A Fractured Mind, Part 1

He awoke in total darkness. His mind was groggy, and he found it hard to think. He sat up, and as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark room, he realized that he had no idea where he was.

He was lying on a cold, metallic table surrounded by strange tools and machines. The sound of whirring and buzzing filled the air, and though he initially believed the place was pitch black, it was in fact simply very dark, as a dull red light illuminated the room from below.

Startled, he leapt off the table, which triggered an alarm that filled the room with more red light and a deafening blare that shook his eardrums. Panicked and still groggy from having just woken up, he almost barely missed the door across the surprisingly large room. With little choice, he ran towards the door and pulled it open, revealing a vast and dry grassland that seemed to go on forever. Without a hint of hesitation, he ran with all his might, though he had no idea where to run to.

He didn't know how long he ran for, or how far. The grassland soon gave way to empty roads and wastelands, yet he never stopped running. At some point, he thought he'd collapse from heat and exhaustion, but somehow he never did. The day soon turned into night, and when he began to worry about finding shelter, he happened upon an empty town just off the road. The entire town had mostly been destroyed by wind and rain, but there were still a handful of houses left standing, though only barely. He ran towards the first house he could find and took shelter within as the sun began to fall below the horizon.

The house had seen better days. Whatever furniture left inside had either rotted or eroded in some way, and the floor creaked awfully with every step he took. Though he tried to look for a bed that he could sleep in, he eventually gave up and sat down on the floor. Now that he had time to think for a bit, he sat down and tried to remember whatever he could.

His name... was Eric. It took him a moment, but the moment he remembered that, it was as if he had never forgotten it. All at once, his memories flooded back: his childhood, his time at the academy, and his career as an engineer. He also remembered the end times; the unending wars, the threat of nuclear fallout, and the cries of a dying planet.

He suddenly remembered that he had spent at least several hours running around out in the open and began to worry. Could he have inadvertently exposed himself to nuclear radiation like that? Was the facility he was in meant to protect him from the deadly environment outside?

Eric slapped himself to bring him back to his senses. What was the point of worrying about that now? It was more important to figure out exactly where he was and what had happened to him. Nuclear radiation was a big issue, but only if this area was actually irradiated in the first place. Furthermore, it's not as if there was anything he could do even if he was exposed at this point.

Eric took some time to think. There were definitely some huge gaps in his memory; though he could perfectly recall most of his life up to a certain point, he had no idea what year it was now and how he had ended up in that facility in the first place. Even his most recent memories were extremely fuzzy, making hard to even remember where he had been last.

It was no good. Try as he might, he simply couldn't remember anything else. His head hurt, and the coming night drowned the house in darkness. He closed his eyes, laid on the rotted wood, and fell asleep. Perhaps getting some rest would help him remember.

Unfortunately, when he woke up the next morning, he still couldn't remember anything about why he was in that building or what had happened to the world. To make things worse, he was starting to worry about food and water as well. He wasn't feeling hungry yet, but it would probably start kicking in soon, and he wanted to find some kind of sustenance before that happened.

Eric gingerly stepped out of the house he was hiding out in and took a look at the ruins of the town outside. There were only a few structures left standing, and while that meant searching would probably not take him much time, it also meant that if he didn't find anything there, he was probably out of luck. From where he had taken shelter in, he could see a handful of houses in the distance, still standing thanks to the large rock formation that towered over it, blocking a good number of the winds that might have blown them over. There was probably no better place to start.

The town could not have been any more than a few miles wide in diameter, so it only took around an hour for Eric to make it to the houses on the other side of town. The houses were in the same condition as the one he took shelter in last night, and he spent the next hour gingerly walking through and searching each one. Unfortunately, much to his suspicions, they contained no food that he could eat nor water he could drink. Not even rotted remains of food were left behind; the best he could find was desiccated husks and dust. The thought of it made him worry. How large was the gap in his memories?

He walked around the rest of the town, even though he could not see anything in particular that might have held anything of use to him. Though most of the buildings had been knocked down or blown away, he could still make out what some of them used to be just by the marks left in the ground. A former supermarket here, a convenience store over here... the memories of a town gone by began playing through his eyes, though he had no idea what town he was supposed to be in.

At some point, Eric walked past a hole in the ground. It was plugged up with debris and rock, and for whatever reason it seemed peculiar to him. Suddenly, he had an epiphany, and quickly began digging up the rock and debris. His reward was a deep dark hole that seemed to descend several feet into the ground. However, he pushed his head into the hole and focused on his ears. After a moment of silence, he heard what he was desperate to hear: the sound of running water. His hunch was right: this hole used to be part of a well, and by chance it happened to still be connected to that water source.

