The Unknown

Part 1

1

Narcissus Hearn

My eyes flew open as I rubbed my face, loosening gravel stamped into my skin. Body aches and blurred vision persisted as I tried to take in my surroundings. The clearing was not as stunning a sight as the people lying a few yards away, but my eyes were drawn to the landscape again. More than anything, it looked like a stretch of land designated to a parking lot that was abandoned, and whose painted lines had long since faded and were replaced with cracked asphalt from a decade's worth of the earth shifting. The scene was complete with scraggly weed growth.

I panned back to the pair sprawled out. They were still breathing, as far as I could tell without getting close. I sat on the rocky ground as my thoughts clouded. I shoved my hand into the pieces, wondering who I was. I had a name.

I inhaled quickly, retracting my arm as a pain sliced across my hand. It was cut a few layers deep, with blood flowing from every open crack. I picked up a handful of the pieces, and recoiled. Glass, trillions of pieces of shattered glass. I touched my face again, my fingers grazing the bumps of scabs healing over the places the glass marred. My hands shook as I withdrew them.

Both of the people stirred from the drug-induced stupor. They then inspected each other for injuries before they acknowledged me. After a final check, the girl fired off, "What happened? Where are we? Why are we here? Who are you?" Her expression grew dark with misdirected anger. "You're the reason why we're all here! Let me go, Evander!" She was ready to kill me when he held her back.

Though I must have been seen as homely and broken, I stepped closer to them anyway. She was intimidating, but I had the urge to calm her down. "I- I... Please hear me out." I paused. "I'm sorry. You know about as much as I do with this situation. I don't know where we are. I don't know why. I do know that your face is bleeding just like mine because of the glass across the ground. I don't know who I am, but I don't think that I'm the reason why we're all here."

She gasped. Yanking herself free from Evander's grip to run to me, she threw her arms around my neck and pulled me close. "Oh! I'm so, so sorry!"

Despite our current predicament, I chuckled, but I didn't move to reciprocate the embrace. "I understand..." I trailed off as I gauged Evander's reaction from behind her, but he wasn't paying attention to us. Shaking my head, I returned my focus to her. "What's your name?"

She sighed as she stepped back, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she assumed her spot beside her brother. "Elektra. Wha-" She stopped herself.

"I have a name too, you know."

She shook her head. "How are you so okay with all of this?" She waved her hand around.

I shrugged. "I'm actually not okay with it, but I know that it won't help to panic, so I'm trying not to. I do remember my name though. It's Narcissus. Nice to meet you, Elektra." Her gaze flickered toward Evander, who was crouched and staring at a handful of the glass shards.

"That's my brother." I nodded in affirmation of the introduction.

He suddenly stood up from where he was examining the ground, and acted as if he had just taken notice of both his sister's and my own existences. "We need to at the very least figure out where to go." His cold eyes pierced mine. "How long have you been awake?"

I understood his caution around me within reason. I couldn't blame him for that, but he acted as if I was a threat waiting to strike. If he didn't realize that we were lost with no food or water because he was too focused on me, then we would be worse off for longer than we had to be. Maybe that would not be a bad thing though.

"Not long," an unfamiliar voice rang in our ears, coming from no specific direction but surrounding us.

I cringed, shaking my head. It vouching for me or providing an alibi was off-putting. The fact that someone actively watched us worried me more than anything else could right now.