JAYDON
Two green eyes scanned the environment once more. The place was dark, and a white ceiling was the first thing he saw in his new world; a half-broken window, one of the few the area had, let light through.
A prolonged sound was breaking the barrier of silence, and brought consciousness flooding back to his green eyes.
Where am I? was the first thought which crossed the man’s mind. This was followed very quickly by the second: Who am I?
The only thing of certainty was that he was lying on a bed, wearing a blue robe like those given to hospital patients. His muscular arms bore puncture marks, due to some intravenous treatment he had been given, proof of which was tossed on the floor, beside him.
It didn’t take much for him to realize that he was in a hospital ward or a clinic: a large room, which appeared otherwise abandoned. Clues apparent throughout its whole length suggested that it had been for some time: faded walls; dust floating in the air, like minute snowfall; cobwebs filling the room, cordoning entire sections like police tape; files and folders strewn haphazardly on the floor – all were signs which led him to believe that he was alone in this place.
This was why it came as something of a shock when his eyes fell on the three other patients.
He woozily stood up from the bed, and momentarily almost lost his balance. He felt stiffness with every step, and could only guess at how long his legs had been out of use. Slowly, though, he started to find his footing. He shuffled his way carefully over to the other patients.
All three were men, all intubated, in a condition which he suspected to be something along the lines of a coma. His first thought was one of impending doom – for him and the patients. If they were comatose, then shouldn’t he be, too? Observing that their life support machines were not receiving any power, he ascertained that they were just unconscious.
He stepped up to each man in turn and attempted to wake them. His efforts, however, were in vain; no matter how hard he shook them, they remained unresponsive.
“They’re dead,” he realized, aloud. His face fell and his eyes filled with tears. Loneliness washed over him once more.
There were some clothes lying on a chair, near his bed. He didn’t know if they were his own but, at first glance, it appeared that they would fit him. Wasting no more time, he removed his robe, donning the black trousers and grey T-shirt, as well as a pair of brown boots.
Just as he was about to leave, a thought came to him: the answer to his identity would be in this room; all of the patients’ beds would have an obs folder hanging on the end. He went back to look at his own but, to his great disappointment, found that it had been tossed on the floor – along with those of the other patients. Unable to do anything else, he looked at the information in the folders, one by one.
The first he picked up from the mess bore the name “Noah Harris”, whom it appeared had fallen from a great height. He checked himself for bruising and broken bones. His feet were firm and his legs were regaining strength quickly. No way, he concluded.
The second folder was also close to his bed, so he picked it up. It bore the name “Qiu Heng”. He was about to discard it, then it occurred to him that he had no reason to do so; he hurriedly sought out a mirror and examined his own reflection. The likelihood quickly come unstuck. Glancing over at the other beds, he saw that one of the three dead patients was indeed Asian.
The next folder he checked bore the name of “John McKinnon”, the reason for whose hospitalization was some kind of explosion. He certainly didn’t look in the condition of somebody who had been injured in an explosion. “Besides,” he said aloud, if only to hear another voice, “that sounds too dangerous a situation for me to get in.” It immediately occurred to him that this was a frivolous statement; in truth, he had no idea who he was, so couldn’t know what kind of situation he ever found himself in. Still, observing the remaining two corpses as best he could, he found that they looked arguably as intact as himself, so he was none the wiser about John McKinnon.
Without reaching a conclusion, he turned to the last folder: “Name: Jaydon Wolden. Reason for hospitalization: car crash.” Having read all that he could find relating to the patients here, he had to admit that none of the names rang any bell with him; not even the vaguest nudge to hint at his identity. Still, logic told him that it was most likely his name was the one on the folder he now held. He adopted the identity in that moment.
At least I have a name now to introduce myself, he thought, and said it aloud: “Jayden Wolden.”
As he walked through the hospital’s hallways, all around him seemed empty; there were no signs of life.
“Is anyone here?” he shouted, but the only sounds he heard were those of his own breathing.
