Nobody, Chapter 1

Nobody woke up, which wouldn’t have been so bad if he knew what he had woken up from, and already all he wanted to do was go back to sleep. He could tell something about this was wrong, one reason being that he could tell that he had woken up in the middle of a forest. Nobody didn’t know how he knew this, but that worried him even more. Still, might as well lie down while he could. Nobody knew that you had to take these relaxing moments when you could, but he didn’t know how he knew that either, but either way, it was nice.

Nobody dug his fingers into the dirt around him, but as soon as he put his finger tips into the dirt pain shot up his arms so hard and fast that he had to shoot his knuckles into his mouth to stop from screaming his head off. That was when he opened his eyes.

He was right, he was in a forest. Immediately ahead of him was the edge of the treas that Nobody guess marked the forest that he was in, along with a road that went outside of it and stretched to a large field. Nobody turned to look at the forest behind him, taking his knuckles out his mouth. Pines and firs, but nothing else, pretty usual stuff as forests went. Nobody’s fingers were a different story. He could tell because none of his fingers on his right hand had their nails attached to them. Nobody didn’t move, all he could do was stare at his hands. They were dirty, and covered with a rusted black-red crust. Nobody’s ring and pinky finger on his left hand were completely gone, only to replaced by bloody stumps that almost hurt to look at, if they didn’t already hurt like a bitch.

“What the hell”, he said to nothing as he stood up, clutching his hands close to his chest. After glancing back towards the forest, Nobody sighed and started walking down the dirt road towards the green clearing. There was nothing noteworthy on the road, just sagebrush and dirt, but nonetheless something seemed off to Nobody, something that was nagging at the back of his head that he couldn’t quite place. He decided to shrug and continue onward, but nonetheless he didn’t put his guard down.

“Why am I here?”, Nobody said to nothing has he walked towards the clearing. “Why am I here? Where is here? Who am I?”, he said. With every word Nobody’s throat choked tighter, and the words were harder to get out. Almost as soon as he finished talking, Nobody’s throat choked up. It was like someone had dropped a lead ball into his throat that he couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard he tried.

Nobody fell to his knees and put his palms to the ground, dry heaving, knowing that it was a panic attack, though he didn’t know how he knew this. Nobody collapsed to the ground after a few heaves.

“What… What’s-”, he said. He had to stop because he couldn’t stop breathing. It was like all the stress and fear possible in the world had built up and crammed itself into Nobody’s throat. He couldn’t stop gasping for air, searching with what felt like his last breath for a reason why he was acting like this, why he was here, who he was!

After what felt like an eternity of breathing for his life, Nobody sat up in the middle of the dirt road and looked at the grass clearing before crawling a few feet and falling against the sagebrush wall next to him, looking at the forest. Nobody sat for what seemed like hours looking at the forest, and trying to ease his breathing.

“I don’t know who I am”, Nobody said to nothing. For some reason this was comforting, even if Nobody knew he wasn’t talking to anyone.

“Think we’ll be able to get out of this alright? My hand’s seem to be just a little fucked up”, he said to nothing.

“Yeah, I think we’re good”, he said back.

Nobody stood back up and kept going. He was only a dozen feet away from the clearing. He knew it wasn’t much of a life goal to walk down to a small glass field, but it was good to concentrate on something. It took away from the onslaught of pain coming from his fingers, like small, tiny knives were driving into every bit of exposed skin and nerve.

“Alcohol, right?”, he said to nothing.

“Yeah, why not?, he said back.

As Nobody reached the clearing, something was made abundantly clear: The only thing in this field was grass and jack shit.

“It is a nice little field though, some grass on the ground, a nice little sagebrush bush growing in the middle of it. Buy and large, nice, but jack shit”, Nobody said

“No, not jack shit, cow shit”, he said back. Nobody could see some cow pies throughout the small field. Cows. Except there were no cows in sight, but something even better was in sight. Smoke, just over the little hill in the clearing.

Nobody started running, his fingers hurting like the pits of red Hell but he ran anyway, ran as fast as legs could carry him. Smoke had to mean people.

“Or… It could mean… Fire,” he said to nothing.

“Shut… the fuck… up”, he said back.

Nobody reached the top of the hill and looked for the source of the smoke. A camp, at the bottom of the hill/ Before he booked it, Nobody took just a second to take in what he saw in front of him, which happened to be a small valley surrounded by large hills and mountains. Nobody presumed he was at the top of a mountain range.

“Well, neat”, He said to nothing as he began to run down the side of the hill towards the camp. All that mattered to Nobody right now was finding someone who could tell him just what the fuck was going on, but something was wrong. The source if the fire wasn’t a fire pit at the camp, it was-

Nobody felt his foot give away, and knew that he was fucked in that instant. It was confirmed for him when the last thing he saw before everything went black was a large rock on the ground heading right for his face.

