by Ashley West
Chapter Three: Flicker
His head hurt.
That was the first thing he became aware of.
There was a throbbing in his head that seemed to travel down his neck to his spine and all the way out to his fingers and toes. He lay there, very still, taking stock of himself.
And that was when he realized that he had no idea what had happened.
He was in pain, and when he tried to move, he realized he was face down on something hard and cold. He shivered. Slowly, he opened one eye. For a moment, everything was blurry and out of focus, but gradually things swam into view.
Trees...a lot of trees.
They loomed high above him, trunks thick and majestic, and when he opened his other eye to get a better look, he saw that there were broken branches everywhere. They littered the ground around him, and he frowned. Had he fallen? It would explain the ache in his body more than likely. Why had he been in a tree in the first place, though?
He turned his head, trying to see what else there was around, trying to place anything that would tell him where he was and what had happened. His neck protested the movement, but he pushed through it, ending up staring wide eyed at the wreckage of what looked like some kind of vehicle.
It was still smoking, and he scrambled back from it, just in case it was about to explode.
What in the world...?
His head hurt as he tried to force himself to think. A vehicle? He'd clearly been inside it. It looked like it had been made to carry one, maybe two people, and it was emblazoned on the side with a red triangle that twinged something in his memory. He'd seen it before, somewhere.
The more he tried to think, to remember, the more his thoughts slipped away from him. He thought he had flashes of memory (bright lights, loud noises, a snarl...?), but for all he knew, it could have just as well been a dream he was remembering.
There had to be a reason behind this.
He got to his feet slowly, testing out his limbs to make sure nothing was broken. He was sore, absurdly so, but his legs held, and his arms seemed to bend and stretch properly. A good sign.
The front of his clothes were wet and cold, and when he looked down, he realized that the ground was covered in a thick, white substance. He crouched and slid his fingers through it, shivering at the sensation of the cold and wetness against his skin.
What strange manner of substance was this?
The air was sharp and cold as well, and it burned as he dragged in a deep lungful, trying to breathe through the growing confusion. It wasn't quite panic, not yet anyway, but he was worried. He was concerned. This wasn't good. He had to figure out where he was and then get back to...
Back to where?
Where had he come from?
He frowned, closing his eyes. Where...
Who...?
Oh.
Oh no.
His eyes flew open, and he stared around him at the darkening thicket of trees. He had no idea where he was supposed to be or even who he was.
His head just felt empty, bare of anything that would help him figure out what had happened.
"Okay," he murmured to himself. "Just think it through." He let out a breath.
He'd woken up in some kind of crash. Obviously, he'd been flying the ship-thing, and he'd crashed. That would explain the memory loss, wouldn't it? If he'd hit his head? Was that something that happened to people?
It seemed as feasible an explanation as any, so he adopted that as the current theory. He'd been in an accident and lost his memory. Alright. Okay.
So what came next?
The problem was, he had no idea where he was going or where he'd come from. He couldn't say if this place had been his final destination, or why he'd come at all.
One thing was for certain, though, standing in the cold and waiting for something to come to him was a terrible idea. It wasn't going to get him anywhere. What he needed to do was move. Maybe if he found civilization, he could see if anyone recognized him.
"So," he murmured, and was alarmed by how his breath misted in the air in a white cloud. "I just have to...find people."
He took a step.
And then another.
The white substance on the ground crunched under his boots, and he wrapped his arms around himself as a breeze picked up, rattling the bare branches of the trees around him and making the air even colder.
What he wouldn't give for a hot drink right about now.
"Just walk," he whispered, and did just that.
He walked for what felt like ages. Until his fingers were cold and nearly numb, and his nose was running. The trees had given way to small, concrete buildings, and he'd looked at them with interest as he passed.
The white stuff had been pushed to either side of what looked like some kind of road, and the first time a vehicle thundered past him, he'd nearly jumped out of his skin.
As he walked, the buildings got taller and more plentiful. They were closer together, and light shone from their windows, spilling into the growing darkness. There were lights on poles lining the roads, and twinkling lights were wrapped around the poles as they climbed up, high above his head.
He began to see people, too. In their strange vehicles and hurrying down the roads, wrapped up in thick garments against the cold.
They were small people, too. Smaller than him by a good foot and a half or more, it seemed, and they all came in different shapes. Some were thin, some were plump, some were bright and some were dark. They moved together in twos and threes and fours, arm in arm, laughing.
He couldn't help but watch them.
They streamed into buildings and then back out again, arms heavy with bags. Some kind of marketplace, perhaps? It was hard to tell.
No one really looked twice at him, and he didn't think approaching randomly would be a good idea. It was...hard to say why, but somehow he knew this was not where he belonged. No one looked like him, and it didn't feel like a place he'd been to before.
So perhaps he'd been coming here for the first time from elsewhere. The most pressing question, of course, was why.