Jaydon knew nothing of the past; he was only in the present. And, the present he found himself in reminded him of an asylum in some bygone century, rather than any modern hospital. He didn’t know why, but he knew that he had to leave this place as quickly as possible. Being here was generating a growing sense of foreboding, and an increasing number of questions which seemed to have no answer. Besides, loneliness was evidence of abandonment, and he felt an inexplicable sadness that someone had left him here.
His lips were dehydrated and dry; only water could satisfy his parched throat. He started searching through the floor for bottles, but he was out of luck. “There must be some, somewhere,” he said. When he came across a floorplan on the wall, he found that he was on the second level; an icon showed him that there was a shop on the ground floor.
The door to his left had an exit light above it, and led to the staircase. He quickly descended to the ground floor.
“Is anyone here?” he shouted again. The deafening silence once more eroded his fragile emotional state.
Unable to do much else, he focused on searching for the shop; a half-fallen sign dangling precariously by a single cable told him that it was situated farther along the hallway. He followed it.
The shop, as the sign had correctly shown, was still there, but the recurring theme of this locale was no different; it was yet another eerie place, far removed from any recent human attention. But as he approached, and saw potato chips, croissants and chocolate scattered all over the floor, his stomach shook gratefully, emitting a long, loud rumble. “Thank you,” he said aloud, wondering how long it had been since he last ate.
He picked up one of the croissants and, after opening the packaging, downed it in four bites. His sense of hunger not yet sated, it demanded more food. He scooped up all of the croissants he could see and devoured them.
He didn’t throw aside the last croissant’s packaging, as he did the others, but instead examined it for the expiry date. “Best before 12/2018”. Had it expired? He realized that the whole enquiry was pointless, since he had no idea what today’s date was.
He tried to locate water to drink near the shop’s front door, where a customer would usually pick one up. And, sure enough, there was a fridge filled with soft drinks and bottles of water. He imagined the appliance bathed in a golden light, as if Heaven-sent; in Jaydon’s mind, its presence felt like divine intervention, as the fridge stood tall before him. He yanked open the door and grabbed a bottle of water, opening it quickly and gulping its contents in huge mouthfuls. It overflowed from his mouth as he drank, down his chin, and landed in a small waterfall on his shirt.
When he had finished, he let out a satisfied exclamation and wiped his mouth with the back of his palm. Then, he took another bottle in his hands and slipped it into his pocket, for when he became thirsty again.
The hospital’s exit door was on the ground floor, and it didn’t take long for him to find it. When he opened it, a blinding light covered his eyes, and he suddenly couldn’t see. He placed his hand quickly over his eyes, shading them, and tried to accustom visually to what was around him. It was so bright that all he could see was the outline of cars and buildings.
Under the shade of his hand, he made his way along where he imagined a road to be, but what was actually grass, as he waited for his eyes to adjust. A few moments later, his eyes slowly became accustomed to the daylight.
And that was when he saw what he had feared: endless loneliness across the landscape; a cloud of silence covered it.
The loneliness in the hospital seemed to penetrate the entire outer world, too. Empty roads were filled with abandoned cars, many having crashed into each other; motorcycles lay damaged on the roads and sidewalks. Any sign of humanity was absent. Only mankind’s haunting presence was all about the place, his work everywhere, like a painter’s signature, on the artist’s creations.
The road was a wide one, and seemed to be a prominent avenue or a central artery. Looking behind him, he could still see the hospital; he hadn’t gone too far as yet. To the left and right of him, large buildings stood tall. As he followed the road, the landscape remained the same, and his bewilderment and sense of solitude only kept growing. He passed a car and hesitated momentarily, seeing a figure moving in the windshield; it was merely his own reflection.
He examined his face, which was youthful but seemed weathered. He had a rugged handsomeness about him, and his thick but short-cropped hair went well with his image. He guessed he was over thirty, probably in the early years of his fourth decade. The reflection strangely relieved him. Immediately, though, he criticized himself for that, acknowledging that he had allowed vanity to invade his life. Here he was, facing an existential situation, and he was relieved by a pretty reflection. When he thought about that, it made him realize more acutely that he needed to get himself to civilization.
