A New Future

Waking Up

Grass. Dirt. A tree maybe? There was a breeze blowing gently that stirred whatever it was I was leaning my back against, causing the sound of leaves swaying. Definitely a tree.

"Uugggh... What hit me?" I muttered mustering the energy to sit up. I felt my eyes flutter slightly before slowly opening, forced to squint at the afternoon light filtering through the leaves. Fresh air filled my lungs as I drank in the sight of a forest I had never seen.

"Where.. am I?" I heard my voice croak. Clearing it, I took another look around, attempting to get a hold on my surroundings.
"What... How did I even get here?" I sat up further as my mind slipped out of its drowsy state.
"Oww, crap," I hissed, receiving a sharp headache from sitting up too quickly. Thankfully though, the pain was enough to wake me up fully.
After the pain faded away I snapped up from my previous position at the base of the tree, much more alarmed and aware.

"Ummm..." I said to myself my mind working rapidly, trying to figure out how I got here.
Panicking at my inability to remember even a single thing, I looked down and realized I wasn't even familiar with the clothes I was wearing. I looked back up making sure there was no one around before I patted down my body. Surprisingly I found four pistols, two were twins equipped with foot-long bayonets on the ends, one was skinnier and longer leading me to believe that it could shoot more accurately over a long distance, while the last pistol was short and stocky. I also noticed that this one shot explosives instead of bullets. I let out a low whistle realizing how deadly these guns were.
There was also a good amount of ammunition, six throwing knives, a small pouch with currency in it that I didn't recognize, and a couple of fairly long and thin ropes with dangerously sharp metal barbs on the ends. As I finished taking inventory I felt my blood run cold.
I remembered something. A Watch! A golden pocket watch that I always kept on me. I frantically searched both myself and the ground where I had been laying for it. I couldn't describe it. It was as though I had lost a part of myself with the watch.
"No, no, no, no, no, NO!" I cried desperately. My shoulders sagged when I finally realized it was not here.

'This is so weird. I can't even remember why it's so important to me.'
Looking back at the weapons I carried, more questions popped up in my head, not just about my predicament, but about myself.

'What are these doing here? I don't... I don't remember anything other than that watch.. Not just how I got here, or even where here is.. but I don't even remember... where did I come from? Who am I?'
The realization that I had no idea who I was hit me hard. I felt my heart beat pick up to the speed of a rabbits, and it became increasingly difficult to breathe. My lungs contracted and I felt a bead of sweat roll down the side of my face.

'I'm hyperventilating,' I thought to myself as my panic grew. Thousands of questions were flying through my head, each one unable to be met with an answer. Once I started feeling dizzy and gasping for air, I had to force myself to mentally block the questions, and it wasn't easy.

'Take deep breaths... deep breaths, you're okay. There's nothing to worry about. You're just... a little disoriented. Yeah. That's right.'
After about ten minutes I finally felt my breathing even out and my body relax.

"You're okay, it's okay." I said out loud, my voice surprisingly steady. How did I even know how to calm myself down from that? Then I realized that I had started questioning again mentally slapped myself.

"Asking questions isn't going to get me anywhere, I need answers." The forest was no help though, as it extended in all directions giving me no bearings what so ever.

"Okay, maybe we look for answers elsewhere," I muttered under my breath as I pulled out one of the bayonet pistols that I had.

"Huh. Well, if I have it then I should probably know how to use it, right?"

Seeing a low hanging branch about a hundred feet away, I extended my right arm and finally felt something familiar. Taking aim I fired, the shot ringing through the silence of the forest. I watched as my bullet snapped the branch off, hitting the exact spot I had been aiming for.

"Huh" I pulled the pistols' twin out of its holster and picked two branches as targets this time, both about the same distance away as the first. Keeping both guns down I closed my eyes and took aim in my mind. I inhaled slowly and exhaled. Snapping my eyes open my arms shot up and fired in a heart beat. Two simultaneous bangs echoed through the forest and two branches snapped.

"Cool," I said smiling at my new found skill. Looking for another branch to target I heard movement behind me. Spinning around I focused my attention on the bush which laid in between me and the rustling I had heard.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" I asked, raising my pistols slightly for cautious reasons. It almost felt as though something... difficult to describe was approaching. Something that fed on the emptiness within one's soul, but it was most likely just me being delusional in my confusion. It was most likely just my nerves getting the better of me.

Maybe it had understood me or maybe it simply realized that I knew it was there, but out of the bush came a nightmarish looking beast.

I instinctively backed away from it and gaped in awe at the hellish monster that stood before me. It was covered in black fur, its face looked as though it were wearing a mask made of bone, and it sported bone-like protrusions from it's arms and back. As disturbing as it looked, with its glowing red eyes, it resembled that of a bipedal wolf.

It looked right at me and I could feel a shiver run down my spine. My pistols immediately positioned themselves, pointing at the monsters forehead and heart. And even though I was very far from calm, and definitely unnerved, I strangely wasn't as terrified as I probably should have been. The words Danger Beast popped into my head, adding further to the list of things that I didn't have answers to. The beast growled, probably recognising the pistols as a threat. Of course it was only then that I realized that it had probably been attracted by the sound of the shots I had fired. And just when my luck couldn't get any worse and I thought I'd have to fight the monster, several other creatures emerged from nearby foliage and surrounded me. It looked like the whole pack.

"Shit."