"What's your name?"
"Michael."
"Your last name?"
"Loveday."
"Do you remember your parents?"
That question seemed to stir something inside Michael. He hadn't even thought about his parents. He tried to remember their names or their faces but it was all such a blur. He was sure he had parents and could picture their outlines but it was as if an opaque curtain was shielding the details of his memories. Mr. Loveday, he thought. Mrs. Loveday. Does that ring a bell? No, no, no, why can't I remember them?
Elena saw him strain to remember before he replied. "No. I don't." He looked guilty. "How can I not remember my parents?" he whispered in disbelief.
Elena was convinced now that he really did have amnesia although he seemed to remember his full name. Her uncle, Joey, had always told her to trust her instinct and that was what she going to do.
"Fine, you can come with me but keep your distance. I'm watching you…" A low whirring sound interrupted him. It was slowly getting louder as it approached them.
"Raiders!" exclaimed Elena. She rushed towards a broken-down convenience store. "Hurry! Before they spot us."
Michael followed Elena inside and crouched beside her behind a fallen down store rack. A rusty green pickup truck slowly drove past and stopped a few yards away from the store. Micheal looked towards Elena with a fearful look and was shocked to see her pointing the rifle at him.
"What?" Micheal mouthed.
"You're with them, aren't you?" Elena whispered furiously pointing towards the truck. Three people dressed in scraggy clothes holding rifles exited the truck.
"No way," whispered Micheal. "I don't even know who they are."
"Was it here?" said one of the men. "The lightnin' "
"I don't know," said the other with a quiver in his voice. "I hope not. We shouldn't even be going towards it. We should be running from it."
"Relax," said the third. "It can't be another respawner in the same territory. The other guy is locked up. We're safe."
"How do you know?" said the second one. "You think anything makes sense nowadays? God, I miss the 90s, things were so much simpler back then."
"Well, the boss said we have to check it out before those goddamn Nazis," said the first lighting a cigarette. "He doesn't want the auction to be interrupted with them searchin' the area. Now stop bein' such a crybaby Carl and let's search the area for any signs of where the bolt hit."
Elena and Micheal crouched down low behind the rack as the men searched the area. They held their breath as one of the raiders entered the store. After a few seconds, the man cried out in horror and Elena almost pounced out on him thinking he had spotted them. Micheal managed to hold her down. He had been observing the scene from the side.
Elena looked over the rack and saw that it was the scared raider. He had jumped at the sight of a cut out of an old cereal box mascot.
"What happened?!" The raiders rushed with their guns ready.
"Nothing. It was nothing," he replied sheepishly.
"Did you get scared by another shadow again? Goddamit, Carl. Why do you get scared by every damned thing?"
"Boo!" shouted the other raider and Carl jumped in surprised. His friends began to laugh out loudly.
"Hey guys, shut up," moaned Carl.
"I don't think there's any respawner around here," said the raider wiping a tear from his eye after he stopped laughing. "It was probably just normal lightnin'. Some natural phenomena or bullshit like that. It was blue after all. Ain't normal lightnin' supposed to be blue? Come on, let's search a bit further ahead and then head back. Those Nazis will be swarmin' around here soon. It's always a bad idea to stay too long behind the Perimeter."
With that, the raiders walked back to their pickup and rode off. Elena and Micheal waited in silence for a while before exiting the store.
"We have to move fast," said Elena. "There's been a lightning strike around here and the whole place will be full of people."
"Aren't we here already?" asked Micheal looking around. "What happened here anyways?"
"No, I mean the Peak City. It's a civilization in the mountains. It was built to stay away from the respawner. He destroyed this city years ago. Left it inhabitable."
"Respawner?" asked Micheal in confusion.
"Respawners. The people who can't die. You don't remember that?"
"No. People who can't die? How is that possible?"
Boy, this guy sure doesn't remember anything. "Did you see the lightning?"
"No. I don't know what lightning you're talking about. I just…" She could see Michael straining hard again. "I just remember being conscious a few moments ago."
Elena eyed him suspiciously again. He seems to have gained consciousness right around the time the lightning has struck. That is really strange.
"Let's get going then. It's getting very late," said Elena pushing away her thoughts. They both made their way ahead. Elena kept her distance from Michael. She had a feeling that he was somehow connected to the lightning but could not figure out why.
Michael and Elena were slowly making their way through the alleys in the destroyed city. He followed her at a distance and did not say anything. She was keeping a constant eye on him which made him afraid of saying anything to her. As if saying anything would make her shoot him or abandon him.
They did not see a single soul as they made their way forward which creeped out Michael. Where was everyone? Why is she out in a place like this in the middle of the night? Michael could see the mountains in the distance and the lights and structures that dotted over its whole surface which were getting closer as they moved forward. That's when he saw a group of people huddled around a fire. They wore ragged, dirty clothes that hung limply from their scrawny figures along with armbands with blue crosses around their arms. A fence with barbed fire at the top separated them. They walked past them and their empty stares creeped Michael out.
As they ventured closer to the mountains, more people began to appear behind fences. Most of them were living in harsh conditions and Michael's lack of clothes did not look alien in their presence. They all wore the same armbands with blue crosses and Michael wondered who they were. It seemed to him that they were imprisoned. They had sad and forlorn expressions with hopeless sunken eye-sockets. They occupied ghettoes consisting of destroyed buildings or the shabby tents that had been set up in the streets which glowed from the light of their flimsy bonfires. They looked panicked and looked in the distance; in the direction from where Michael and Elena had come from. There were other people from destroyed Denver just like them heading towards the mountains in panic. These people looked much healthier than the people behind the fence. They did not have any armbands however. He could make out some of the words from the conversations that buzzed through the air.