He knew that, when you had already made the first step, without even having moved your feet, you invariably reached your goal more quickly; the hardest part was trying to reach it without assistance or motivation. Still, none of this understanding changed the result for him; the important thing was that he advanced.
Before him, he saw a huge board, bearing the globally recognized logo of a McDonald’s restaurant. His stomach growled again. He wanted real food, even if it was cold and reminded him of plastic foam. The shutters were closed. He approached the door, and observed that someone had broken its glass panel. The door read “Pull”, which he did, finding that it was already open. With careful steps, he entered the restaurant.
The only light which bathed the area came from a small skylight in the ceiling, and he approached the counter area tentatively. With each step came the sound of broken glass, which came as something of a surprise. His curiosity was activated and took on autonomous function; he looked down. He regretted it instantly, unsettled and repulsed: the whole place was swarming with insects and slithering with worms, one of which was already climbing his shirt; he couldn’t see it, but he felt its tickle. The moment his brain calculated the unseen insect’s presence, he made an instant movement to throw off the stowaway. Now in an irrational panic, he tried running back toward the exit, but his shoes were slipping on the worms he left mangled in his wake. The floor became like an ice-rink, and Jaydon felt like he was crossing it without skates. He managed two steps, but on the third he slipped and found himself face down on the floor, with the army of bugs. They didn’t lose a moment, climbing all over him.
Although his legs were still a little wobbly from his hospitalization, a survival instinct triggered by fear helped him back onto his feet in a quick motion, and he rushed for the exit. From his impetus, many of the insects fell off by themselves, and he swatted those which remained, as if patting out a fire on his clothes. Many of those which fell were introduced to the sole of his shoe. His vocabulary comprised only the most imaginative curse words.
He kept walking, returning to his imagined course on the street. Desolation spread all around. He couldn’t know if he ever used to be the lonesome type or not – one of those who willingly isolated themselves from the world – but he knew that he needed to hear someone’s voice now. He felt disoriented, as if looking at an unmarked map, and he knew that only communication could guide him in this uncharted world.
He spotted houses to his right and turned toward them. They appeared to be midway through being torn down and, judging by the clues all about him, had been abandoned for a long time. His disappointment almost reached a fever pitch, but he didn’t give up; he kept walking.
With all of his strength, he shouted: “Is anybody there? Can anyone hear me? I don’t mean any harm; I just need help!” He waited for a moment, after each time he shouted, but the reply he received was always the same: a loud silence.
Fate brought him to an open landscape of grass framed by trees. In the middle was a smaller area of dirt, suggesting that this had once been a baseball field. The uncut grass hindered Jaydon’s crossing of the park slightly, at almost two feet in length.
When he was halfway across, he could barely make out two shadows underneath a big tree before him. Jaydon observed them, hoping that they might be people, and trudged a little out of his way to reach them. As he approached, the shadows did indeed appear to form into two human figures, who looked to be relaxing in the shade, under the canopy of the tree. Finally, a sign of life, he thought, and shouted to them, waving his hand, in great anticipation of their reply.
As he approached the tree, stepping out of the tall grass, he came to a round, flat surface of ground. He started to become immediately forlorn; the human shadows faced him, but neither was moving. When Jaydon greeted them, they remained silent. A long emptiness followed, bringing negative thoughts which he didn’t want to believe at that moment. But, when he leant toward them, he received the confirmation he expected, and his eyes closed, sadly.
Death had played its part, and the only thing it left alive were the shadows of these people in the sun. Their torn clothes revealed the gender of each; the same couldn’t be credited to their faces, both of which had been mutilated.
Seeing the couple like this, although saddening, didn’t provoke the feeling of repulsion he might have expected from their brutal condition; rather, he felt some baffling aspect of familiarity with their soulless state. The bodies did bring questions, however, the most prominent being: Who killed these people, and why? Looking about the open space around him, his mind filled with more and more questions.
