(Page 1 of 3) Amnesia by Zanzibar ProvinceSUMMARY: This is an exploration of bewilderment and impotence, with a touch of horror (I hope I did it right). I purposely left the main character genderless and nameless, to better stimulate your imaginations. Enjoy!"Get up, they're almost through the door!"
I was wrenched back to consciousness by the sound and sting of a solid slap to the cheek. Disoriented, I stumbled back off of whatever it was I was sitting on and fell hard to the floor, instinctively throwing my hands behind myself to break my fall. The stone was rough beneath my palms, which now burned after having been scraped raw against its surface. My vision cleared of the enveloping blackness.
"You're up! Someone, fetch some water," a dark man screamed mere inches from my face. His breath was foul and dried blood caked half of his head, spreading down from somewhere above his hairline. It similarly stained the collar of his green hunting leathers. He had to scream to make himself heard over the chorus of resounding booms echoing forth from somewhere across the room.
"They're back at it! They've a ram," someone else screamed. They were out of my sight. The pounding was now accompanied by the sounds of wood splintering and something horrible screaming. The noises were less those of pain and more of rage, or at least that is how they sounded to me.
"Here, drink." I received this order alongside a gout of water sent splashing down my throat, nearly choking me and sending me into a fit of chest-rattling coughs. "Oh, bloody hell." A heavy hand slapped me hard on the back, igniting agonizing fires throughout my chest and sending bloody spittle flying. Moans of pain escaped me.
"Eh, you must have broken a rib." This was shouted with an almost apologetic tone to it, as if the dark man was sorry he had pounded on my back.
My eyes moist, I raised them to encompass the entirety of my surroundings. I was in a smallish room, all of stone. The open sarcophagus dominating its center suggested to me it was a tomb. The two dead bodies draped over its sides, front halves burnt black, suggested to me something awful had happened here. The blackened state of my own clothing and the searing pain of my exposed flesh included me in it, though I couldn't remember what it was.
"Come on now, fight it off! We need you back with us." More pounding echoed around the chamber, accompanied by a series of sharp cracking sounds. The things fighting to get through the door were closing in on their goal.
"Take this." A sword was pressed into my hands. I stared at its dull metal blade, realizing that I knew how to wield it with much proficiency, though where and when I had learned such combat techniques remained, like so much of this situation, a mystery.
"Damn, they're through!" this shouted by a woman in full battle garb, glinting chain draping her impressive form, a war crown secure around her forehead giving her a regal bearing. Her falchion flashed at a small hole in the door and the black things thrusting their limbs through it, severing a scrawny dark arm and many fingers off a second.
I studied those fingers and the quickly withdrawing hand from which all seven had been cut. I could only wonder what sort of creature had so many digits.
The man who had needlessly alerted us all to the initial poundings of the ram stepped forward, flowing vermilion robes trailing in his wake.
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