The Awakening

Chapter 6 - Edited

*Edited Sept. 17, 2017 (Originally published June 30, 2015)

It took a few hours of talking back and forth, men coming and going seemingly at random, to learn anything of what was going on in the world outside of my cell. A lot of things had apparently changed in the past several years, the world falling into chaos. There was good news, however. Although various disasters had hit cities everywhere in the world, there were still plenty of survivors spread across the globe. After all, with a population in the billions, it would take quite a bit to wipe out the human race. Not that the undead weren't trying.

It seems I was one of a handful the group had come across that appeared to have any sense of human awareness, although I was the first they had met that seemed to suffer from some kind of near total memory loss. Usually, any memory loss would be their more recent memories from right before they were turned, not something that wiped out everything but a few seemingly random categories of memory.

I have to admit, I had been starting to wonder if the memory loss was a normal part of whatever had happened to me. Something that perhaps happened to everyone who died and came back or at least to those who remained conscious of their own continued existence. Finding out it wasn't normal made me worry. Why had my memory vanished, if not due to the change?

Even the medic they had brought into the room had been unable to find a clue to why I couldn't remember my past. No signs of head trauma could be located. No signs of any kind of wound in fact. No visible signs of death from illness or poisoning either. In the end he was quite stumped at trying to figure out what had, in fact, killed me in the first place.

Sadly, he stated that the only likely way to find out would be to cut me open and perform an autopsy, something I was rather strongly against doing. Just because I was undead didn't mean I wanted to experience something that usually only happened to the dead. Deep inside, I wondered if they had at some point done so to another of the undead, hoping it had been one of the unaware creatures if they had. I couldn't hide the shiver that ran down my spine at the thought before pushing it further into the darkness that pooled itself within my mind.

* * *

I looked around in curiosity as we left the cell, finally getting to see the tunnel it had been carved out of. Bricks were placed to obviously strengthen the walls that looked like a mix of hard stone and packed dirt. Upon exiting the long tunnel filled with what appeared randomly placed and dust coated doors that looked to have been left untouched for years, I had stared in awe once more at the sparkling crystal formations and glimmering veins of black and white stone that made the mostly red-walled cavern light up so beautifully. Without the undead masses that had mostly abandoned the place recently, the reason behind their disappearance unknown but appreciated, it was much easier to enjoy the beauty that the underground base held. Only the fear of the undead returning in large number was what had us rushing out faster than I wanted to.

A part of me wanted to stay and take a closer look at the strange crystals that seemed to grow almost like flowers upon certain sections of the wall and floor. I was especially intrigued by a crystal I noticed growing where once a large fire burned, the unusual color of it standing out from pile of gray ash covering the small island in the midst of the underground pool of water.

I felt strange as I remembered the figure I had once seen on the shores we walked past while leaving the cavern once more, those dark eyes watching me as stars seemed to spin and dance within their depths.

Due to so suddenly recalling the dark figure and how he had risen so easily from the water, I found myself almost rushing to leave the area, hurrying behind the others as they wandered up through the exit tunnel I had barely recalled shuffling down forever ago. The entire time, I felt like I was being watched while muted whispers pressed in on the edges of my hearing.

It felt like hours before we finally managed to escape from the city that sat at the end of the tunnel exit. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were trespassing on the ruined city streets, broken windows staring at us like blackened eyes all the while. Every broken doorway seemed to howl at us whenever a breeze whipped past, the men and women around me shivering as they moved a little faster.

We were all eager to leave the haunting remains of a lost city far behind.

* * *

It was several days later when I was accepted by more than a handful of people in the surprisingly large group lead by Michael, the brown-eyed man from before. Everyone seemed to follow the dark-skinned man like it was natural, his strong presence making it easy to see why they appeared so comfortable with him in charge. The gray-eyed young man went by the name Daniel. Since he didn't seem to ever talk, it had been Michael who told me of the name that had been given to the youth. I often found Daniel close at hand, walking beside or slightly behind me more often than not, a smile offered whenever I caught his eyes with my own. The blue-eyed guard, on the other hand, refused to share his name with me and nobody seemed willing to tell me without his approval. Michael seemed to be the only one who didn't mind the man's cold attitude, often laughing off the things he said and patting the man on the back like they were old friends. For all I knew, they may very well have known each other their whole lives, but I didn't dare ask when I had those chilly blue eyes upon me.

I was unsure if following the group would be the safest choice for both them and myself in the end, but I couldn't deny how comforted I felt in Daniel's presence. He was the only one besides Michael who was willing to greet me with a smile each day, and I would miss that smile far more than I was willing to admit, even to myself if I decided to leave the group of survivors.

* * *

Weeks passed as we headed further into the lush forest that surrounded the city. Heading closer to the mountains that I was now able to make out in the distance, we only stopped when we had no other option. I'm not sure how far we had traveled at this point, weather and terrain slowing us down one day and speeding us up another. Sometimes, we seemed able to walk for miles throughout the day. Other times we were lucky to go anywhere at all. And during the heavy storms that were becoming more frequent as the season slowly passed, we usually stayed anywhere we could find with enough shelter, be it a cluster of trees we could huddle in or a hastily built lean-to covered in leaves and grass. Nobody wanted to risk getting sick from the rain and wind that whipped through the forest around us.

I still had no idea where we were in the world, but I figured our current location was far too low on the list of things I could worry about to really bother stressing myself over it right now. My memories, my current existence and the army of undead that wandered the larger cities of the world seemed far more worth spending my time contemplating.

I could be found sometimes in the quiet of night, while most of the group slept and others kept watch, mumbling various recipes for random baked treats and fancy meals that I would never eat again or naming the multitude of colors I had seen during the day. Still, I was still unable to give an exact name to Daniel's gray eyes as they seemed to shift and change a little each day. I'd heard Michael laughing the other day when he caught one of the night guards mentioning how I had described his eyes as the rich brown of freshly ground coffee beans.