Chronicles of an Unknown World - The Awakening

{*First-Person, Main Character*}

Sleepy.

That’s what I was feeling at this moment. And not the kind of “not-enough-sleep” sleepy, but the “It’s-way-too-early-for-this-B.S.” sleepy. At the same time, I didn’t feel like I was awakening from a normal slumber. No, this time, I felt a bit… different. A bit, oh, I dunno, out of place? I had no idea why I was thinking that, but it was my gut feeling talking, not my-

Wait just a second here! Haven’t I already done this before? I mean, this entire thought process of thinking that everything around me’s out of whack… I’ve done this before, right? I have an absurd feeling of déjà vu right now…

Ok, time to check a few things. Waking up from some kind of slumber? Check. Still too early to wake up and smell the roses? Check. Head pounding and some kind of hard, painful pressure on my temples? Check and check. Wait. That last check doesn’t sound right. What’s going on here? Not only do I have a terrible feeling that this has all happened before, but my head a hurtin’ real bad right now!

Technically, my mind is still waking up from whatever happened to me before I was awake. My eyes were heavy, my limbs were uncooperative and memory somewhat groggy. I wasn’t ready to face what kind of day I would have ahead of me. But yet, I forced my sub-conscious to hurry up and finish the start-up process already. Why? Because I had an ominous feeling sitting in my stomach.

The feeling in my arms and legs rushed up to me all at once. The sounds of the environment around me caught up to my ears like there were racing cars passing me by. The distinct odor of pine and wood filled my nose and my lungs. That’s when I suddenly recalled that I was (maybe) being held captive (I’m not exactly sure) in some kind of building. I quickly opened my eyes, panicking and turning on fight or flight mode.

I tried my best to examine what was right in front of me, but was somewhat difficult to do so, seeing as there were no light sources anywhere in the room. Anyways, the ceiling above me was a light brown, smooth and had rings looping all over the surface. Without moving my head, I looked to my right. From the corner of my sight, I could barely make out a row of books that was sitting in a bookshelf high up on the wall. There was a brown wooden door in the far right corner from where I was lying. To the right of me was a plain old wooden wall with a window that currently had curtains covering it.

At that point in time, my past was truly starting to reveal itself to me. I sat up a bit, grasping the bed’s sheets beneath me. It felt the same as before. When I looked down, my legs were still painfully dangling down from the edge of the bed frame, just like before. The blankets were the same dark red colour, JUST LIKE THEY WERE BEFORE. I guess I haven’t changed location since the last time I saw those colourful donkey-like things that COULD TALK AND HAD HUGE ASS EYES! DANG! NOW I REMEMBER! NOW I REMEMBER EVERYTHING!

Well, almost everything. I still can’t remember what happened to me before I ended up here, BUT THAT’S BESIDE THE POINT! I remember that I was steadily waking up from a peaceful rest, sensing that something was wrong. Then, I heard voices. When I opened my eyes, I found out that the voices CAME FROM FREAKIN’ QUAD-PEDAL OR WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT ALIENS! One was a vibrant yellow, while the other was a pleasant purple, which ARE TWO COLOUR THAT A LIVING BEING SHOULD NOT BE COLOURED IN! I remember freaking out, and then they were trying to calm me down. I snapped.

Presently, I smirked, seeing as how before I passed out I had a moment of insanity. Well, that’s just great! (being sarcastic here). I’ve completely blown my chances at making any good impressions towards these new alien creatures that probably found me and took me in to care for me! That’s just dandy! Freaking out like a COMPLETE LUNATIC was DEFINITELY one of my finer moments!

Speaking of taking me in for care, they didn’t do anything freaky to me while I was asleep, did they? The looked like the kind of aliens that would prod other beings with tubes or something. Or maybe, they took out my organs, re-arranged them and put them back into my body to see if I would still live! Or, maybe, instead… Oh, man! They might have conducted a radioactive experiment! I might be some kind of sick, twisted mutant now

I threw of the blankets that were on top of me, check to see if my body has changed since the last time I checked it.  Then, I sighed a breath of relief. Whew! Thank goodness! My clothes are still intact! I’m hoping that they just didn’t bother with the full body examination and left my apparel on, but then again, they may have just took them off, examined me like a creeper and then put my clothes back on. I checked the back of my hands to see if they were ok. They were. I followed up by wiggled my toes and examining the visual response through my white socks. Next, I looked down my shirt. There were no visible operation scars, stitches or burns that I could identify. Finally, I quickly took a look down my pants. Nothing new there, so then I deemed it that at least for the most part they left me alone, not re-arranging my body parts or anything like that.

Well, if they did do some kind of strange experiment on me, I’ll sure find out soon…

I proceeded to swing my legs off the end of the bed frame, wincing as I was doing so. My bad knees were acting up again, so I took a second to massage my kneecaps, trying to get the pain and swelling out of the area. Taking a long yawn and stretch, I really started to pay attention to the scene and atmosphere around me.

