Bourne Chronicles Pt. 1

Ouch — I'm fucked.

My last thought went more or less like that before I ended up flat on the floor. Not every day you get lucky enough to dream big!

The pain was so intense I couldn't think. My body just shut down and then rebooted after what felt like forever.

Yeah, I have the impression I lay there for a long time, until with a jolt I tried to get up.

Useless — even though the software had booted, the gears didn't respond.

Well, that's life. All I could do was wait.

God, it's cold! A frozen feeling crawled through me. A trembling chill that ran from my toes to my head, then back down to my toes and started again. Pure torture.

Also, I’m wet. Feels like I'm on top of a river. No — a little less, maybe a puddle.

Shit, did I piss myself?

As if being knocked out wasn't enough, I had to piss my pants too.

Huh… knocked out… by who?

I searched my memories for why I was on the floor.

.....

……..

………..

Yeah, nothing.

Huh… nothing? That's not how a brain works! Come on, you lazy bastard, why am I here?

.....?

No answer.

It wasn't that I couldn't grab any memories from my subconscious, there was simply nothing there.

Nothing left… at all?

"Left" would mean something had been there before.

Of course there had been. If there's a body and these thoughts, how could there be no memories?

Makes no sense! I even remember the words perfectly — so why not the rest?

Amnesia.

Fuck. I didn't just remember words, I remembered their meanings.

It was like my memory had been completely wiped.

Come to think of it, I don't think I remember... my name.

FUCK, WHY DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN TO ME?

….

I got up, drawing strength from my outrage. My body stood, but I still needed the nerve to open my eyes.

Across the room I saw a scary sight. A blood-soaked zombie, clothes torn and crumpled, stared at me drooling like a horror movie.

Gross!

I wanted to run, but my legs could barely hold me.

I took a step back, putting some distance between us.

He stepped back too.

Phew!

Wait…

I moved closer.

He did the same.

I raised my arm, like a dumb hello.

He gave me what looked like a wave goodbye.

Please, God, say he’s only mimicking me and not… that

I staggered toward him. My eyes were still adjusting to the light; only when I touched him did I realize the obvious — it was a mirror.

I lost my strength and fell onto the mirror, which shattered.

Kneeling on the cold, reflective shards, I focused on the image it held.

Through the cracks I saw my face up close:

A bruise spread across my face — it had been a hell of a hit; on the side I took the blow, even my hair had come out.

What kind of attack leaves damage that permanent?

Bleeding like crazy, I started piecing the puzzle together.

I might be confused, but I still had my enormous intelligence intact.

Torn clothes, all the needle marks on my arm, the smell of booze on every breath, the stench that followed me, that empty room.

The place was an interrogation room. They must have been drugging me for days to get me this trashed. There's no way I put myself in this state. I wouldn't be dumb enough to get that wasted on purpose. Besides, there were so many injection marks in so many places it would've been humanly impossible for me to give them to myself.

I pulled off my shirt — its sleeve was ripped too — and saw that underneath I was naked, my chest showing a military dog tag that read:

Borne To Kill.
 Zero Mercy.

Borne was spelled wrong... at least I could still read.

But something about it grabbed my attention, like that message was a basic part of my identity.

…Was I a soldier?

At least I felt like one.

A rage inside me wanted out… is that what soldiers feel?

Before I could figure it out, I heard someone approaching. The door squealed open, and a macabre voice called out:

"Morning, sunshine! Earlier you looked like a corpse — almost fooled me. But now that I see you’re very much alive and even got a bit more rest… IT’S TIME TO GET TO WORK!"

HE'S GOING TO TORTURE ME!

Without thinking, before the door fully opened, I threw myself through the still-closed window — the glass ripped me up. I also discovered we were on the second floor, so the fall wasn't pretty.

"Huh….WHAT?" I heard my torturer scream from above.

Before he could see me, I miraculously ran between the trees. My determination was so strong not even that fall could stop me.

"BOURNE, YOU FUCKING DRUG-ADDICT BASTARD!"