More than likely, no one was going to recognize him and be able to help, so that was out, but perhaps he could at least find a place to get warm. It was dark out in earnest now, and he knew he couldn't sleep outside in the cold.
The constant streams of people were starting to make him feel anxious, so he stepped off the main path and into the shadows, taking a deep breath of frigid air.
It was okay. It was going to be fine. It would be...
A scuffle, the sound of something sharp raking along stone caught his attention. He could hear the sound of labored breathing and then, a voice, a female voice, cried out "No!"
Without thinking, he moved, walking quickly but silently along the paved ground, hunting down the sounds. It seemed to come naturally enough to him, and he tilted his head to one side, listening harder.
Two...no, three of them, whatever they were, moving quickly, and one woman who seemed to be running. He moved through the darkness to head her off.
His guess paid off, and he came out right in front of her. He eyes were wide in the darkness, and she opened her mouth, probably to scream, but he shook his head urgently and held a hand out to her.
She looked at the hand and then up at his face, clearly debating, but the scrape of claws along the ground got louder again, and that appeared to make the decision for her.
She put her hand in his and let him pull her closer to him.
"I'll help you," he murmured softly, bending down to be able to whisper right into her ear. She was so small compared to him, but she nodded her understanding.
Before they could move, her pursuers showed themselves.
The woman gasped at the sight of them, but he just narrowed his eyes.
They were monstrous, really. Tall and thin with beady eyes and sharp features. Their skin seemed to be a mottled grey in the darkness, and their arms were so long that they dragged along the ground, spindly fingers at th
e end of their hands, and sharp, deadly looking claw blades protruding from their wrists like scythes.
There were three of them and they stood there for a moment, heads pushed up as if they were scenting the air.
Something hit him then, like a rush of recognition. They can't see in the dark, he thought, but had no idea how he knew that. But he was certain that he was right.
The two of them, woman and confused man, stood perfectly still.
He raised a fist, wondering if he could take out all three of them before one of them managed to slash him to bits. As he looked at his hand, his sleeve fell back, revealing his wrist and forearm and the shiny skin that wrapped around them in a spiral. His eyebrows flickered down in a frown and then chaos erupted.
Fire burst to life around his hand, and he gasped to see it. It was bright and deep orange, flickering light into the shadows.
The woman screamed, and the three creatures could definitely see them now.
Without thinking, he pulled his hand back and then thrust it out again, willing the fire to move with the motion.
It worked. And then some. The fire collected at his hand and then streamed out from there, arcing through the air to wrap around the first creature, twisting around its neck and then flowing down the rest of its body, burning it to a crisp.
The other two screeched their indignation and lunged, but it wasn't fast enough. He brought his other hand up and it was on fire in a matter of seconds. He pushed both hands out and the flames caught both creatures, and they screamed as they burned.
The woman had her eyes trained on the fire that consumed the creatures, but he was looking at his hands.
"How did you do that?" she asked, and he glanced at her.
"I don't know," he admitted. "It just...happened."
"Doesn't that hurt? You're on fire."
It was a fair question. After all, fire had destroyed the creatures in front of them. But now that he thought about it, it wasn't hurting him at all. His hands didn't seem to be blistered or burned, and the flames were licking at his fingers like they belonged there. It was just pleasantly warm, especially after how cold his hands had been before.
"No," he murmured softly. "It doesn't hurt at all. It feels..." He didn't know the word for it. "It feels fine."
The woman was just staring at him. "This is so bizarre," she said. "First I get chased by whatever those things are and now there's a giant man with his hands on fire. I feel like I'm dreaming."
"It's too cold out for this to be a dream," he said distractedly.
She laughed and shook her head. "Fair enough. Can you...put those out now?"
Another good question. He had just opened his mouth to tell her that he had no idea how to put them out when the flames sputtered and died, plunging them into darkness again. He looked closer at his hands and saw that, aside from being much warmer than they’d been before, there was no change in them.
“There,” the woman said, and she drew herself up. “Thank you. You...I have no idea what you are or how you did that, but you saved me, so I guess I can overlook that for now.”
“As easy as that?” he asked, looking at her.
She shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I’ve seen enough things in my life to know that there’s plenty out there I don’t understand. Giant men with fire coming out of their hands shouldn’t be any different, I guess.” She shook her head and then smiled at him, and he noted that it was one of the most sincere things he’d ever seen. Or so he assumed. “Do you have a name, mystery fire man?”
He blinked at her. “I’m sure I do.”
“And?” she asked. “What is it?”
“I don’t remember.”
Now a frown marred her lovely face. “You don’t remember?”
He shook his head. “No. I...I woke up in a wreckage, and I don’t remember who I am or where I came from.” Saying it out loud made it seem worse, somehow, and he took a step back, deeper into the shadows. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Saying that out loud made him feel weak and pathetic.
She looked at him for a moment and then smiled again, holding out her hand, much as he had held his out to her mere moments ago. “Well,” she said. “It sounds like you’re lost.”
He blinked and then nodded his head. “Yes.”
