chapter 1 : Fleeting thoughts
A jumble of fleeting memories and ideas surround me.
Where am I? Who am I?
I reach out and look for a name. I don't know what or who I'm looking for, just something, anything at all.
I remember something. A name! My name! Aaron Sharpe! But wait. . . what am I? A human . . . right? Yes, that's what I am. A human! A twenty-one year old human!
Another name comes to me. Something important. Free will? Who is that. No wait... What is that? Oh yes! It's very important to me! But what is it?
The dreamscape starts to shatter. Memories fade away. I hang on to my name and the thought as hard as I can. Another name smacks into me. An important name to me!
Caitlyn
Wait, what?
At that, I smack into, and through, something shattering it and sending me spiraling into darkness.
^^ ^^ ^^
I woke up in darkness. . .
And a lot of pain.
"mmmmmmmmm...." I heard myself groan.
Man, what happened. I feel like I got ran over by a herd of stampeding turtles.
It hurt EVERYWHERE, but as I thought about it, that's better than waking up numb, right? Because numb meant dead, whereas pain meant only mostly dead.
. . .
Guess I should probably get up. See where I am.
. . .
Any second now legs, I will have the will power necessary to get up.
. . .
Forget it. I think I'll just settle for opening my eyes.
I slowly peeled my eyelids open, revealing a slightly blurry white ceiling above. Without any thought towards my actions, I reached up and rubbed my eyes with my talons.
Wait a second. . . These aren't hands. . .
It took my brain a second to process this information. I looked down and noticed that my nose was gone, replaced by a rather large beak.
Talon? Beak? What has a talons and a beak?
A bird has talons and a beak! But, I'm a human. . .
I think. . .
At this point my hearing had decided to join my other two working senses and I surprised to hear a beeping noise from beside me. It was rather loud and quite annoying, the methodical chirp was. I turned my head to look at the little disturbance. I was greeted by a small screen with a blinking line on it that jumped to the rhythm of the beep.
A hospital? Yes, that is where I am. A building for the sick.
Am I sick?
I looked down to observe what can only be called a strange sight. What was in the place of my body and covered in a thin sheet from the waist down was what seemed to be a large eagle like chest, complete with folded wings and talons.
Hmmm... This seems oddly familiar. . . Im not a human, but I recall something that looks like this.
Some type of creature.
Was I a creature?
I lifted the sheet to reveal a lions hind legs.
I'm a gryphon! Thats what I am! I don't know what I was thinking earlier. I must know a human.
I could have sworn I was one though. Oh well, slip of the mind I guess. Still a bit fuzzy up there after all.
I guess I am a creature.
Creatures aren't sentient though.
What's sentient? Wait. . . Sentient isn't used like that. It's sentience. It's a state of being. . .
I think?
Thats exactly what it means! I think! I think therefore I am!
As I was musing about my awareness, I became a tad bit excited. I rolled over to try to stand up, but ended up getting tangled in some cords. The original beeping was replaced with a kind of shrill whine.
What on Earth is that?
Whats earth? Wait, I will figure that out next.
I looked around a bit before my eyes rested on the pole the cords came out of. It featured a red line on it, and it appeared as though the noise came from it.
Did I break it? I hope not. Now, what was I thinking before? Its on the tip of my tongue. . . Wait, what does that mean? I don't think it actually. . .
I looked down at my beak, cross-eyed. I stuck out my tongue and eyed it suspiciously for a moment.
Well that's interesting.
Oh yeah! I was thinking about earth! What is an earth? Or is it a single thing? hmmm. . . That is weird, I cant seem to place my finger on it. . . Wait, Finger?
After a few more moments of strange musings and metaphors, I figured out that earth was both a place and a thing, I don't have fingers, and chicken probably doesn't taste too bad. That last revelation took a bit to come by.
I was broken out of my musings by a rather loud *Ahem*. I looked up to see a rather peculiar sight. Standing in the doorway, wearing a strange shiny object and a lab coat, was a small horse. Hmmm. . . there was a name for a small horse, I just can't think of it. This seems to be a recurring theme.
"Good morning! It's good to see you are finally awake there. My name is Doctor Warm. how are you feeling?" The horse said in a slightly nasally voice.
I opened my beak to answer, but for some odd reason, I couldn't find words. I'm not exactly sure how, but I just couldn't form anything. I closed my beak and retried with the same results.