As he was lost in his scattered, uneasy thoughts, a loud roar brought him back to reality. It came from directly behind him.
A shiver ran down his body and he froze, his fantastical mind running riot, until he was terrified, but unsure why. Still, boldness requires a first step and, after taking a deep breath, Jaydon started to turn around – first his head, then the rest of his body.
The king of the jungle was standing right before him, and Jaydon stared at it in bewilderment. With its huge mane, the lion showed infinite pride, and by its roar, his dominance.
Jaydon bowed his head, lowering his eyes from the foolhardy stare. The fear and awe he felt for the wild animal were equalled by his respect: recognition of the magnificent beast’s superior rank. Under different (safer) circumstances, he would be ecstatic at the honour of facing such an imposing animal as up close as this; under the current ones, however, what he instead chose to do was run, as far as he could, like there was no tomorrow.
His flight began, and he prayed that the lion would remain put and let him leave calmly, in peace. But, the sight of the lion taking flight after him reminded Jaydon we don’t always get what we want. It suddenly occurred to him that running from the sprint-hunter was a big mistake.
Concentrating on nothing but his escape, he could hear the thumping of the lion’s paws behind him, but his only hope lay in keeping his eyes to the front. The strength of will he invested in his survival made his heart feel like it was about to explode, and he didn’t know how much running he could withstand. Soon, exhaustion made him stop and, with a sombre sigh, he accepted his fate. Panting, he stood there waiting for the lion’s sharp claws to tear into his back, and ruthlessly end his slim hope of survival. The strongest had won, he knew, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the unavoidable.
A moment later, he opened them again, as he realized he felt nothing. The lion had not unleashed the attack he was expecting.
When he saw why, he realized he had not come out as the victor; it wasn’t even a race. His smile was indescribable, as broad as his luck, as he realized that the lion had only been protecting his food – the couple under the tree – and Jaydon had been standing between them. He was in no doubt that if the bodies hadn’t been there, he would have taken their place.
He quickly retreated, allowing the lion its peace.
The sun kept burning down, without any sign of moving in the sky. He imagined it to be noon, with this heat, but the sun’s position indicated that it was evening. He paid little attention to it, taken as he was by higher priorities, like finding someone to explain what had happened, where he was, and maybe even help him to regain his memory. It was as if he were trapped in a maze; everything around him was the same.
He noticed a rising grey streak in the sky, which looked like a trail of smoke. Finally, a dose of hope flowed through his blood. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, he thought, and fire indicates life. Was this his chance of liberation from the unknown?
He saw that the smoke was coming from the forest before him. It took him a moment to ponder the strangeness of a forest in the middle of the city? He started toward it.
A huge concrete area opened before him, which looked like it was at one time a parking lot. It was full of abandoned cars, all of their colours faded, as if someone had spent days using a sander on them. He crossed the lot, where huge trees grew on a great expanse of land, surrounded by water – an island. To his right was a bridge; he focused on the sight before him for a while, before turning his attention to it. The bridge led to the unnatural island.
As soon as he crossed it, the landscape changed. As he passed through the huge trees, a small, collapsed rollercoaster suddenly appeared, and a huge, tattered banner; he suddenly realized that he was in a theme park.
Intense fauna covered the machines; the famous carousel looked rooted in the ground, its horses having taken on a green colour. A rotating aeroplane ride was there before, but it had fallen over, crashing through its kiosk.
Destruction on this scale could surely only have been caused by an earthquake, he reasoned. But then, where were the people? Why hadn’t the rides been rebuilt?
His head felt close to breaking, an agonizing migraine manifesting from the never-ending questions. He felt rooted in the present, prevented from understanding any moments in the past, or even moving into the future. The fire had to still be burning, as the smoke was still visible. He hoped that this discovery would soothe his head.
He kept on his course, passing a large, round kiosk, its columns collapsed but its green roof still standing. From afar, the kiosk looked like it was wearing a green hat, perhaps a sombrero. As he approached the forest he had seen from afar, huge trees and tall grass once again made up the landscape. The fire must be somewhere around here, he thought. The tall grass made walking difficult, but the rough terrain didn’t deter him, and he kept walking.
