Chapter 2: Awakening

===Wilgram's Perspective===

Darkness.

Darkness was all he saw. It was like being blindfolded with thick cloth, and having your ears blown out, because there was nothing but silence. Which to some, would be peaceful, as it would be like sleeping in a dark room with no sounds to bother you, but that is not the case. In this dark silence, he felt as if he was trapped, lost even. He wasn't really able to move, either. Though he was fully capable of controlling his own thoughts, and feelings.

It then came to him as to why he was there, and to why he couldn't really do anything. He didn't remember what happened to make him be in this state. But then right when that thought came to his head, several images started painfully appearing in his mind. Images of his family, his friends, and the times he has spent with his wife. The images weren't just thoughts, they were memories. Memories of his life from the past decade or so. These memories went by as fast as a single blink of an eye. But to him, it felt like he relived his entire childhood, all the way from when he was just a baby, all until he was about 28 years old. Then it hit him as hard as it came when it actually happened.

The incident at Trinity, being spoke of on the news for a good 3 days, mentioning that there was an explosion in one of the underground labs near trinity, causing everyone within a mile radius, just die from radiation. But everyone soon found out that it wasn't radiation that killed so many, it was a disease that came from the blast. People thought that they were safe in their homes, thought they were protected by the Military that came the same day of the blast. No one was allowed within a mile radius of trinity, besides the soldiers and scientists that went to check out the area. But they weren't prepared for what was left there...

As soon as the thoughts came, they vanished. And right when it happened, bright white lights started to come into his vision, surrounding him completely in bright, multi-colored beams. He then felt as if he was falling, falling into the void of nothingness. He then felt hot searing pain in his head, starting to feel his body again and could finally move his muscles, he moved both of his arms to his eyes, trying to shield them from the bright lights. It was only then until he felt soft grass under him, along with the smell of fresh air that harshly overcame his sense of smell that he started to cough. After a while of holding his head from the searing pain in it, to holding his chest, from the pain he was getting from smelling such fresh air, which he was really not used to.

After about 5 minutes of coughing and shielding his eyes from the brightness, he started to get used to the smell, and his headache started to lessen, making it easier to focus. He slowly opened his bloodshot eyes, slightly wincing from the sun being shown right in his eyes. He rolled over to his side to get his eyes away from the sun's beams. But as soon as he did, he went wide eyed, and extremely numb all over by what he was just seeing.

Dark pine trees and vines littered every inch of his sight, along with bright green grass covering the ground. Through the thick leaves of the trees, he saw bright blue skies with no hint of radiation in them. It reminded him of the forests in the mountains that he use to walk through during winter vacation. What he was seeing, hearing, smelling... feeling. It mimicked the way he felt perfectly during past experiences. The days of vanishing melancholy as he slowly drifted along the brightly colored pebbles and stones that was strewn across the equally bright and lively tall grass.

He shook his head to clear the past memories and focused on the present. He rolled over to the other side to get up onto his feet, only until he saw something that made his jaw drop.

A giant castle, just built on the side of a mountain about 5 miles away. Along the lines of sights, this really beat the competition. After about 10 minutes of just dumbly staring at the magnificent building. He slowly got up from his position on the ground, getting loud pops and cracks from his legs and back. But it was a bad idea to try and stretch his back out...

*CRACK*

A shock of pain went up his back and made him fall to the ground, making a small cloud of dirt be kicked up from the fall.

He then remembered what happened to his back, but then wished he didn't because he just winced at the memory of him rolling down a hill at breakneck speeds, and then his back being forcefully crushed by the jagged rock he unfortunately fell on. As soon ass he reached his arm to the middle of his back, he felt something warm and wet and his back, but when he brought his hand in front of him to see what it was, he almost fainted at the sight of it...

'Holy shit, that rock fucking tore into my back...' He thought in his head, feeling lucky at still being able to feel his legs.

"I won't feel my legs for long, if I don't get any medical attention..." He set quietly to himself, still laying on the ground. He then heard something metallic hit the ground next to him, which made him quickly look to where the sound came from, and then slightly smiled at what it was...

It was his Battle Rifle, along with the attachments. The glare from sun on the barrel of the gun was, to him, beautiful.

He started to slowly crawl towards it, the front of his clothing being smothered in dirt, thankfully his wound was not on his stomach, otherwise he would feel absolute hell. It took him a full minute to crawl towards his rifle, but when he reached it, he quickly grabbed the middle of the rifle, and cradled it in between his arms and whispered

"I am so glad I have you with me right now, I just feel so much... Safer." He smiled, while tightly hugging his rifle.