Nobody opened his eyes, looking at the edge of the camp. Luckily it didn’t look like much time had passed, but his head was throbbing, stinging, and a little swollen, but since he couldn’t feel any brain matter when he touched his head, Nobody deduced that he was alright. His fingers, not so much. It felt like his fingertips were nuclear, and his two missing fingers on his right hand were even worse. Nobody wanted to yell and scream, and he did for just a second before he saw the camp in front of him, or thereof.

Everything in the camp was black and grey, except for the bodies. Those were bloated, green, and purple. Nobody screamed as he shot up and backed away from the charred camp, pushing his back against the hill that he had just ran down.

Nobody felt the lead ball forming in his throat again ,but he shut his eyes and breathed slowly, and deeply. It was all Nobody could do, wanted to do, was shut his eyes and focus on his breathing until the day that he died, which right now he hoped was soon. Nobody knew he couldn’t wait, he had to look for something to help with his fingers, otherwise he was going to die.

“Shit… shit… SHIT!”, Nobody yelled before he opened his eyes. Nothing had changed, the bodies were still there, same as the burnt tents. From what Nobody could see where he was sitting, there was nothing left. Wait, not nothing. There were two large black duffel bags right by the fire pit. But to get there, he had to go through the camp.

Nobody got up and started walking, putting one of the sleeves of his jacket over his mouth to help filter the smell of the decomposing bodies. Nobody couldn't stop looking at the bodies. There were four, an old man wearing a hunting outfit was lying next to one of the burned tents, the side of his face that was near it was charred and burned, and two mid-twenties girls both of them slumped next to the opposite edge of the camp, but Nobody couldn't tell who the fourth person was. His or her body was inside one of the tents, completely black and completely burned.

Even though he was completely terrified of them, Nobody couldn't help but feel a bit of interest towards the bodies. And that scared Nobody almost as much as the bodies themselves. The interest wasn't in the bodies themselves, but what happened to the people who used to occupy them. Where did they go?

Nobody picked up the duffel bags, threw them across his shoulders, and ran as hard as he could for the edge of the mountain-top valley, needing to find out what the fuck was going on, and fast, otherwise he knew he was going to lose his mind, or his life. Either one seemed just as likely to him in that moment.

The lead ball had come back with a vengeance, forcing Nobody to stop in the middle of the clearing he was in, dropping to his knees.

"HELP!", Nobody screamed to nothing as he fell to his knees.

"HEEEELLP".

"HELP ME PLEEEAASSEE".

Nobody fell on top of his stomach and wept. For how long, he didn't know, didn't care. While he wept his breathing felt like it was being forced out of his stomach by the lead ball in his throat. What had killed those people? Why was he missing two fingers on his right hand? How did he get here!?

"You're not... Gonna get anywhere... Worrying about it...", he said to nothing.

Nobody knew his own voice was right, but it didn't help as much as he wished it could. Nobody got up anyway.

Working furiously with his left hand, Nobody opened one of the duffel bags. Nothing much, a few pairs of clothes that looked like they would fit him alright, a tent, a sleeping bag, and a poncho. Nobody could tell from the weight and feel of the second bag that it was going to yield better results, and he was right, in a way, because inside the second duffel bag were guns. Guns, and lots of ammo. Too much ammo.

Nobody felt a moment of pure confusion as he looked into the duffel bag filled with shotgun and handgun shell boxes, including two .55 caliber handguns and one .12 gauge shotgun. Nobody knew in the back of his mind that no one used this much firepower when hunting, so that was out of the question, but before Nobody could think any more about it he spotted a first aid kit at the very corner of the duffel bag.

"Yes!", he said to nothing as he fumbled for it with his left hand, trying as hard as he could to get it open. Jackpot, bandages and alcohol were inside.

"Now comes the hard part, I guess", he said to nothing as he got up and sat against the first duffel bag.

Nobody took a long look at the small of bottle of alcohol, wondering if you could get drunk off of it just as he poured some of the alcohol over his right hand. The pain wasn’t the worst that Nobody had ever felt, but by God did it hurt like a son of a bitch. All Nobody could do was make a sour face and pour the rest on his left hand, which hurt like a son of a bitch’s twin sister. Nobody decided to use some of the water he found in one of the duffel bags to help clean the wounds on his hands before putting on bandages. Still hurt like a sunnuva, but it felt better all the same.

“I guess finding someone would be a pretty good idea”, he said, and with that Nobody stood up, slung the bags over his shoulders, and begin to head downward, hopefully towards a town, towards people. Nobody walked for hours before he started to notice it was getting dark, so Nobody made camp in a cozy spot inside a circle of fir’s.

As Nobody lay inside the tent at night, he started to cry. For how long he cried he didn’t know.