Book 1 | Agent 34 and the Desert of Beasts

Chapter 1 | No Memories

His head pounded, forcing him to wake up and see what caused the pain.

The guy sat up, looking around while doing so. He was in an unfamiliar desert, with no clue as to how he got there. He thought it was just some strange dream, the feeling of life he had with no explanation of why he had it.

The man could not remember his name, or anything else about him. All he could remember was his age, which was seventeen. On this continent he was in, you were considered an adult at the age of sixteen.

The guy stood up, brushing the sand off of his clothing. He combed through his brown hair, doing the same thing he did to his clothes and tried to get the sand out even harder than he did to the clothing.

The man looked in his pockets for some sign of identification, something that could tell him who he was and why he was here. Moving his fingers around the jacket's pocket, his fingers grasped a piece of paper and pulled it out and into the view of his purple eyes.

It was a small slip of paper, with only two words written on it.

Agent 34.

"Guess I'm Agent 34." The man said silently to himself, slipping the piece of paper back in his pocket.

Agent 34 looked around, only to see no signs of life for miles. 

Okay, I have amnesia, and I'm stranded in the middle of a desert with no reason as to how or why I am here, Agent 34 thought, maybe someone knows I'm here and will rescue me if I wait? Yeah, I'll spend a few days just sitting here and waiting. That seems like a good plan.

Agent 34 took off his heavy jacket, and plopped it on the sand. The man sat down on it, and simply waited.

Agent 34 pondered for a reason why he was here, looking for some memory.

Then one hit him.

A quick memory entered his mind, a picture of a black dragon, only to quickly disappear and leave his mind.

Another memory hit him quickly, a picture of an elf with long white hair that touched the top of her shoulders. She held a blade with delicate designs carved into the metal. The image of the elf left just as quickly a second it came, and Agent 34 forgot what he was thinking of.

A picture of a dwarf entered his mind next. He had a long and bushy brown beard, with a thick helmet on his head. The dwarf had a battle axe, clutching its hilt with both hands. But, to Agent 34's dismay, the memory left again.

A picture of a human entered his mind. The black, thick hair on the man was covered by a black hood, revealing only part of his face. His eyes were bloodshot red, his muscles clenched and holding tightly onto a bow. The memory left once again.

One more memory entered Agent 34's memory: the picture of a crown, broken in half. Half of the crown was buried in sand. This memory stayed, and didn't leave this time.

The crown was constructed of gold, and had several colored jewels embedded in it around the outside of it. The gold had a tiny brown stain near the bottom, and looked like it had been rotting there for a while. 

The jewels looked weird. They didn't look like normal jewels. Each was a different color, and all were the same diamond shape and embedded along the side of the broken crown. There was only around ten jewels that Agent 34 could see from the view of the crown he had. Each jewel had something inside of it, but he couldn't tell what it was from the blurry image he had of it.

Agent 34's thoughts were interrupted when sand was blown onto his face. He swatted at the dust blowing onto his body, and wiped it off from each crevice on his face. Agent 34 wiped it off of his ears, and when he reached them, his fingers touched a pointed tip, meaning that Agent 34 was an elf.

I am an elf, the man thought, Damn, my amnesia must be bad—can't even remember what damn species I am.

More sand blew onto Agent 34's face, and he wiped it off again. After the elf's face was clean of sand, more blew onto it.

The elf continued that process for some time, and after every grain of sand was clean off Agent 34's face, more would come to take its place.

Fed up with sand, the elf stood up and picked the jacket off the sandy ground of the desert. He didn't put it on, it was too hot to be wearing a sandy jacket. Instead, the elf just held it with both hands, and started walking in a random direction. 

Agent 34 would eventually reach a civilization somewhere. He had to. If you go far enough, there will be some life. Somewhere.

Even if the elf met dragons, humans, or dwarves, he at least met some civilization.

Hope filled the elf's heart, and he started on his journey for help.