Elements

Chapter 2- Amnesia

"Ugh" I groaned, and felt something heavy on my stomach, also a pain in my left leg. Upon opening my eyes, the light was too much, so it hurt my head. I heard a soft cry, a baby's. I slowly opened my eyes and looked around, my head pounding, therefore I kept having to reclose my eyes as I took in my surroundings. I discovered I was laying on my back, with a child on my chest. A baby, to be specific. Bracing the child's back, I slowly brought myself up, I was in some kind of woodsy area, and had an arrow sticking out of my leg, and a backpack laying next to me. I pulled out the arrow, and placed the my free hand over the injury, while the other one still held the child. Then I thought, 'What am I doing in the middle in the middle of the woods?' That's when I realized, I couldn't remember anything! It seemed like my mind was totally wiped. I couldn't even remember my name! Pain went through my head again, this time making me very dizzy. I took the child and lied it across my lap, I lied back, against a tree, and held my head in my hands. I heard a gun go off and I jumped, "That was just a warning shot. State your name and your business, or the next one wont be a warning." a young man holding a gun said. I just froze, and looked at him as I lifted the still crying child from my lap. As he noticed I wasn't saying anything, he begun to aim his gun. "Wait, I'm not armed, and I'm with child." croaked out of my mouth. "Who are you?" he said, not lowering his weapon. "I don't know, I don't know anything." I said, freaking out a little. "What do you mean, you don't know anything?" he said "I don't remember anything, I don't remember why I'm here, what my name is, or who this child is, or why I had an arrow in my leg a few minutes ago." I exasperated "You've got amnesia?" he said and he finally lowered his gun. "You have a choice, follow me or be killed in battle. There's a war going on here. You'll be killed if you stay here, but if you choose to follow me, and you try anything, if I even feel threatened, I'll kill you myself." he said. "I don't plan on fighting you." I said. He took the child out of my arms and I stood up. Without saying another word he started walking away still holding the baby. My leg hurt every time I took a step the wound in my leg burned he stopped and said "Let me see your leg. He handed me back the child, then he squatted down and examined my leg. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a jar of paste and put it on the wound. After that, the pain in my leg began to subside, but I still couldn't keep up with the boy's pace.

After a while we took a break from our walking and stopped at a little creek. I submersed myself into the water, and although the effect was nice, cooling, calming, I still couldn't remember my first name. The sun was beginning to go down, so we had to find some shelter, we were apparently in some sort of dead zone when it came to the war, just far enough to where we could hear it but there were no arrows flying in our direction. The main thing I'm worrying about is this baby, I figured out the hard way that it was a boy, but I also figured out it wasn't mine, since I didn't have the body of someone that just had a baby. I needed to figure out a way to feed him, since I couldn't do it myself. I opened my backpack to find different vials, bottles and bandages, random pieces of armor, knives and a few arrows, but no bow. The boy picked up one of the bottles and said "I think this is milk." I realized this was the first thing he said to me since I started following him. "I'm not sure, and I don't want to give him anything that will make him sick." I said he took the top off and smelled the white liquid "Pretty sure its milk. And anything is better than this constant crying he's doing. Geez, I'm getting a headache." he said, then handed me the bottle. Cautiously I smelled it and  used my element to heat it. After a minute of doing so I started feeding it to the child. He immediately calmed down and started falling asleep. I kept monitoring the baby, making sure he wasn't poisoned by the drink. "Tomorrow, well be at the western earth temple, and there you can find real help for that child, and if you really have amnesia, maybe someone there can help you regain your memories. Although maybe not. You appear to have no ties to the Earth Kingdom, but it's not my issue." he said. I'm not sure why, but I have the strangest feeling in the pit of my stomach that I don't want my memories back. "By the way, we've been together all day, but you still haven't told me your name." I said "When you can tell me yours I can tell you mine" he said with a blank stare.

The baby was the only one who slept that night. I wouldn't fall asleep, between watching the baby and the constant looks of distrust from this boy were enough to ruin anyone's sleep pattern. After a while the baby started crying again, so we decided we would start our travels early. After walking for a while, the boy stopped and turned to me. "In about five minutes well have entered near the western earth temple. Once there you should find someone hospitable enough to take you and that kid in." he said, then he looked off into the forest like he was listening. I closed my eyes, I could hear it too, something moving around the bushes. He pushed me behind him, and I hid in a bush.  He pulled out his gun, with the aim of a sharpshooter he aimed his weapon to the top of a tree. A young woman dropped from the tree, and the boy dropped his weapon, apparently he recognized this woman. "Whoa now, the war is further north." she said with a smile. He scoffed and shouted "Kiku, what are you doing here!" 'Ugh, why does my head hurt when I hear that name?' I think to myself. "You said you would be back last night, I got worried and started looking for you." she said "Yeah well I got... distracted." he said, 'Is he talking about me?' I think. "What kind of distraction?" she said, walking closer to him. "I picked up a couple stragglers." he said. 'Definitely talking about me.' I think as I expose my position and walk out of the bushes I had been hiding in.  She walked over to me and looked hard into my face "Romni?" she said questionably. I just looked at her, 'Is that my name, Romni?' I think. "She says she's got amnesia, I was going to take her to the western temple." the boy said "Romni, you don't remember me?" she asked sadly. I just shook my head. "We've got to take her to our hideout." she said. "What!?!" he almost yelled. "Romni is an old friend of mine, if she doesn't get her memory back, she'll be locked up in prison, and all of us have been there, I couldn't deal with myself if she were taken back. Plus a few years ago she said she would help me, but instead I have to now help her." she said. He just looked at her and made a, whatever face. We followed Kiku back into the earth village, and we went into a simple home, the hideout, as she had called it. I handed the child off to another young woman who recently had a child, after explaining what happened to me, she was happy to nurse the child along with her own. I decided to call this child Sadik, although I'm not sure where that name came from.

I was sitting on a bed in the house. Kiku was sitting on my left, not saying a word. "I know you?" I finally said to her. She nodded her head and pointed to my arm "You've gotten more tattoos since I've last seen you, but I gave you these scars." she said. I looked at my arm and there were scars, almost like claw marks under a pretty design of tattoos on my upper arm. "There's no way someone as tiny as you gave me these scars." I said. "Oh, but I did. There are certain times that I loose control of myself and the consequences are often very bad, but on you, it just left scars on your arms." she said. "Oh." I said. I yawned, "If you're tired then rest, we'll figure out what's going on with your head tomorrow." she said and started to leave the room. "Oh and if you want to take a bath it's outside, the villagers of earth do things like this strangely." she said and she went out. I lay back on the bed and rubbed my hands across my face, I could see why Kiku suggested a bath, even though I had dipped myself into the water yesterday, I was filthy today. As I was returning from the bath I saw the boy who had led me here walking down one of the dirt roads, "Hey!" I called out to him and he turned to me. he walked to me and I said, "Kiku told me my name was Romni, so now that you know my name you have to tell me yours." "That was our deal huh? Okay, well, it's Enya." he said and then walked away, continuing down the dirt road. After that encounter I went back to 'The Hideout' I'm not sure why its called that, since it's almost in the middle of town, but I'm not going to ask questions.

As I tried sleeping I dreamt that my memories had taken a human body and were literally running away from me. Every time I would almost get close enough to touch them, they'd run faster, or I'd trip, anything to keep me away from them. That was a strange dream indeed.