Tally Tale 卌 [DISCONTINUED]

One

I wake up, alone, cold and with an aching back. I groan, getting blinded by the light streaming through the open blinds.

I go to move my arm to turn over in a more comfortable position but it's glued to the floor. Blindly peeling my flesh from the wood, I turn onto my side but immediately get shocked by a stabbing feeling in my back, forcing me to sit up.

Cracking open my eyes, I look around the mess of an apartment. Dirty laundry covers a love seat in front of me, piled high enough to only know what shade of grey it is by legs and front of it. I see pieces of torn paper, a photograph, it seems, in a dozen shred pieces laying in the floor.

Behind the chair is a fairly large window, a few smashed flowerpots and vases with wilted roses and petunias decorate the low windowsill. Lining the sides are simple white blinds, thickly coated in dust.

To my left is a TV, buzzing a low static sound as the shades of black, white and grey dance along the screen.

"Where am I?" I whisper to myself.

I notice an object glinting in the light on the floor in front of the window. I slowly crawl over to it, picking it up and turning it over. It's a picture frame, void of any photograph of a moment stuck in time. The glass is shattered, a piece dropping to the floor when I pick it up.

Why isn't there's a photograph? Surely there would have been some sort of memory...

Memory.

I am... I am who, exactly?

I stand up shakily and glance around the other half of the room. A couch, a recliner, a bookshelf, a desk with a laptop and a doorway leading to the kitchen.

Blood coats the floor of where I was lying minutes prior, dried and cracked.

"Who am I?" I ponder aloud.

I glance at my hands, seeing blood stained on the skin. I then notice the five tallies inked on my wrist.

I scan over it, not understanding what it meant. The black ink outlines 5 tallies that could have been straighter. They could have been neater and more perfect but then again, nothing in this world is perfect.

A ding is heard, a loud ding that makes me jump in surprise. The noise comes from beside the open laptop, a screen illuminating.

(If you guys know what Ashton's ringtone is, that would help so I can make this his cellphone ringing)

I start to walk to the bright screen but I get interrupted by a phone ringing. Diving towards the couch, I grab the phone and answer without thinking it through.

"Hello...?" I say hesitantly.

"Ash?"

Who am I when I don't know myself?

"Bro, are you okay? You haven't answered any texts in 8 hours and I was getting worried. We left-how many was it?- well, a lot of voicemails and we called your house at least 27 times. Are you okay? What happened? I saw the thing last night and I assume you saw it too. Ashton? Ashton Fletcher Irwin answer me, dammit." A girl rambled on the line.

"I..." I say.

"Ashton?" The girl asks. "Are you okay?"

I look at the patch of floor with blood, then to the smashed flowerpots.

"I-I don't know. No, I don't think s-so. I really...I'm really..." I take a shaky breath and flick my gaze back to the rally tattoo with blood stains mixing around it. "I'm really not fine at all."

"Ashton, tell me what happened." The girl said softly.

"I-I don't know. Who are you? Who am I? I don't know anything...I'm scared..." I whimper.

"Ashton...?"

"Who is Ashton?" I ask.

X•X•X•X

And so there's it is.

The short, slightly scary, kinda sad, kinda intense first chapter.

\(^-^)/ I accomplished something.

So there was three lyric references in there. Two of them were obvious but did you see the third?

Hint: It was before the first two