I can do words right? Hmmm. . . another thing I thought that ended up wrong. I also don't remember that horses could talk, but I guess that's just another thing on a long list.
The doctor tilted his head to the side. "Excuse me, could you repeat that?"
I tried once again to no avail. I eventually just shook my head in what I hoped meant no.
Dr. Warm slowly got a look of understanding, quickly replaced by a look of pity. "You must have hit your head pretty hard then, huh? Oh well, let me just run a few quick tests if that's alright with you." I nodded, and he began asking me to do a series of strange things. Well, I don't know if they were, they might have been normal, but I couldn't quite remember normal. He asked me to stand up (After I untangled myself of course), move one leg at a time, then he asked me to move my wings. I attempted to move something, but it took a few seconds of trial and error before I finally got them moving. He asked me a series of short 'yes' or 'no' questions then.
"Do you know your name?" A nod. "Do you know where you live?" A few moments then a shake of the head. "Do you know where you are right now?" A nod. "Do you know anyone who might know you?" I shook my head. "Do you remember what happened to you?" A shake of the head. "Do you remember anything before you woke up here?" A Shake of the head.
"Hmm, a bit slow on the move there, trouble remembering things, muteness, and distinct amnesia of past events. Well, it looks to me like you suffered a mild concussion. We will keep you here a day or so to observe for any changes, but otherwise you should regain most of that as you rest, so for now I suggest you get back on your bed and do just that." The doctor turned to leave.
Soon after that I fell right asleep
It was a rather dreamless night, and soon enough I found myself waking up in the bed. I opened my eyes to a rather blurry sight. It looked like someone was at the foot of my bed. I reached a talon up to rub my eyes clear of the morning haze, and my mind slowly began to pull itself together. My first thoughts went to the blurry someone standing near my bed. I opened my now clear eyes and yawned. The someone I could now see was a griffon. I couldn't tell very well but something told me it was a she.
"Hmmm. . . you don't LOOK like the evil one and you haven't tried to kill me yet, so I guess I got lucky with the good one this month!" She said, her words confusing me to no end. "Ah but where are my manners! I'm Jonna, what's yours?"
I just kind of sat there for a second trying to decide what was going on. after a moment I noticed she had extended a foreleg to me in what I assumed to be greeting. I pointed at my throat and tried my hardest to make the 'mute' gesture. It appeared as though my point got across.
"Oh dear, it looks like I got a mute. Were you always a mute?"
A shake of my head as I extended my forepaw out to grasp hers in a firm hand- or maybe it is talon. . . never mind not gonna go down that road right now- shake. As soon as my talon touched hers, something winked on her. I suddenly became aware of a little black spot on her head. It was strange because it kind of shimmered and moved about a little spot, as though it were a bug. I also noticed, for some odd reason, that I was quite hungry. I let go of her talon and reached towards her head, mesmerized by the black dot.
"Hey, sit back down buddy, don't prove me wrong about the whole you being the good one."
I continued forward, not hearing her. She started to move backwards, but in my curiosity I forgot my manners for a moment. I grabbed her foreleg and kept her still for a moment while I jerked my other talon towards her head. She began to look very nervous and began to struggle in my grasp whilst ranting a bit.
"Hey! let go! What are you doing! I already had a headache, and now this? I said let go!"
Alas her words fell on deaf ears, as my curiosity had me already at her forehead. I reached up and touched the dot.
"I SAID LET- What the. . ."
The black dot dissipated when I touched it. It seemed to almost meld with my claw. I let go of her arm as Gravity finally decided it was its time to shine, and my off balance position quickly dropped me to the floor. I looked up to see a very happy looking griffon staring back down.
"You cured my headache! I've had that thing for weeks now! How did you do that? I know rifters sometimes get some cool power to do with there race, but I've never heard of another griffon being able to do magic so blatantly! This is so cool! I have to go tell Dana, got to go, bye!"
And with that she left in what could only be described as a scholarly sugar rush. My head was still processing what on EARTH just happened, everything from the dot, to the griffon herself. I decided that everything would probably be clearer after I have a nice nap. I had been planning on getting some food, but for whatever reason, I wasn't hungry.
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Author's Note
I'm back! And now I have a definite plot line in my mind! Yay! There's probably plenty of mistakes, so feel free to point them out.