“It just so happens that I specialize in helping lost people. I don’t know if I can help you figure out where you’re supposed to be or who you are, but I can give you a place to stay for the night at least. Hot food, assuming someone cooked tonight, and a shower. Sound good?”
There was something about this woman and her questions that made him think when she asked them. But he didn’t have to think too hard about this one. “Yes,” he said, grateful and relieved. “That sounds amazing.”
She quirked a grin at him. “Lovely. Come with me, then.”
Less than an hour later, he was unfolding his large frame from her small vehicle and stretching. His body was protesting the tight squeeze, and he rotated his neck and shoulders, easing the tension there.
He looked at his hands and sighed with relief. There hadn’t been anymore flare ups in the vehicle, thank goodness for that. Maybe it was just something that happened when he was threatened. Or when he wanted to protect someone. His body seemed accustomed to it, even if he wasn’t, so maybe that meant it was a normal thing. Or at least something he’d done before.
“Come on,” she said.
Naomi. She’d told him her name was Naomi, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was small and bright, with green eyes that danced and gleamed at him when she talked. There was a thick braid hanging down her back, and a bright red hat on her head. She was so much shorter than him, but she seemed to fill the space she was in with her personality.
She walked up the steps at the front of a very large house, and pushed the door open. Light and warmth spilled out, along with a delicious smell and the sound of laughter.
“A word of warning,” she said before they stepped in. “They’re loud. And a little scary at first, but they're good people. They’ve all been where you are.”
He highly doubted that.
They stepped into the house, and he immediately relaxed when the heat washed over him. His stomach growled at the savory scent in the air, and he couldn’t do much other than follow Naomi through the house.
“Listen up, children!” Naomi called as they stepped into a room outfitted with a large table. Five people were seated around it, full bowls in front of them. They all looked up when they stepped in.
“Whatever,” one of the women said, gaping up at him.
“Polite as always, Rae,” Naomi said. “This is...well, he doesn’t know who he is, apparently. And that’s alright. He’s welcome here.”
“What are we supposed to call him, then?” one of the men wanted to know. “If he’s staying.”
“Samel,” he said, surprising himself at how quickly he spoke.
“Samel?” Naomi asked. “Why that?”
“I...don’t know. It just popped into my head.”
She looked at him for a moment and then shrugged her shoulders. “Samel it is, then. So anyway, Samel will be staying with us for a while. I expect you all to...well, be terrible because you’re you, but do it in a welcoming way, alright?”
“Sure thing, Mom,” said another of the men.
“Finn, for the last time,” Naomi sighed. There was a ripple of laughter around the table, and it eased something in him.
Samel. He wasn’t sure where that had come from. It had been honest to say that it had just popped into his head, and it had rolled off his tongue like he’d said it before. That boded well for it being his actual name. Which was, he thought, a step in the right direction.
Naomi was saying something else, but he wasn’t really listening. He kept waiting to be overwhelmed by this, but it wasn’t happening for whatever reason. Instead he felt almost...anticipatory. And hungry.
His stomach growled loudly, and Naomi laughed. “Let’s g
et some food in you. Right, who made dinner?”
“Priscilla did,” said one of the women. “Chicken and dumplings.”
Naomi looked to the person who was probably Priscilla. “You’re a goddess Pris,” she said. “That’s perfect.” She glanced at him. “Have you ever had it before?”
Samel shook his head without thinking about it. He wasn’t even sure he knew what ‘chicken’ was. But then, nothing about this was going to be normal, that much was assured. He wasn’t even sure where or who he was, let alone what was going to happen, and, as terrifying and disconcerting as it all was, there was something in him that relaxed just a bit at the thought.
He had two options here. He could either curl up somewhere and panic, or he could try to make the best of things. Samel already knew which one he was going to pick. Something told him that he was a survivor, and so that was exactly what he would do: survive.
Chapter Four: Warmth
Naomi woke up in an indolent sprawl, covers heavy over her body. It was chilly in her room, but she liked it that way. All the better to curl up under the blankets and make herself a cocoon of warmth without overheating.
No matter how much time went by since she was last on the streets, the novelty of a warm bed every night was never going to go away. There was just something so good about waking up and knowing that you were warm and safe and not going to be sore or damp or cold or sunburned that always put her in a good mood. It was the little things.
She lay there for long moments, watching the sunlight shine off the snow outside her window. Her room was at the top of the house, right across from Samantha's. The two of them liked their high perches. Naomi could see the snow on the eaves of the house, and she sighed with the realization that it had snowed more in the night.
"Winter," she grumbled. Only it wasn't even winter yet, technically. It was just November. This unseasonably cold weather was annoying.
It was a Saturday, which meant that she could lay in bed as much as she wanted, but something drove her to get up. A quick glance at her phone told her it was just after eight in the morning, and she knew that those residents who didn't have work on Saturdays would still be in bed. On the weekends, the house was quiet until at least noon.