Time and Time Again

Chapter One

It’s dark. I’m running. My heart is pounding. Someone’s chasing me. I can hear their footsteps, heavy and loud on the otherwise empty street behind me. I have to keep running.

Why am I running? Where am I? Who is chasing me? Why am I being chased? Why can’t I remember these things?

I zip by abandoned buildings, running as fast as my aching feet will carry me. Many of the buildings are crumbling apart, years of wear and tear showing. Windows have been broken inward and outward, glass everywhere. Graffiti is covering almost every markable surface. Streetlamps are flickering on and off, creating an eerie atmosphere around this whole street. Still, those heavy footsteps behind me.

Without slowing, I turn my head as far as I can. The person chasing me is a man, over six feet tall. He looks strong. He has a terrifying murderous glint in his eyes. His hair, which shows only hints of a once blond color, is coated with blood. Who’s blood? I whip my head back to its normal position.

I get a sudden migraine. Waking up, loud noises coming from downstairs. Slamming door. Someone running down the hall, bat in hand. The pain subsides. What was that? Were those memories? My memories? I feel constrained. I don’t know anything. It’s as if my memories have been locked away, my brain a maximum security prison. 

I suddenly lose my footing in a pothole and fall. The pain from my ankle, most likely broken, is nothing compared to my own growing anxiety. No. No no no no no. He’s right behind me, has to be. The second I turn around, he’ll be there. He’ll kill me, no doubt. I try to move, but fear and pain torment my body. I only manage to get my arms underneath myself, pushing up, when he nears.

“Don’t move.” He growls. His voice in coarse and menacing. I hear his heavy footsteps crunching the gravel of the decimated street behind me. I desperately try to get up. My left foot is about to push me up when he roars.

“I said don’t move!” He harshly grabs the brown hair on the back of my head and yanks. My head whips up, my neck straining. After the fresh wave of pain subsides, I shut my eyes tightly. If this is to be my death, I don’t want to see it.

I can feel my head being pulled farther and farther back. My body starts to follow and a hard knee comes down right between my shoulder blades. My back bends painfully. My will power gives and I fall back down to the ground on my stomach.

“Do what I tell you to do,” he whispers hotly in my ear, “When I tell you to do it, Sebastian.” What? How does he know my name? Who is this guy? My train of thought is cut off as he pulls back on my head again, his knee still pressed against my back. Then, my head is slammed down into the dirty pavement.

My face is cut open on the gravel and shards of glass littering the road. he pressed all his body weight onto my skull and grinds my head down further. He brings my head up, along with glass and rocks embedded in my face. Then he smashes down again. He does this repeatedly. The world is getting darker. Everything I see is becoming blurry. It’s getting darker. Darker and darker. Slowly, everything fades to black.