Lost Survival

Chapter 1 Taken Away (Completed)

Author's note: Hey everyone. I just completed my first chapter. If you were reading along as I posted each part, I'll still have them separate so it's easier to read where you left off.  Tell me how you feel about it. Like it and follow me. Thanks.

A blur lingers upon my memories like a smudged fingerprint. That night eludes me. To this day, I'm unsure if any of it happened.

We met at a cozy restaurant tucked in the corner of a busy commercial street. A set of stairs led down into a room brightened with mood lighting and candles. Fairly quiet atmosphere, where the loudest conversation were the plates and glasses clanking. We sat in a small booth, tightly squeezed together like a pair of socks. We drank red wine and tittered about coworkers, movies, past love affairs topics we used to pass the time.

I don't know how, but we ended back in my apartment. All the details are lost in a haze, missing, far worse than a night of drunken regret. I spend days in a stupor clinging on to any piece I can find, but I sit empty and lost like a human without purpose.

My tears have run dry. Dwelling on this perforated memory brings me nothing not even pain. I'm an empty husk left behind to rot while my humanity soars beyond my reach all because of a night l can't remember.

His face is something I can't recall like it was etched out with permanent marker, forever blocked out of my memory. No matter how hard I try, I'm unable to remove the mask from his face as his laughs transform into screams, as his body loses any sense of form. I lay pinned down by an unknown mass, cutting off the last breath I took before my life was stripped away.

Some say I was given a new purpose that i was reborn to carry out a higher calling I'll never understand. But I say, I was just another victim of happenstance.

Night choked the sky as I drove to the outskirts of the city. Orange lights shrouded my face in a sickly glow. Streetlights beamed their heavy rays like a flying saucer. The bags beneath my eyes reminded me that I couldn't sleep again.

Whenever I sank my head into a pillow and closed my heavy eyes nothing happened. Night after night I lied motionless hoping for an escape from reality and time. I remained grounded in the world like a rock weathered by the sea and air.

The orange lights flickered as I got closer. Tangled wires of an electrical tower rose from the horizon like a kite in a tree. Sparks lit the air. Frayed wires flailed. A blast of electricity showered the ground. As I came closer, I saw what was going on.

Like a cancerous growth, a sticky gelatinous substance hung on the side of the power station. It oozed a yellowish liquid like an infected pimple, dousing the ground in a sea of bile. Purple bumps sprouted at its base like a cluster of warts. Just another night.

I stopped my car away from the station leaving some distance between us. Between the glove compartment, the seat next to me, and the backseat, I had no idea where my gun was.
It was time to try each.

My glove compartment held all the necessary documents and things from vehicle registration to insurance, even old mail, paper clips, fast food wrappers, and old reward cards I've never used.

The seat next to me was decorated with dust and crumbs the last remnants of any life. It remained empty without a passenger in years.

In the back there were plastic bags for groceries, a blanket my mom made five christmases ago, a small back pillow, a book I abandoned, a discarded box of worn tissues, and some change I left behind.

My gun was no where to be seen unless I forgot it. I sighed and allowed my disappointment to wash over me like rain. Was it too late to drive back?