My mind was in tatters. Fragmented visions of events that had never happened flashed through my brain.
All I knew for certain was that I was in some forest. I didn't know or care how I had gotten there. The hot pain coursing through my body inhibited any sort of rationalization.
Willed by the pain, I rolled over to get a better look at my arm, seemingly the source, only to find it caked in blood. I ripped off my shirt on instinct and began wiping it down while barely holding back screams.
People I had never seen stood around watching this spectacle, but none seemed willing to help me. Through bouts of pain, I stared up at them with pleading eyes, only to get looks of fear and disgust returned at me. I didn't know why they looked at me that way, but they did. Out of all the stares placed on me, one stood out. The stare of a man who didn't have a look of fear, confusion, or disdain. He seemed to have a look of pity.
All I could do was grimace as he took a few steps toward me, then took off his jacket and knelt. He reached for my arm and yanked away the blood-soaked shirt I had been covering my wound with.
"Your cuts need to be cleaned up, but first we must find the tools to do so," he said as he pressed the jacket harder against my arm. "Sadly, I have no idea where we are, and it seems nobody else does either. For now, keep this over it and apply pressure." He firmly wrapped the jacket over my arm and tied it there using its sleeves, all while only glancing at my eyes once.
"Thank you," I muttered weakly while desperately holding back tears.
He nodded to me before standing up and looking around as if I had never even existed. Seeing that this was the extent of his kindness, I smiled that at least someone had helped me at all.
My mind cleared up a bit after I became somewhat acclimated to the pain. I tried to push my arm out of my mind and began trying to figure out where I was.
I might not have had the willpower to get up, but I could still look at my surroundings. I cocked my head to the left and saw the boundary of a tree line. When I looked to my right, I saw another tree line somewhat far off. I was surrounded by a forest in every direction. It seemed I was in some sort of clearing, but I had no idea how I had gotten there. Let alone who all these people standing around were, who looked even more confused than me. Some even had pajamas on and no shoes. There was even a poor girl in nothing but her underwear.
A few gawked at me, but most others were too busy screaming and questioning each other. Closing my eyes in an attempt to block out the noise and pain, I focused on what had led to this.
I had been biking home from work after...
It was odd. I had hyperthymesia, yet now I couldn't even picture what food I had eaten earlier that day. So, this was how it felt to forget, huh? However, I remembered the day before yesterday and every day before. I remembered the day I had found my goldfish dead in grade school, the day I had spilled coffee on my dog and had to rush him to the vet while I cried for hours, the first day I had been summoned to the trials, the day I had almost accidentally cut Lucas' head off while fighting a blood wolf.
Wait, what the hell was a blood wolf, and what the hell were the trials? My jumbled memories threw my mind into such a mess that the pain I had only been convincing myself I had blocked out truly began to wane. I remembered some things, but I knew for a fact that I had forgotten many others.
My pure daze only grew with the appearance of a being clad in white descending from the sky. My mind went blank upon witnessing this entity.
It was a beautiful girl with long silver hair who had two sets of gigantic white wings adorning her back. Upon her head was a shining halo emanating heat I could feel from what appeared to be around thirty feet below her. The robes she wore were white as snow, save for a golden streak that lined the edges…
A beautiful girl, flying above me? Was I seeing things? Had someone slipped me shrooms or something? That must have been the cause of all this! Hahahaha! Of course! No wonder everything was so wacky and my memory was fuzzy. This was nothing but a bad trip.
"Welcome."
A booming voice, seeming to emanate from my own head, shattered my attempt at deluding myself. I couldn't deny it; the creeping pain in my arm and the presence of this being were too vivid to be considered fake.
I looked around and saw that all the people gathered were terribly sporadic and confused. Realistically, I should have been as alarmed and scared as they were, but I wasn't. Even with the sudden wound on my arm, I didn't feel startled. This all felt familiar to me, as if I had experienced it before. No, not as if… I had experienced this before. I didn't know how I knew nor how I had forgotten, but this was definitely not my first time here because I had knowledge that I shouldn't have had. However, I also felt like I was missing knowledge I definitely should've had. Something much deeper than the surface was going on here. I knew of the existence of soul power, but no idea what it truly was. I could tell this being was using a similar power to talk directly into our minds, and I also knew I had been summoned to take some sort of test to get stronger, but I forgot the reason. I knew there was someone I must take revenge on, but I forgot who and why.