After a while, he saw an overhang in the distance. When he reached it, he finally located the source of the smoke: a small fire was burning, a little way from the overhang, which appeared to have been transformed into a shelter. A makeshift construction held a cooking pot over the flames, and Jaydon could smell food cooking. The area here seemed tidier – “cleaned” – and there was nothing else visible beside the canopy which constituted a tent, beneath the rock. Whoever lived here was obviously isolated and had made it their home.
“Is there anyone here?” he shouted.
A sound came from the tent.
Jaydon was immediately alert, his eyes glued to the makeshift hovel’s entrance. After everything he had been through, he tried to prepare himself for yet another outrageous possibility.
A man stepped out of the tent. Jaydon stood silent and observed him. The man’s skin was a few shades darker than his own, and he was very dirty, as if he hadn’t bathed in some time.
A smile formed on the man’s face when he saw Jaydon, displaying a row of rotten teeth. The unusual hat the man wore was shaped like a pyramid, twisted out of an animal’s hide. Jaydon couldn’t help wondering what kind of person he was looking at.
Seeing Jaydon’s expressionless look, the man’s smile dropped a little. “Why are you here, stranger?” he asked.
“I need help,” Jaydon said, desperation suddenly flooding into his voice. “I don’t know where I am. Or, when this is. I don’t even know what country it is.”
Jaydon’s unrestrained humility made the man’s smile return. “You look tired. Come, let’s eat first, then I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
Jaydon saw no other alternative; his stomach had already signalled its decision to accept the offer of dinner. At first sight, the man who would feed him seemed kind and polite, gradually dispelling any fears that Jaydon had. He therefore thanked the man and approached.
He was invited to sit on a stool which looked like it had been salvaged from a shoe shop, and seemed oddly out of place.
“What’s your name, stranger?”
“Jaydon.”
“Very good,” the man said, standing to dish up food from the fire. “My name is Seraphim, and I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I am famous around here for my stew.”
“Good, because I haven’t eaten anything in hours.”
Seraphim suddenly looked at him, curiously. “Hours?”
Jaydon was a little perturbed by the man’s strange, quizzical look. “Must be.”
Seraphim’s eyes narrowed. “Where have you come from?”
“Here, I think. I’m having problems remembering.”
Seraphim served up two deep bowls to them. The smell which arose didn’t whet the appetite, and it didn’t look like stew as Jaydon knew it, thicker as it was, its meat unidentifiable.
“What kind of meat is this?” Jaydon asked, looking skeptically at his spoon.
“It’s meat; my special,” Seraphim said, with a smile. “Eat it; you’ll like it.”
In spite of the unhelpful answer, Jaydon ate. His tastebuds got to work immediately, all of the different flavours jostling for prominence. It was delicious, the result utopian, compared to what he imagined by its appearance. The smell could have easily put him off, but it tasted good enough to finish in an instant. When the main dish was a thing of the past, the meal was finished by an equally mysterious dessert, raising more tasty questions.
“Where are we?” asked Jaydon.
“Phoenix, Arizona.”
“The United States.”
Seraphim shook his head; “Former United States. Now, it’s just called America.”
“What happened?”
“What does it look like happened?” Seraphim asked, suddenly looking angry. “The same thing that always happens: war.”
“What war?”
“The Great War.”
Seeing the questioning look from Jaydon, Seraphim added: “It was long moments ago.”
Seraphim was a man of a few words, though he seemed to think them through, as if careful to pace them. He was an enigmatic man, who clearly knew much more than he let on. Jaydon wondered if the stranger had suffered in the war he referred to; maybe just talking about it was painful for him. It certainly appeared to anger him. Perhaps Seraphim had even played some darker role in the conflict, hence why he was unwilling to discuss it more deeply. Perhaps he was a deserter, or a traitor; maybe a prisoner of war? Maybe he had been condemned to exile? All possibilities would suggest that he was holding something back.