Around 5 minutes have passed unnoticed to him, but he then realized that he was still laying on the ground, hugging his rifle. But he then remembered that he had a Military pack with him when he blacked out, though, it was attached to the side of his bike, because the pack itself weighed about 3 pounds, but the amount of stuff he had in it added about an extra 95 Pounds. That amount of weight will hurt your back if you have it on your shoulders all the damn time. So he thought it would be a better idea if he just put it on the side of his bike. But then he thought,

'Where is my Motor bike anyway? I hope it didn't just fall apart from being transported here, because I had many valuable things with me that I would kill for...'

As soon as that thought came to mind, he heard some bushes to his left be shaken violently. This caused him to sit up, crawl away to the side of a tree, and aimed his gun at the bush that was still being shaken all over the the place. But then after about a minute, it stopped. He still had his gun raised towards the bush, but then slowly started looking around his entire line of sight, to see if anything else was there. After another full minute, he lowered his rifle to his lap, and then just sighed.

"Ugh, fucking Wildlife, always gotta sta-" He stopped when he saw something at the corner of his eye, and then threw himself forwards as for as he could from his position. He then rolled onto his back, trying his best to ignore the pain from the pressure that was being put onto it, and raised his gun towards what just flew at him, and then saw something that made him consider whether he was high or something... Right in front of him, was some sort of wood dog, which turned around to look at him, and it too became confused as to what it just jumped at.

'What in the actual Fuck?! This thing just jumped at me as if wanting to kill me, I mean, It's made of *WOOD** for Christ sake!'* He quickly thought to himself until the wooden dog shook It's head and then leaped at him again... But it was torn in half by the foreign weapon, not even being able to get at least 5 feet close to the foreigner.

Thankfully, the shot was suppressed by the silencer on the barrel of the rifle, therefore the sound of the rifle being discharged would have alerted any surrounding creatures to his location; which obviously wasn't ideal, since he is badly injured from recent events.

Though, with that taken care of, he then thought about what that thing that jumped at him was. He didn't really know exactly what it was, but he knew it was not a Wooden dog, it was a Wooden Wolf. You know, that kind of animal that will not stop until it has your neck between it's jaws? Yea, that one.

He noticed that the wolf wasn't actually bleeding blood, it was bleeding Tree Sap.

'Well I suppose that is it's way of bleeding...' He thought, while staring at the body of the wooden creature.

He shook his head after thinking about if for a few minutes, and then started to think about his back, and how much blood he think he lost. He wasn't feeling light-headed, so that is good. He wasn't feeling dizzy in any way. And he wasn't feeling like he was in any sense of danger. So over all, he felt pretty good. He still felt a little bit of pain in his back, but it seemed to have healed just a little bit, which was surprising, because that rock he landed on felt like it tore a good 3 inches into his back, which should have broken his spine, even though it tore into the middle left part of his back, it should have at least dented his spine... He stopped thinking about it when he noticed that it was getting a little dark out. He cursed under his breath and then tried getting up on his feet to see if he could at least walk.

After about 5 minutes of slowly getting up on his feet, he was finally stood all the way up. He learned his lesson last time when he tried to stretch his back. But just then did he realize that he had several pouches in his vest and his pants. So he decided to search each pouch to see if he could find anything. After about 3 minutes of searching, he had 8 Mags for his Rifle, 2 Incendiary mags that were also for his rifle, 4 mags for the side arm that he didn't actually have with him, it was in his bag attached to his Motor Bike. He also had his Combat knife, which was the famed 'Gerber Mark II'. In terms of something to feed himself, he had 2 MREs and 3 Water Bottles, along with about 5 Chocolate Bars. Why did he have 5 Chocolate Bars you ask? Simply because they are chocolate bars.  They were also very common in the cities, for some unfathomable reason. But he wasn't complaining.

As much as he wanted to sit down and enjoy the numerous treats he had with him; they wouldn't heal his wounds, or give him any much needed nutrition. So he had to find some place to stay to get better; mentally and physically. But that was pretty much all he had with him at the moment, so he started to pack up his supplies, adding extra unnecessary care to the placement of the chocolates.

Supplies tucked away, and his rifle to his side; he journeyed off into the unknown surroundings.

... With 1 less bar of chocolate he had a second ago...