Amnesia: Forget Your Past

Forget Your Past
Chapter 4.5

Chop! Chop! Chop!

Daniel, after creating a somewhat rough handle shape, had smashed the slate of rock into an axe blade by putting it in between his foot and a wall. It hardly resembled an axe blade at all, but it would be fine for his next task.

Chop! Chop! Chop!

He then fitted the blade into the handle quite forcefully and began chopping at a tree positioned near the edge of the small island.

Chop! Chop! Chop!

Slowly but surely, the hole in the side of the tree grew bigger and bigger.

Chop! Chop! Chop!

Daniel was tiring from the work of swinging the axe. The blunt blade he was using was making it hard to make any progress with the tree. The hole grew another millimetre as he hit it with the axe.

Chop! Chop! Chop!

Daniel rested from his work. He put the axe on the ground and gathered his strength for the next bout of swinging.

Chop!

‘What was that?’ Daniel thought. He wasn’t swinging any axe of any sort, but the chopping noise still resounded throughout the air.

Chop!

There it was again. Daniel began to frantically look around.

Chop!

The world around him began to morph. Daniel soon found himself in the middle of some sort of kitchen filled with pigs hanging on meat hooks. All of the kitchen utensils were spread across the floor and work surface. Blood was dripping from the open rib cages of the dead pigs and the smell of rotting corpses dominated the air.

Chop!

And the chopping had not ceased. Daniel cautiously crept past the pigs and the kitchen work surfaces to reach a door. He grabbed the handle with one hand and pulled. His vision blurred and he stumbled backwards as a loud groan came from behind the door. Fully aware of the situation, Daniel desperately looked in the kitchen for a place of hiding. His eyes fell upon an oven. In his time of despair, he opened the door of the oven and clambered clumsily inside. The sound of the door finally being swung open was heard and the low sound of frustrated grumbling followed. Daniel froze in place and held his breath. Several times the Gatherer walked past his hiding spot, each time it did, Daniel tensed up and prepared for the worst. Eventually, the Gatherer got bored of looking in the kitchen and left out of an unseen door.

Daniel, satisfied that the Gatherer had left, abandoned his hiding spot and ran out of the door in which the Gatherer had entered.

Chop!

He knew he would have to do. Find the source of that bloody chopping. He turned a corner to see a black void with invisible lights shining on an empty path. With no other way to go, Daniel followed the path.

Chop!

It took Daniel several minutes to reach the end of the path. Until then, his walk had been anything but eventful. When he reached the end, however, he was met with a wall with a strange projection on it. On the wall, Daniel could see his own silhouette chopping at something with an axe.

Chop!

But what was he chopping at?

Chop!

Was it a tree or a piece of wood?

Chop! Squelch!

Oh no! This was silhouette was not chopping at wood. When the figure brought down the axe, a spurt of blood hit the wall. The blood was real and physical. The wall became redder with each swing.

Chop! Squelch!

Daniel became more and more horrified with each swing. All those he had tortured... All those he had killed...

Chop! Squelch!

He couldn’t watch anymore. He wanted it to stop. He began to weep. He shouted at his silhouette to stop. He cursed himself for committing those sins in Brennenburg. He was now sure this was hell.

Chop! Squelch!

He couldn’t take it. Sorrow turned to rage. He ran up to the wall and smashed it repeatedly. Each hit released his pure rage onto the wall. To his surprise, he could feel it moving.

Chop! Squelch!

It was time to end this suffering. With a loud battle cry, he kicked the wall. After his brutal attack, the wall collapsed showing a way out of the darkness. Behind the wall was a large beam of sunlight. Daniel was standing in the exposed sunlight next to the hole in the wall. He smiled as the chopping stopped, but his smile faded as he heard a low moan. He turned to see a Gatherer running through the darkness towards him.

Daniel immediately ran for the hole, but it retreated away from him when he got close to it. He wasn’t about to stop and try and explain this strange occurrence, he needed to get away. He turned to see the Gatherer still chasing him. He got to the hole again, but it retreated another 20 yards away from him. Daniel was panting hard and sweating. He had to get away from the monster, but this world was betraying him. He couldn’t keep up with it. Annoyed and desperate, Daniel got within 5 feet of the hole, but instead of running, he jumped through it. To his surprise, the hole stayed put and he went through. When he landed, he looked behind him to see the Gatherer about to run through when the hole closed up behind him with piles of rocks and boulders. All Daniel could see of the Gatherer was its hands poking out of the pile.