Jaydon considered his words, then frowned: “‘Long moments ago’?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Seraphim asked, curiously. “Did you just wake up from a coma, or something?”
“That would be impossible, right?” said Jaydon, awkwardly. “It’s just an unusual phrase, that’s all; I’ve never heard it before. ‘Long moments’.”
“The sun stopped setting in Phoenix many, many moments ago.”
Jaydon looked at him. “What?”
“Time has stopped, stranger.”
Jaydon stared at the man, dumbfounded.
Seraphim grinned. “Don’t look at me like that; you’ll get used to it. Then you’ll know you’re going mad.”
Jaydon didn't know if Seraphim was trying to provoke a reaction from him, or elicit empathy for someone who had clearly been through a lot, judging by his appearance. Maybe he was a madman.
“Are there many other madmen out there?” he asked, growing a little nervous.
“Other madman?” Seraphim replied, and something in the man’s eyes sent a strange shiver down Jaydon’s spine. “I’m not mad – just schizophrenic.”
As Jaydon tried to decrypt the words’ meaning, Seraphim was shoving a hand into his pocket and, with a lightning-quick motion, grabbed the makeshift knife he kept there. He made his motion with such ease and spontaneity, it was clear that the whole process was mechanical and practiced, as if his hand knew the motion perfectly, having executed it countless times. The knife’s smooth, thin, pointed blade shone under the sun’s rays, and its tape-covered handle looked attached to the man’s hand as if they were one. Jaydon blinked, as if the glare from the blade blinded him.
Seraphim was already poised to plunge the knife into his left outer carotid artery. The crazed bloodlust which came over his face looked like that of a hunter, the moment he fired his bullet toward the target. The knife was coming, with strength and determination behind it.
Jaydon’s perception immediately suggested the event was now inevitable, its outcome already decided. But then, in the immense room of his mind, a light suddenly switched on, as if someone had turned on a lamp in the darkness, and allowed Jaydon a glimpse into his shaded past…
November 30th, 2005.
The room was filled with shouting and the sounds of struggle. A mass of similarly styled people filled the area, mostly well-muscled men, though this didn’t stop women from participating in the series of exercises. At first, the image could have been from any gym class, so synchronized they were in their movements. The average age of the group couldn’t be over twenty-five, and very few were beyond this.
The area seemed sealed. There were no windows, the only light in the room from lamps positioned in such a way as to light every inch of the place. The grey of the concrete walls gave off a sense of dullness, as if they were miles beneath Earth’s warm, colourful surface.
The exercise appeared to be a serious deal; a strong, deep voice filled the area, continuously shouting at the students to correct their mistakes. “No one forgives a mistake,” the voice shouted, “not even God. Make a mistake once and you’ll be making mistakes forever.”
The bearer of the voice looked like a war veteran, who may have left the battlefield, but not the warrior life. He still carried with him an inevitable sense of war, and was now sowing it in the fertile soil of this room, convincing himself that these seeds would grow into what was required.
The cast iron door opened, and a younger man entered the great room. He wore the same clothing as the rest: a blue, short-sleeved shirt which bore the initials “C.I.A.” in white lettering, a pair of pants of the same colour and black exercise boots. When the trainer saw him, he shouted in a deep voice:
“Wolden, pair up with Jones, quickly.”
“Yes, sir.”
They were all separated into pairs, training in close-quarters combat. One of the two would try to attack with a knife, while the other would defend, trying to disarm him. Jaydon took a defensive position and faced Jones.
“Begin,” the trainer shouted.
Jones made a move to charge Jaydon, who failed in his first attempt to parry the attack. He immediately looked at the trainer.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t put the necessary strength behind it.”
“It’s more important to learn focus,” the trainer said. “Don’t worry, when your life’s on the line, you’ll find strength.”
…The light may have been turned off, but in Jaydon the switch always remained on.
His irises grew and his senses sharpened, adrenaline filling his body. His brain functioning was lightning-fast, processing information at lightspeed. In the developing situation, from somewhere within, the command had already been given to apply defence tactics.
