Child of The Past

Tanner

Tanner was cold. That was the first thing he noticed when he woke up. He was cold ad wet and hungry. Also he was alone. He looked down at himself. He was wearing tattered jeans and a dirty gray shirt. He felt through his hair. It was dirty and completely out of control. Then he looked around for his backpack. It lay a couple feet away, soaking wet. He crawled over to it and searched through its pockets for something to eat. There was exactly: One granola bar, one water bottle (half-full), a pack of gum, a map of Long Island, a ruined brochure for some event in Kansas, and his wallet. He searched through his wallet and found two dollars, a dime, a penny, and some photos in a plastic bag. He sighed and ate the granola bar. He finished the water, which was warm and gritty. He opened up the pack of gum, but instead of Trident:Layers, he found a crumpled note saying FOLLOW MAP GO TO CAMP FOR ANSWERS. Well, that was amazingly clear.

He realized he was sitting in the middle of someone's yard. Glancing around, he sat up and walked out into the street. He put the granola bar wrapper, the brochure, and the gum pack in the person's mailbox, slipping the note into his pocket. He walked to the end of the street. He was on Cranberry Lane. He opened up the map. Sure enough, there was a line in red marker from Cranberry Lane, to a place in the countryside near  Long Island Sound. Well, at least he knew he was, sort of. 

There was another note in red marker. It read 10.8 miles, good luck. With a sigh he started off on the trail marked out for him. Already it was turning out out to be a long day. 

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Tanner stopped halfway down a street marked Olive Branch Avenue, and had a mini crisis. What was he doing? He was in Long Island, following a strange map and some strange notes towards the middle of nowhere. He hadn't eaten since the granola bar, which must have been hours ago. All he could remember was that his name was Tanner, and a little about the pictures in his wallet. The two pictures in his wallet were of him and a little girl who looked just like him, and him a woman who didn't look like him at all. The little girl must have been 4 or 5. She had his same unruly, sand colored hair, his light blue eyes, his way too pale skin. She was skinny, and looked like she was weightless. She was his sister, and her name was Carrie. The woman had long brown hair and brown eyes. She was his mother. His father had always been absent, but he looked like him, Tanner knew that. Each time his mind started on the track of a memory, it hit a road block before it could get anywhere useful. He started to hum, his nervous habit, and looked back down at the map. At the end of Olive Branch Avenue, he had to turn right onto Carren Avenue. He sighed and started to walk again.

After all, how much worse off could he be?