Haven Grounds

Chapter 1

The human mind is, complicated. It can act on its own will to protect itself, and yet it's completely in our control, and all of those thoughts just stop existing once you kick the bucket. It dictates our everyday lives, our feelings, needs and desires. You can lose limbs, your houses, your entire social status, but to have your very own identity and existence taken away is nerve-wracking.

    The last thing I can recall?

    8 o'clock, no 10—it doesn't really matter—and it was a hotel, or was it an inn?   I had something, something of importance, and it had to be delivered-yes, delivered!

    Okay, so that's what I was doing...now, my name? I've got to have a name right?

    Uhhh right, the briefcase; it had a name on it, I had the briefcase, so that should be my name...what was written on it? It started with an E, no a B, definitely a B.

    Damnit! I can't see the rest of the tag! Memories all fuzzed, guess I'll have to roll with what I've got for now.

CAW! CAW!

    As I am rudely awakened to the sound of nature's terrible alarm, I snap upward, driving the bird to screw off and leave me alone; leaving the stench of whatever it had killed recently to float around me and drift straight up my nose-pipes. Instinctively, I peer up to try and catch a glimpse of ye olde' Sol, but my brain is quick to remind me that I, in fact can't exactly...do that, and that I'm probably going crazy from the heatstroke and the sun beating down on me.

    I could feel the sun, its god rays threatening me with sunburn in the next 10 minutes or so, if I don't pass out and collapse again from dehydration, my throat was bone dry; though surprisingly nowhere as close to being deprived of water than the ground my behind was on, searing through my pants and causing some very discernible long-term problems.

    Picking myself up from the earth, I feel around me, trying to get a sense of what I was wearing, did I have anything in my pockets or if I'm lucky a bloody bottle of water. From the tie, coat, suit and somewhat rough jeans, I probably looked like a businessman heading for a meeting of sorts, and was promptly thrown out of the plane, only to land smack-dab right in the middle of Earths magnifying glass. Shame though, felt like whoever chose the outfit shelled out a pretty penny for it, now it's layered with dirt and stains.

   

    Well, worrying about the laundry bill can be left for later, right now I'm a sap stuck in what sounds like miles from anywhere and I've not the first clue of who I am or what I was doing. Right pocket contained a bunch of loose change, a wallet with nothing in it; probably got robbed. Left pocket contained fuck all.

    I decided that standing around here like a moron would only hasten my spending death, so I just started walking. Firmly planting each of my step into the dry and rough terrain; putting each leg forward of one another in an alternating motion like a damn normal person would, making doubly sure to keep in a relatively straight line, mostly by just remembering where the sun was shining on me. The feel of the environment I was in felt exclusively empty, the ground was soft and grainy in parts; in others rough and rigid, though one thing was consistent, there definitely wasn't a lack of damn hills that's for sure.

    I mostly gathered from the insane heat that it was noon, or that I was in a desert, both observations seeming very likely right about now.

    The air didn't change whatsoever after I had walked for what I paced to be—30 minutes give or take. No wind; air was dry and dusty, the sun heating up the ground below me as well didn't add much to the occasion, detracted more so. Without a more precise reading of the time of day, I couldn't just narrow down a compass direction to follow, so I just decided to bite it and trudge along, taking off the jacket and wrapping it around my head; providing some shade and comfort at the very least.