With a motion which surprised Seraphim, Jaydon used his arm as a shield, stopped the knife’s trajectory, while grabbing and squeezing the attacking hand. Upon realizing the unexpected development, Seraphim instantly seemed lost, as if instinctively knowing that he had calculated wrong.
He had never before experienced resistance from the food he hunted; up until that moment, his biggest problem had been cooking it. Who would imagine that, now, here he was having to fight for his own life – a life he had never thought he would lose, having been out here, completely alone, for so many moments. Now, the will to live projected in Jaydon’s eyes made Seraphim reconsider his entire presumption. The fire which used to burn inside him had been extinguished a long time ago, and it was only this very moment made him realize that. The wick had melted off, and he only now recognized it.
Seraphim watched Jaydon forcefully take the knife in his own hand, with a hateful vengeance he had never before seen on a person’s face. Accepting the inevitable, Seraphim finally prepared to resume his material form; he had long since driven away any soul that he recalled once used to be housed in his interior, before the monster he had become. He closed his eyes and waited patiently for his defeat, and his release.
The knife was shoved so forcefully into his carotid artery that the blood sprayed like a fountain, misting the ground like rain; Jaydon’s entire arm was covered in blood. As Seraphim fell to the ground, Jaydon stood and stared at him, coldly, his face calm. He felt no regret for his actions; he had just squished a bug with his foot.
When Seraphim was dead, Jaydon’s first thought wasn’t to flee the scene, but to dispose of the corpse; he couldn’t just leave it there.
The fire which cooked their food was going out, so he gathered as many logs as he could to rejuvenate it. As soon as it was prospering again, he took the lifeless body by the feet and dragged it over, hoisting it onto his back and tossing it onto the flames, which instantly grew.
Watching the body cremated, Jaydon was filled with questions. Who was that man he had just become? Was he himself some cold-blooded killer? Why did he feel no remorse in taking a human life? Perhaps he was simply obeying the law of the jungle: the survival of the fiercest? Or, as he couldn’t help thinking was more likely, had someone trained the sense of remorse from him? Tortured by all of these questions, he observed his would-be killer turning to ash.
He still had the stains of his fight covering his arm, and he wanted to wash them off. Searching the tent, he found a bucket filled with water and, without thinking, plunged his arm inside. The water was warmed by the ever-shining sun. He rubbed and scraped at the blood, forcefully trying to remove it from his skin, and the bucket’s contents slowly turned the colour of violence.
The reflection in that macabre water displayed a face unknown to him: that of a stranger he was meeting for the first time. Coldness was in his eyes. Whoever was in the reflection was surely a relic of his past – a past which, the deeper he explored its depths, the more afraid he was of releasing it onto the surface of the present.
Maybe my amnesia is a gift, he thought; a second chance at life.
He shook his head to clear it. He needed to think about what to do now, from this point. Seraphim had mentioned that there were others in Phoenix, but the area was completely unknown to him, so he had to discover them each as blindly as he had encountered the cannibal. For him, it seemed the unknown had become a habit.
Before abandoning the site he searched the tent, hoping to find anything useful for the hardships ahead. The interior was disorganized, more so than the area outside, and it appeared as if a miniature person had once lived there. There were soft drink cans thrown about the ground, and a rudimentary mattress was placed in the corner, its sheets tied into knots and covered in dirty patches. He didn’t know what kind of dreams had been created on that mattress, in this atmosphere infected by an endless void and a pointless abyss, without any purpose or hope. When reality is a nightmare, only sleep can bring dreams.
In the pile of garbage was a backpack. He opened its zipper and realized it was empty. He wasn’t discouraged from taking it though, since he had found a means of portable storage. When he tried to find anything of any actual use to carry in it, however, it dawned on him that the only thing here of any real benefit was Seraphim’s knife; the murder weapon. He put it in his pocket.
After pulling the backpack on, he took a deep breath. Then, with the sun burning his face, he stepped into his constant present.