For now, paying close attention seemed to be the only way I would ever make sense of this situation. I must approach this like anyone else here and act like I knew nothing. I just needed to absorb what was presented to me, to focus on the present, but my jumbled memories were making it hard.
"You have all been chosen."
The screaming and shouting grew louder. Reacting to the outburst, the angel-like being waved its hand. It didn't look like anything happened, but everyone and everything froze, including me.
I tried to move, but my body refused to listen.
"You have all been assigned a
Huh? I wasn't just confused by the message, I was also confused by the messenger's sudden disappearance. It just vanished along with the pressure it had exerted, as if it were never there.
Surely it had more to say, right? That couldn't be everything! If only it had talked more, I might have been able to make more sense of the situation. Also, it could at least not have said something redundant! It hadn't even explained what it wanted us to do.
Well, on the bright side, I thought I knew how to find such a thing out. At least if my instincts weren't wrong.
"Task!? At least tell us what to do… AGGAGghhhh," a man, the first to realize he could move again, screeched.
It seemed my fragmented memory was accurate. From what I could piece together, the blue
Others began to yell and complain aimlessly, and the same scene of surprise kept unfolding one after another as each person eventually said, "task." After a minute or so of watching the spectacle, I decided to say it myself, hoping seeing this window would spark some of my forgotten memories.
"Task"
(Time remaining: 719:53:34 hours)
This little information somewhat made what I knew clearer, but I wasn't enlightened by any new memories.
I figured I should check the other pages that only I knew of. I didn't know how I knew they existed, mind you, but the knowledge was in my head nonetheless. Anyway, it wouldn't take long for others to find this page once someone randomly said "status," "afflictions," or "skills." Once that happened, hopefully, everyone would be too occupied to continue screaming because it was a little incessant and making the pain in my arm worse.
I glanced down at my bare chest and then at the jacket wrapped around my arm, then let a light sigh out before quietly speaking.
"Status"[1]
Axel Hart
Age: 20 Gender: Male
Contractor: < - - - >
(Time remaining: 719:54:55 hours)
[Remember all events starting from the age of ~three]
[Bypass language barrier]
[Progression: 0%]
[Caused from regression. Amount of fragments needed to recover based on karma]
(Memory fragments recovered 0/10)
Huh?
Regression? Memory fragments recovered 0/10?
Ah… I remembered now. Not everything, but I remembered… It wasn't that I had forgotten memories of the past, but that I had forgotten memories of the future. This truly wasn't the first time I had been here. I had gone through all of this once before and had now somehow returned to this moment with my memories stripped from me. It seemed the only way I would ever be able to make sense of this was by getting my memory back, yet I had no idea how to recover a fragment. I guess I would just have to go with the minuscule knowledge I retained for now. As for everything else…
I had no idea what the affliction was, but once I got some of my memory back, it would probably be identified, so there wasn't a reason to fret over it.
As for the contractor part, I couldn't seem to remember what it meant, but I guessed it meant receiving support from a higher power of some sort. Like that angel(?).
As for the skills at that point, I knew they were nothing extraordinary yet. No fireballs, no beams of light—soul power was needed to do those things. Though, as for what soul power exactly was, I hadn't a clue. The skills we had then were abilities we already possessed. Even though I didn't remember much, I knew the fact that this was just a guideline meant to help us understand our latent power, not some all-powerful tool. It was more akin to a smartphone—a way for whatever was above to communicate with us. The most extraordinary ability, and the only one gifted to us, was the ability to freely communicate beyond the language barrier.
I glanced around and took note of people who, by appearance, seemed to hail from different walks of life. The guy who had given me his jacket seemed to be Middle Eastern. I started studying the others and couldn't help but notice the people looking at me with faces filled with fear and confusion. A woman even held her mouth agape while pointing at me. I awkwardly waved at them and gave a confused, wry smile wrought with pain. My arm still stung.
"What the hell is that?!" The woman's shriek resounded through the air.
She was frantically raising her arms, still pointing at me… no, behind me! With no time to properly react, I fought through the pain and launched myself away with my wounded arm, barely dodging a sword that sliced through the air inches from my head, even claiming a few strands of my hair. Landing off balance, I began falling back toward the perpetrator—as I did, I threw my head back and saw it, and couldn't help but think of my assailant as the stereotypical monster seen in most MMORPGs: a goblin.
[1] 1. I wish I could center it so it would look better
2. Personally, I hate status stories, but it would have been hard to explain everything otherwise. Taking a cheap cop-out here :). I plan to only use it for expository purposes; it won't be a part of the power system.