Daniel, still shaken by the experience, shakily stood up and walked. The sunlight had disappeared and his hands were bloodied and bruised from punching the wall. He looked up at his surroundings and tried to determine where he was now. He recognised the area as the prison in Brennenburg. He was surrounded by corridors, each one lined with prison cells with people inside chained by their wrists. The sounds of people moaning and crying filled the air. Daniel walked onwards, aware that releasing these people was an impossible task without the key. Suddenly, he realised why else he might be here. He looked towards the hole he had jumped through and confirmed his suspicions. The hole behind him had morphed into the hole made by the little girl who had escaped. He needed to stop himself before he murdered her. He remembered where he had murdered her. The storage room!

Suddenly with purpose, Daniel ran to the elevator and pulled the lever. He intended to stop himself from doing something he would soon regret. When the elevator stopped, ran out and ran towards the storage room. The room he had run into had a water fountain by a group of windows with light pouring in. A flight of stair on either side of the room led to the study and guest room. He was in the right place alright.

“No! Please I’m sorry!” A young girls voice cried out in the darkness. His speed increased. “Please don’t hurt me!” She cried. He turned another corner and saw the stairs leading to the place of murder. “No! Help me!” He was not going to fail her!

He turned the final corner to see his own shadow looming over a little blonde girl. He charged at his form and slammed it to the floor. He only had to glance at the doppelganger to realise that it had no texture. Its form was built from darkness and it had black flames flaying off of it. Daniel looked besides him to see the axe it would have used. He picked it up and sliced the shadows head clean off. Daniel turned to the girl who had tears running down her cheeks. He grabbed her in an embrace.

“Don’t worry. It’s going to be alright.”

The world around him changed. He suddenly found himself in the forest with his axe lying next to him. On his other side was a dead Timberwolf. In his arms was a weeping Pegasus filly. ‘What had happened?’ he thought.

10 minutes earlier.

Scootaloo awoke from her extremely long slumber. She could hear wood being chopped and looked over to see the biped chopping at a tree with a very quickly assembled axe. She decided to let her head rest for several more minutes.
It was not long before the chopping stopped and Scootaloo looked to see why. To her horror, the biped was gone!

Panicking, she got up and began to search for it. She first looked where the biped had been. She stood at where it had been chopping and looked around at where it could be. Nothing. She decided to move on. As she passed a bunch of bushes, she heard a faint rustling noise. She swore she could see a pair of eyes trying desperately not to look at her. That was enough for her, she needed to get out of there. She was helpless without the creature to defend her. She searched down the side of the castle for it, but stop in her search once she heard a faint banging noise coming from the front area of the castle. She ran back, hopeful that the creature had returned. What she saw confused her. Standing there at the tree was the biped. What surprised her was that it was punching the tree. Slowly but surely, the tree bent lower and lower. It had managed to chop at the tree enough to make it weak. If she wanted to, she could get it down in one buck. She caught a glimpse of the creature’s face. Its face was strained, not with the amount of effort it was putting into attacking the tree, but with anger. The creature looked furious. Eventually, it kicked the tree and smashed it to the ground.

Scootaloo was ecstatic, there was finally a way off of this island. She ran up to the biped, but upon seeing her, it ran. She saw fear in its eyes, like the eyes she saw in the bushes. It was scared of her again, but why? The creature seemed unfazed by the fact it was running across a log, but that didn’t stop it from almost stumbling off of the log. She, however, was fully aware of the danger and slowly crawled across.

She could not keep up with it and soon it vanished into the forest. She now realised that she was indeed alone again in the forest. The darkness around her seemed to consume her slowly as she slowly crept into a state of sorrow again. She curled up into a ball and waited patiently for her saviour to come. After all, he never stayed in this state before. Her hopes of the biped returning in time were shattered when a low growling sound emitted in the nearby bushes. Scootaloo slowly turned her head to see a Timberwolf looming over her. She bucked it in the face as hard as she could which unfortunately wasn’t very hard. The now enraged Timberwolf grabbed the filly by the leg as she tried to run and raised a claw over her head. In a final attempt to save herself, she cried out to her saviour. “Help me!” Within seconds, the biped tackled the beast and pinned it to the ground. He raised his hastily made axe and chopped its head clean off. Luckily Scootaloo had looked away as it raised its hand. Scootaloo was crying now, but tears of joy, not of sorrow.

Daniel embraced the filly harder as she struggled to break out a hoof. The filly began to pathetically smack him with her hoof as she cried. Daniel could only imagine angry she must have been. He had left her in the dark with no one to help her and disappeared. He got there just in the nick of time. He needed to get out of this forest before these hallucinations killed the poor filly. Slowly, he stood up and began to walk in a random direction. As he walked, one thought escaped his mind. ‘Whose castle was that?’