I see darkness no more. White light has surrounded my vision.
   The sun, I thought. I know the light the sun gives even when my eyes are closed. I long to see what's happening, or what has happened.
   But I never thought opening my eyes would require so much effort. And when I opened it halfway, and the white light spread throughout my sight, I choked water out of my mouth after seeing the girl. The girl who had just called my name.
   I see both of her fiery hands pointed at my chest. My chest still covered with thin ice.
  She seemed familiar but I can't remember where I saw her.
  "Oh my God! Uncle Johann! Oh my God! You're alive! I-uh-I can't b-believe it!" She said shaking off the flame from her hands and cupped my cheeks with both of them still warm. "I've searched for you! Do you know that?!" She sounded pissed.
  Anger. I've had a lot of that going on in me. I remember my first confrontation with my Mom. She's angry. I am angry. No. She's in rage and I too am furious.
   But I seemed to be sober now.
  "For years I've searched! Do you know how much I needed to see you?!" She says while I just stare at her shake my wet and disoriented body. What's going on? I wanna ask but...asking would require too much of me.
  Okay, so imagine my hardships for opening my two little eyelids. And then imagine my exhaustion when I tried to mouth a word. It's so damn hard!
   But finally I managed to spill not just a word but two short questions (that I thought would bring me back to unconsciousness because I seemed to have used up all my energy), "Where am I? Who are you?"
  "Oh I'm sorry, I forgot. I-its me. Dee. Do you remember me?" She asked and then turned to look down at my left shoulder before I could process all the questions that bounced around the walls of my skull. "Oh God, this is bad! You're loosing too much blood. We have to go. We have to get out of here. Can you move?"
  I disregarded all these questions (my questions about her, her questions about me and my questions about myself) first then nods at her. "I think I can move my feet now. Give me just a minute." Not willing to acknowledge that I'm awfully weak.
  Thank God she answered, "We don't have a minute. I'll help you up. Just don't let me do all the walking for both of us okay? I parked right there." Pointing to a direction where I remembered would be an endless corn field. Parked what? A spaceship?
  She removed her jacket and tied it on my shoulder where an open wound is bleeding badly. Then she helped me up to my feet as I use her like a walking stick and limped awkwardly towards the direction she pointed at.
  This place is our secret training ground. I know the place so well because I go here to get beaten up for almost every day of my life. Until what happened yesterday.
  But after we walked for like five meters from the pond. We met a 10-foot-cliff towering a handsome red car.
  "It doesn't make sense." I said finally managing to walk on my own. "This is supposed to be a cornfield." Confusion, and questions have been reactivated.
  "Well, even if this is my first trip to this place," she pats my shoulder, "all I can say is that, yes, it WAS a cornfield."
  And then it dawned to me. All my questions starting to form an answer. Unveiling answers about her identity and my situation. Then I finally know the right question to ask.
   "What year is it now?"