March 8, 2032
Destroyed Denver, Old Colorado
His eyes opened slowly and a clear, night sky came in to his sight.
Where was he?
He groaned as he got up to his feet. White wisps of smoke rose from a brown leather jacket that was held over his back. He looked around and noticed that there was destruction all around him. Small mountains of rubble and shattered glass surrounded him. There were smashed cars with their broken headlight eyes staring at him. It seemed to him that he was in a small suburban area which stretched further away into the city. He could see jagged skyscrapers on the skyline in the distance. There was a destroyed signboard nearby which said: Denver.
He moaned softly as he slowly rose to his feet. He felt sore, as if he hadn't moved in ages.
There were no marks or injuries on his body. He felt no pain either. He realized he was naked and quickly covered himself with the jacket. He looked around with a mixture of shock and confusion.
What happened here?Why am I here? He thought to himself. Why aren't there any people around? He realized that his surroundings had been destroyed for a long time.
But more importantly, who am I? He tried to remember who he was or where he had come from but his memories were blurred. He could remember his name though. Michael Loveday, he thought. What a fancy last name that was. He tried to use that name as a base to remember something but his mind was a mess. His thoughts seemed to be in vertigo as if he had been on a rollercoaster many times. Rollercoasters. He remembered that. He remembered general things but that was it.
He looked down the eerily dark street littered with broken streetlights and scary looking trees. The place is deserted, he thought as he made his way slowly ahead. It did not ease his anxiety at all. There was a reason why the city was destroyed. And something told him that whatever it was, he wouldn't like it…
It's getting dark, Elena thought to herself. She had gone to fetch herbs that she grew in an unharmed greenhouse behind an abandoned, broken-down house. She needed them to make medicines and it had taken her longer than usual. She looked up at the moon and quickened her pace. She had to hurry. She held a long hunting rifle that had belonged to her dad. Although the respawner- who was one of the many immortals capable of coming back to life with a red lightning strike whenever they were killed- was trapped in this zone, there many other dangers that prowled in the city. The respawners were merciless killers that had either left humanity extinct whichever area they inhabited or under severe oppression. No one knew how they did it. It was unexplained. And whoever had tried to unearth the mystery hadn't survived for long.
Elena spotted her reflection in a nearby dusty mirror. I'm getting thinner, I need to eat. She had said that to herself a million times but never done it. She was very conscious about her looks and body but could never do anything about it. That was the life of a healer. Too busy looking after others to look after yourself, an ironic thought that she found funny.
She hated her bony arms and her pale, thin face. She had tried various hairstyles to make her face look better but it never worked so she just let her straight, black hair grow long for now. She hated makeup too and couldn't understand how girls obsessed over it especially considering how things were now in the world. Plus, it took so long and it made her feel fake. She was fine with her slender figure, however, which had toned with her walking all the time. But she had to eat better to maintain it. She would become a walking zombie if she ate so little.
Suddenly, there was a blue flash of lightning in the sky. It appeared a few hundred meters away towards her right. Her eyes widened in shock and her heart thumped as loud as the thunder that had just sounded.
Impossible.
The respawner in this area had been trapped for a long time now.
But wait, the lightning had been blue. She knew the lightning was normally red for whenever a respawner spawned. She had seen it for herself, though it had been many years ago. She shuddered at the memory of how the respawner in her home city had ripped it down to ashes.
Elena waited for ten minutes behind an upturned dumpster listening intently for anything unusual. She could hear people's outbursts of surprise in the distance. What the hell's going on? She decided to move forward and as she turned around the corner of a building, she came face to face with a tall figure. Instantly, she readied her rifle and aimed it at it. She couldn't see who it was since they were hidden by a shadow but someone roaming around in the night like this was never good news. The person raised his hands up and backed up in to the moonlight. It was a teenage boy who seemed close to her age. He had short, dark-brown hair with a tan, innocent-looking, clean-shaven face and a small scar on his nose. The only thing covering him was a brown, leather jacket. There was an expression of sheer surprise and fear in his eyes.
"Please," he said pleadingly. "Don't hurt me. I mean no harm."
Elena slowly walked around him keeping her gun trained at him. "Get away from me."
"Can you please tell me, where am I?" he asked. Elena looked at him in disbelief.
"What? What do you mean? You don't know?" asked Elena not letting her guard down.
"I'm lost," he replied. "Really, really lost."
Is this guy for real? She looked for the armband with a blue cross on his arm. There wasn't any. So he's not an escaped Jew from the concentration camps. He must be from the city. It seemed to her that his clothes had been stolen but there did not seem to be any injuries nor signs of violence on him.
"I…I…I don't know where I came from," Michael stammered and could see the girl in front of him wasn't believing her. "I just… don't know… what's going on."
Elena pushed the rifle closer to him. "What do you mean you don't know?" She had seen this before. People who would act like they needed help and then attack you when you had let your guard down.
She observed the guy's behavior remembering what her uncle, who had worked in the army, had taught her. The eyes, if you see them dilate, then shoot them right in the head, even if they look as innocent as a baby. Remember, no one is ever that innocent. The mouth, watch for rapid breathing. The shoulders, are they tight? The hands, the feet, watch everything. Watch for twitches. But this guy didn't seem to fit the criteria. In fact, he seemed to be showing signs of acute amnesia with the way his eyes looked alarmed, like a new born baby first looking at the world around them. He wasn't armed either and she was seldom wrong in her diagnoses. Still, she kept the rifle aimed at him.
"Listen, I don't know what's going on but I really need help. I mean no harm, I swear."
Elena eyed him suspiciously. Being a medic and helping others, she just could not leave this boy roaming around naked. He really could have amnesia and she had to help him. That was probably the one thing her uncle criticized about her. You would save the wolf that murdered all the sheep in the flock. If he was in her place, he wouldn't have even hesitated in leaving the guy even if he was bleeding to death.