Sometimes I found myself dreaming the same thing over and over again.
A young lady. She looked…young? I always couldn’t remember her face, but her expression was sad. It was as if she’d lost her entire world.
Her hair glistened under the bright sun. Must have been summer or something.
Every time in that dream, I would see her holding a spear. It looked old. Rugged. Ancient. Her hands were always gripping it tightly yet passionately.
Despite having a weak-looking figure, the face was definitely that of a warrior. I could see scars all over her arms and legs.
“I promise that the future you dread so much will never happen.”
And with that, she plunged the spear directly into my chest.
What seems to be pure darkness began to envelop me, slowly draining me of all my senses. An endless pit, a never-ending sea of void.
And yet, I felt peaceful.
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The young man sprung open his eyes.
An unfamiliar sight.
He looked around, finding himself in a mysterious place. He was laying on top of a very worn-out bed. A sink was standing lone in the corner, right next to a bidet. And the window above him was decorated with iron bars.
A word immediately popped into his mind.
Prison.
Out of nowhere, a sharp pain came over his head.
Ugh, shit.
Muffled voices in the distance tugged his ear. And the sound of chains shackling somewhere outside echoed into the nearly-silent cell.
His eyes glanced at the iron bars that seemed to be standing between him and what seemed to be an exit door.
#2932, he read the labels on the orange shirt which he was wearing. A prisoner? He wondered.
But he couldn’t remember anything. Not what he did, nor where he had been in the past, nor the friends that he had made before. Huh, he chuckled with a sense of despair. He couldn’t even remember my own name.
What kind of amnesia was this? Did he hit his head so hard that years of his life were erased?
Shit, he uttered.
The door on the outside suddenly flung open, and through came what seemed to be a prison guard. No, more of a warden. He had this stoic look on his face, not to mentioned the unconventional suit on him.
And beside him was the usual security guard, the one that would be seen in malls.
Still lying on his bed, he pretended to be asleep while facing outside. His eyes, although appearing to be shut, were actually just slightly open enough to see what was going on.
“I heard a storm’s coming. Man, I wanted to watch the football game tonight.”
“And this is why you should have asked HQ for an Internet TV instead of satellite ones.”
While checking each cell, the two slowly made their way pass the entire row of cells. And with the click of a door on the other end, the silence returned.
The man sighed. But he was trembling with fear.
With virtually no memory of why he was in prison, or who he even was, he didn’t know what to do. Should he play pretend and act as if everything was normal? Yet, he didn’t want to spend my days rotting in a cell for something I didn’t even remember doing.
The sharp pain came over his head again.
Gah! I must have hit my head pretty hard to cause this amnesia and this recurring headache.
The lights in the cells began to turn off one by one, only leaving the ones in the hallway. His eyes fell on the clock that hung on the wall just above the door outside.
8.50pm.
Beside the clock was a working surveillance camera. It was working because of its red light that blinked regularly every now and then.
Stolen story; please report.
A silent yawn came out of his mouth.
Even though he had just woke up from what seemed to be an unknown sleep, the young man somehow felt exhausted. Like a chunk of his energy was sipped away.
He had no idea what to do about his mysterious amnesia. And so, while thinking about what to think about, his brain was too tired to keep on cracking.
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KRAKROOM!
A loud thunder jolted the prisoner awake.
It was raining heavily outside, since next to the bed was the barred window (which was too high for him to pop his head into and look outside). The sound of rain and the smell of moist grass gave the atmosphere a chilly feeling. He shivered.
He rubbed his barely-opened eyes to check on the time.
1:30am.
This feeling of waking up in the middle of the night seemed oddly familiar to him. And so far, that was the only “nostalgic feeling” that he had. Unfortunately, it didn’t manage to jog his memory or anything. He must have been some hardworking employee or a student who was chasing all his assignment deadlines.
Just as he was about to go back to sleep, his ears tingled at the sound of a whisper in the midst of the heavy rain that was watering the outside world.
“Psstt…”
Must be one of the other prisoners, he thought to himself. Prison was the place where all sorts of shady shit happens anyway.
The sound came again. “Pssst…”
It was only then that he realised that it came just outside of his cell.
Sitting up, he turned around to see the exact suited warden he saw earlier walking past his cell. Thanks to the darkness, he couldn’t see the face of the mysterious man.