I heard him shout, but couldn't make out all the words.

The escape had worked.

Now I needed to find out more — about who the hell I was.

— — —

"Mmm, what a delicious omelet."

Tadashi and I ate breakfast.

Even though I wasn't eating directly, I could still taste it indirectly.

It wasn't bad at all!

It had been difficult to find things in that huge house, but when we finally arrived, the food was already on the table. I didn’t know if it was for us, but even if it wasn’t, it was already too late — we had eaten everything in record time.

“I don't know if the food in this body is also better, or if this gourmet stuff really lives up to the hype!”

With a fancy cup in her hand, our aunt arrived, surprised:

"Huh? You here? At this hour?"

"Me?" Tadashi looked around.

"She's not talking to me, right? Remember, I'm a hallucination," I said, my skeletal form sitting next to him.

"Uh… what are you doing here?"

"I'm eating... and you, auntie, what are you doing?"

"Huh... Auntie?"

Huh... what kind of doubt is that?

"Aren't you my aunt?" asked Tadashi, who clearly wasn't doing so well at imitating Zack.

Arriving in a hurry, the butler was startled to be seen in that state. Bowing profusely, he tried to speak, but his stutter prevented him.

It sounded like a car struggling to start.

"I-I-I-I... I-I'm sorry, but I..."

"Mr. Sleeve, tell me, what is young Zack doing here at this hour?" asked the aunt, opening a newspaper she was holding under her arm. The newspaper was so clean and straight that it was obvious it had been ironed.

He only seemed to notice I was there after she mentioned it.

What the hell, do we have negative presence or something?

“S-sir... Are you changed? How is that possible?”

“Huh? I just took a shower and got dressed. Everything was already there, clothes, towels.”

“My God, you even tied your tie,” the butler's eyes sparkled as he admired that beautiful tie knot.

Well, I've always done everything by myself. And tie knots are my specialty!

“Sleeve! Answer me… please.” At the very end of the sentence, it seemed my aunt remembered he wasn’t a slave, but a butler.

"Mr. Zero wasn't waking up. He was still too tired to wake up, so I thought I'd give him another hour of sleep. After all, he arrives every day about two hours early at..." He was interrupted by my aunt, who didn't even bother to take her eyes off the papers.

"Enough, we don't pay you to think. Okay, I get it, now explain the problem. I know you brought me one, even though I don't pay you to bring them either."

"I went to wake Mr. Zero, I mean, I didn't know he was awake, so I went there and..." the butler was lost for words, but the predatory look my aunt gave him out of the corner of her eye brought him back on track. "When I entered Mr. Zack's room, that idiot... Mr. Bourne was there. The room is all broken, the mirror, the floor, blood everywhere..."

Placing the newspaper on the dining table, the aunt put her hand to her forehead and sighed.

"And what else?" asked my aunt.

"When he saw me, he threw himself out the window... which was closed. I think he must be running naked through the streets right now. He dropped this."

I went to the butler, seeing the clearly fake military name tag.

"What the hell, of all days it has to happen today. You know what? Just ignore him. Let him embarrass himself alone. Today is important, just clean the place as best as possible," said my aunt, downing a big gulp of her drink — which I realized probably wasn’t just coffee.

I got up, not wanting to bring up all that negativity:

"Thanks for the food, Mr. Sleeve. I'm leaving, goodbye to you both."

My aunt pulled me by my shirt:

"Hey, Bourne didn't give you anything, did he? Stimulants, you know?"

“Huh... Bourne...Who are you talking about?”

We were determined to ignore his existence.

“Yeah, now you’re back to normal.” She let go of me, accepting my answer.

As soon as I thanked him, Sleeve began to cry and sob, apparently out of happiness. Had no one ever thanked him for anything before?

We walked out the huge, heavy front door, just as I had imagined.

The world lay open before us.

Blue sky. White clouds. Bright sun.

It was a good day.

And so far, nothing significant had happened.

NOTHING!

Just one thing... which way is the school, anyway?