This strange, abnormally colourful and cartoonish world I was in definitely had some interesting aspects to it. All the sounds of this world stayed constant to Earth; the bed creaked when I shifted my weight on it, the sheets made shuffling noises when I moved and there were the sound of raindrops angrily smacking into the window on the wall behind me. Otherwise, the colour saturation and exposure to light was all wrong.

Suddenly aware of the ambiance around me, I quickly recognized the pitter-patter of raindrops hitting something. I turned my head to inspect the wall behind me, which adorned a single window, which was currently covered up by a pair of curtains. Just by the light coming in from the window I could tell that there were some dark clouds outside, and the rain would probably last quite a while, if not get worse.

I stood up. Legs straight, I did another little stretch, just to check that all my body parts were working properly. Then, I took my first step towards the bookshelf that was on the wall to the right of the bed.

I started to read the titles that were on the spines of the books in the bookshelf, when I realized that I couldn’t. All these books were in a different language! What’s worse was that they were using characters that I’ve never seen before! What the heck is going on here! There were curves and line and symbols that looked like nonsense! Well, the characters are somewhat formed in some kind of organized fashion, meaning that it is certainly a language, but certainly not a language from earth! This definitely proves that I’ve arrived/have been captured and placed on to an alien planet! Or… something…

One eyebrow raised, I approached a crimson book with gobbledygook all over its spine. I pressed my index finger (which I noticed that I STILL could not see my knuckles folds on my skin!) on top of the pages, slowly sliding it back and getting a strange sensation from the tip of my finger. When I lifted it up, there was dust on the tip of my finger, meaning that these books have been sitting here undisturbed for a while. Also, this somewhat proves that there is a small level of detail in this planet, even though my surrounding are like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

I carefully took the book out from the bookcase and started shuffling through its contents. Of course, I didn’t understand anything that was in the book, but I figured that checking out the book’s contents wouldn’t hurt, especially if literature in this world has the same basic rules that Earth has: a book always contains valuable knowledge in some way, shape or form. Anyways, from what I could gather from the book’s pages, it was some kind of novel. There were no pictures inside the pages, there was a subtitle that was centered at the top of each page and the title graphic of the book was similarly fashioned to a novel back at home.

I put the book back onto the bookshelf delicately and with care. I then turned to my attention to the rest of the room. From there I considered my options of advancement. There was still the door in the corner of the room, which would likely lead me to a room where one of those donkey things are waiting/guarding me. I wasn’t willing to take a peek out of my room yet, so I looked at the curtain covered window.

Slowly approaching the blue fabric, I saw a flash of light come out from the window. It wasn’t like a car or a street light where it just lingers in place the longer you stand in one spot, oh no. It was a flash of lightning, one type of light that you will miss if you just blink at the wrong time. I knew that it was raining pretty hard outside because of the way the raindrops were pounding on the window pane, but I didn’t know it was a thunderstorm out there! Maybe it was just a light shower that had transformed into a storm. But that wouldn’t make any sense! Light showers don’t just suddenly change into water bombings! When it rains, it’s either a light or heavy rain. The thunder and lightning must mean that this storm is evolving into something fierce.

Once I reached the edge of the window, I heard the booming echo of the thunder trying to catch up to the lightning. I lightly pushed away the curtain to observe the world outside.

It was unbelievable. I appeared to be in a small village that was under attack by the forces of Mother Nature! There were small two-story buildings that adorned the sides of the streets. Each structure was either a different colour, a difference overall shape or a different architectural design when compared to its neighbor. If there’s one thing for sure, it the fact that the cartoonish look of everything around me applied to the streets and houses that I was gazing upon.

Remember when I said it was raining? Well, that was an understatement. Saying that it was POURING would be more appropriate terms to use. Everything in sight seemed to be soaked and currently drowning in the cloudburst that was still occurring. The road was covered in at least a centimeter of water altogether. There were no puddles to be found. Instead, I think that this entire town is just one humongous water pit! It also didn’t help that there was thunder and lightning coming from the sky every seven seconds or so. I can’t believe that I haven’t noticed this before! Was I really that caught up in examining a simple book?

I closed the curtains, and then turned to face away from the waterlogged streets. From here, I figured that I have two routes to take. I could either open up the window and escape, then run out of town, find a place to hide until I could find a way off this planet all while surviving the elements this world has to offer, or, I could open the door in the corner of the room and see what’s in store for me.

I decided to choose the latter option. I hastily but quietly shuffled to the wooden mahogany door, putting my head on the surface and listening for any activity on the other side. I squinted my eyes, barely making out the voices of two people talking. Dang, I am being guarded! What should I do now? My eyes gazed over the doorknob.

“Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” I whispered to myself, grasping the door handle.

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Thank you for reading this part of chapter 1!