Eric immediately ran to find something that he could use to scoop up the water. By sheer miracle, he managed to scrounge up something that looked halfway like a bucket and used weeds from a nearby patch of grass to fashion something like a rope. It took another hour or so of hard work, but by the end of it, he had his first cup of water in who knows how long.

Not that it changed much. He had water, sure, but without a source of food he was certain to wither away eventually. He had only bought himself some time, and it wouldn't take long before he started feeling the hunger pangs. He could already feel his empty stomach starting to churn, though it was still bearable for now. He looked up at the sky. It wasn't noon yet, but it was going to get warmer in no time. At the very least, he needed to rest under some shade for the time being.

As the day went on, Eric tried to forage through whatever greens were in the area for anything he could possibly sate his hunger with, but he found nothing aside from some weeds that were questionably edible. He tried catching an animal for meat, but the only animals around were too small and quick for him to ever grab ahold of them. He did find a few bugs underneath some rocks, but he wanted to wait until he got a bit more desperate before resorting to that.

Sunset arrived with Eric having little to show for his forages around town. With nothing else for it, Eric tried to sate his stomach with another drink of water from the well that he'd found and once again took shelter in the house he'd slept in the night before. As he lay down on the floor, he realized that he was so busy trying to procure food and water that he hadn't even thought about his missing memories.

He sighed and tried to sleep, but worry continued to seep into his thoughts. What would he do if he couldn't find food? Moreover, what could he do even if he could find food? Did he really want to stay in this town forever, uncertain of when his meager supplies would finally run out? He certainly did not.

But what else could he do? The little bit of water he could scrounge up was definitely not enough for him to go on any form of extended journey. Even if he assumed he could find food and water while traveling, there was no way he was good enough to do all of that of his own. No, it was more likely that he'd end up a corpse in some woodlands, either due to starvation or to any wild creatures he had the misfortune of coming across.

In the end, these worries continued to wrack Eric's brain until, at some point, he fell asleep. Soon it was morning again, and after getting another drink of water from his makeshift well, he began exploring the town for signs of food once again. When his hands came up empty yet again, he decided to wait out the hot afternoon hours inside his house. He didn't want to sweat too much, after all. He laid on the floor of his house and decided to nap for bit, hoping it would help him ignore the growls of his stomach.

When he awoke a few hours later, he detected the sound of something he hadn't heard in quite some time: footsteps belonging to another person. Two people, in fact: a man and a woman, judging by their voices. Eric gingerly crept over to a window and peeked out to see if he could catch a glimpse of them. He felt like he was being overly cautious, but considering his situation, he doubted he could be blamed for that.

The two strangers looked to be standing on the big dusty hill that overlooked the town. They were some distance away, but Eric could at least tell they were clearly prepared for long journeys, wearing both big packs and durable clothes. He thought about running out to meet them, but thought better of it. What if they were actually bandits out to kill him? He had no idea about the state of the world, and the less risks he took, the better.

To his surprise, the travelers seemed to show no caution in walking around the town themselves. They had no weapons, and while they seemed attentive enough, they didn't seem to be worried about any enemies being around. Had he overestimated the impact of the war? Was there even a war going on in the first place? If only he could remember...

Eric was so lost in thought that by the time his mind wandered back to the subject of the travelers, he realized that they were standing at the doorstep to the house he was hiding in. It was a natural thing for them to do–especially if they were scavengers–but it happened a lot faster than he expected. They'd find him pretty quickly, and right now, he didn't know if he wanted that.

He wanted to move deeper into the house, but he knew the floors were so creaky that even a single step would betray his presence to the travelers. He tried crawling slowly, but even then slight creaks would squeak out every time he pressed his palms down. As he continued to ponder what to do, he heard the door open, and the telltale sounds of footsteps on creaky floorboards told him he had little time left. Resigned, he sat up and waited to be discovered. At the very least, he didn't have to worry about being held up at gunpoint.

After a few short moments, the two travelers entered the room Eric was hiding in. To his surprise, they didn't seem all that startled by his presence–instead, it seemed like they had expected to find him there. Now that they were closer, he was surprised to find that the two were surprisingly young, despite their apparent experience with travel. As he wondered as two their background, the young man spoke up.

“Excuse me. You're Eric, aren't you?”

That caught him off guard. He was missing some memories, sure, but he was certain that he had never met this person before. His confusion must have been clear on his face, as the young man quickly moved to clarify.

“Oh, sorry. This must all be confusing to you, right? Don't worry, we're not here to cause you harm; if anything, we were sent here to rescue you.”

“Rescue? That sounds nice,” Eric admitted.

The young man replied with a warm smile. “My name is Caleb. Can I do anything for you?”

“...Could I get something to eat?”