Harsh dry breeze greeted the cold water that erupted from his lungs as he woke. Cold, ragged muscle aches woke him more fully as he emptied himself of unwanted fluid. He did not ask where he was, nor why it is he awoke soaked in seawater, gasoline, and blood; he asked for his name, and his mind did not compute. Collapsing again upon the warm comfort of the sand, seeing nothing but an outstretched beach before him.
For minutes or perhaps hours, he lay there collecting information from his other bodily appendages. It wasn't easy to feel them; it wasn't easy to think, either. His mind was empty and this, above all else, bothered him most. Nerve endings were burned out like an old television screen, his circulatory system not much better than worn, stripped wiring. Rolling over, the rage of a bloody orange sun cut into his mind without mercy. This he had seen before, and he was suddenly terrified. Comfort came only from his ignorance; he still had no memory, and no way to explain his terror. As his vision cleared he saw that his world was easing its way into dusk. For some reason, he felt tense.
Anger was difficult to feel without memory, but it filled him nonetheless. "Why does this seem so familiar; why don't I have a name?" he introspectively roared at his mind. Like a formatted hard drive, it was unresponsive. Oddly, he had not realized he was even wearing clothes until this moment, and he immediately and frantically groped himself, looking for pockets, looking for identity and humanity. In them he found only more vexing emptiness. A loud cry echoed across the sands as he slammed his hands into the beach in defeat.
The cold had numbed his body quite completely, but his innate human durability won out; pain seared his forearms in a sudden flash as the folds in his white dress shirt pressed against them. Upon lifting his arms after slamming the dirt, the wet folds in his shirt wrapped themselves around his forearms, soaking a fresh coat of blood back into what appeared to be brown stains. He had torn open his scabs. "Scabs," he thought, "where the hell -- ?" Not bothering to finish the thought, he preferred removing his shirt and more closely examining his wound. As he rolled up the sleeve pain continued to scream as it shot up his arm and into his already preoccupied mind. "What a fucking joke," he scoffed to himself as he was a smiley-face stare up at him from his arm. Carved into only a few layers of skin and numbed by the cold, a thinly-drawn smile was cut into his arm. Not knowing just how dirty his shirt had become, he figured it would be safer to take it off and use to ease off circulation in that arm just in case.
Removing his shirt was one problematic affair, yes, but not as bad as wobbling his way up the beach like a plastered jester on stilts while fastening the shirt around his upper arm. Stifled, cough-ridden laughs stumbled out of his mouth as he weaved up the beach. Amazing how the human mind can still appreciate humor even if it can't even remember its own fucking name. Holding his head with one hand in playful dismissal, he left himself drop against a short trench at the end of the beach. It appeared to lead into tall grass and then a thick oak forest. "Shade," he mused, "is this a reprieve, or a trap?" Although it was from his mind, the momentary thought he had just procured made him uncomfortable; he suddenly felt a looming unease about his identity.
He had felt pants around his thighs and legs, but he had not examined them until he glanced back down from the forest, attempting to piece together a plan of action -- a place to go where he could rest and revive himself. They were dark, navy blue jeans in almost pristine condition other than the obvious water damage. "What an odd way to compliment this dress shirt," he whispered softly to himself as his eyes drifted from the pants to the ground before him. The unmoving stillness of the sand brought him enough calm to think clearly. "Observe your surroundings, what is this place?" an unusually serene voice told him from within his mind. From this serenity he began noticing things; from the distance the beach extended out to, without any trace of human presence, he concluded that he must be at least a good distance from cities or inhabited land. The tall grass extended outward a half mile into woods, in which he heard barely any movement. The waters he had glanced at showed no signs of buoys, so either he was in a part of the world in which they don't bother using them, or, again, he was far away from civilization. Listening closely to the distance, he only heard the cacophony of leaning, waving trees and miscellaneous movements in the distant brush and grass. The noise all condensed into a soporific white noise -- a calming ambience. It seemed to lull him into relaxation, which he rejected fervently, but couldn't resist. Still, he heard no signs of human life above the ambience.