“Hey you, you’re finally awake,” he spoke, but softly so the other prisoners wouldn’t be disturbed.
“Who are you?” replied the prisoner. “And how do you manage to make Skyrim references at this hour?”
The man offered out his hand. “My name is James Mareen. And you might be wondering who you are. It seems to me that you’ve suffered some sort of…amnesia.”
He gulped.
“How do you know who I am?” He asked as he moved closer to the edge of cell.
“Why can’t I remember anything? Why was I imprisoned?” In frustration, his voice started to get louder, but he managed to get a hold of himself.
The man grinned.
“I can’t answer everything. But for now, I can tell you one thing.” Then man grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to the edge of the cell.
“Your memories weren’t lost. They were altered to be hidden.”
He let go.
“What?”
He fished out a key from his pocket and proceeded to insert the key into the cell lock. His face was staring at the young prisoner the entire time.
“I need you to follow me. We have exactly 15 minutes to get out of here, or this will all be for nothing. Are you in or not?”
The young man stared dead at the eyes of his mysterious savior.
“Of course. It’s better than me rotting in this cell for no reason.”
“Good,” he grinned.
And with a turn of his key, the cell door swung open quietly.
“Now let’s get out of here.”
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“We’re almost there.”
Navigating through various hallways and corridors with the use of his ID card, the mysterious James Mareen led the way through the labyrinth of prison. Many questions popped up into the young man’s mind. Who was he? And why did he use his authority to rescue him?
No guards were stationed anywhere they passed through. The young man noticed that the surveillance cameras were somehow switched off as their red lights were not blinking.
He wondered how did this man alone managed to infiltrate such a place? Maybe that man wasn’t alone. Maybe there was more of people like him.
A flash of lightning lit up the place in front of them, illuminating two-door glass entrance. A crash of thunder then quickly followed.
Freedom was only a few steps away. And so were the answers to this baffling situation.
“Stop!”
A man’s voice and the sound of a gun clocking caused both of them to freeze in their racks. They turned around to see one of the security guards.
“Mr. Mareen? Where are you going? What are you trying to do?!”
The ‘warden’ gave a grin. “Just taking a man outside for a walk.”
The security gun walked a few steps forward, gripping his gun even tighter. “That’s bullshit. You told everyone that it was your birthday, right? So you asked all of us to gather at the staff cafeteria. So what is this crap you’re trying to pull, huh?!”
“Oh boy,” James sighed. “Looks like I met some problematic children after all.”
He raised his empty hand towards the guard.
“This’ll hurt just a little.”
The guard suddenly dropped his gun. His eyes widened and his mouth opened. He tried to speak, but no words came out. His hands were trembling.
And then he dropped onto the floor.
The young man stepped back in fear. What in the world?! He shouted in his mind.
James saw the shock on his face. “Calm down, he’s not dead. Just sleeping. He’ll wake up pretty quickly, so we need to get moving now.”
He had no idea what just happened. But he agreed with him – getting out was the top priority.
They quickly rushed through the glass door. And behold, in front of them was the middle of …
“A desert?!” A shout loud enough to be heard in the thunderstorm came out of the young man’s mouth.
James started sprinting out into the rain. “Quick, we don’t have much time. A chopper will meet us in 5 minutes just a couple hundred meters ahead.”
The other nodded.
Following behind him, his running quickly turned into walking as the heavy rain really made it harder to see nor move. Flashes of lightning lit up the night sky left and right, and claps of thunder prevented the atmosphere from getting silent.
James tried his best to keep himself within viewing distance.
The trek through the violent night felt like an eternity.
The young man felt something was wrong. Huh?
It was then that he realised that the flashes of lightning began to felt closer and closer. Soon, they were so close that his feet could feel the rumble of each lightning strike.
“We’re almost there!”
A black silhouette in the distance signalled the sign of a helicopter with its iconic rotor blades.
But the bloodthirsty thunderstorm began to ramp up its game.
KRAKROOM!
A lightning struck just 50 or so meters away to the left. Then another on the right.
With his eyes locked on to my only hope of freedom, the young man began to sprint as fast as the weather allowed me to. He was only a stone’s throw away from being a free man.
Almost. There.
Suddenly, his eyes caught hold of a bright light on the clouds directly above him.
“Quick, run–“
A single clap of thunder was the last thing he heard.
Then, there was darkness.