Warmth

A warmth gripped the boy.

It spiralled up his limbs, coiling tightly around his neck. A numb, static sensation leeched against his skin and caused him to fumble for consciousness. His vision was marbled once his eyes were open. He could see his hand reaching out before him as if for some assisting hand to grasp it. His mind was fuzzy, aching for the edges of his sight to sharpen and for the pain to clear. A subtle panic rose as he reached for his head. The drilling, tingling pain in his temple felt as if his skull had been sawed open and probed by uncaring fingers.

Generally, he felt damaged.

Even once he had managed to press fingers against his temple the rest of his body refused to respond. Trapped in his own body, he couldn't sit up to purge the distorted image of land that warbled before him.

A rosy colored bruise had blossomed beneath his skin, snaking up his forearm and wrapping its lithe body around his wrist. He examined the snake-like marking with narrowed eyes, struggling even to turn his hand this way and that to assess the bruise properly.

Or was it possibly a burn?

The only thing he could feel was the vivid tamp in his temple, like an overflow of drumming. He tried to process what had happened before now. Taking hold of a swirl of blank memories that passed behind his eyes, he could recall waking up. The crackling of a caged fire that lapped at the twigs he had broken and fed into it. He remembered how cold it had been this morning and the groaning churn of heavy clouds above him.

What had happened escaped him completely. His reminiscence ended with scanning the dark brow of cloud in the bleeding horizon as it hovered above, his neck cramping as he looked skyward. There was nearly no wind at the moment. He tried to remember other things. Where he was, what time it must be, what day it had been. His thoughts sifted through his fingers like fading grains of sand.

What was his name?

What did he look like?

Who could he ask for help?

There was nothing. Nothing but the snapping bite of flames, the drifting of a single conglomerate cloud that spread out over miles of empty land, and the worsening tension in his chest. Pain weaved through his entire body now. The stress of constraint choked his insides. Unable to hyperventilate, he struggled for breath, omitting rasping coughs that wracked his body. The ground was cold and hard beneath his head. The chill seeped into his skin and  burrowed through to his bones.

A shiver threw him off. The cold trickled through his blood now, fighting off whatever warmth he had previously felt.

The arm that stretched out before him bent towards him as if it wasn't his own. His hand covered his face, running roughly over his eyes, wiping his mouth. Air was trapped in his lungs, beating on his chest from the inside. His shoulder shifted beneath him and he pulled his head away from the ground as his neck snapped into movement, straightening up as he propped himself onto his elbow. A wet trickle slipped down his cheek from his hairline. Cautiously, he was able to sit up, blood suddenly rushing from his head felt as if it was pooling in his arms. He felt heavy and every part of him that had touched the ground brutally ached. A groan escaped his lips as he turned his head up, closing his eyes. Eating the pain so it wouldnt do the same to him. After a few moments to recover, he looked around.

Empty. The land was empty. Void of anything and equal to nothing. The ground was a solid bed of rock, marred by an unholy amount of cracks and fissures, littering every inch of space given to his sight. The only thing he saw was the horizon. It loomed warily in the distance, wallowing in self pity and repetitivity.

He wondered if he shouldnt try to stand. Afraid that if he did he may inexplicably shatter and crumble helplessly to the ground. Writhing there in place as his  breaths measured out into a meaningless proof of existence. Why was he here?

The question screwed itself into his mind. What was he here, in the middle of a dry, cold desert, for? An image of flames as they swallowed up tinder, licking at his finger tips every time he reached near played in his mind. He had a home once. Shouldnt he try to get back there? The promise of a fire's warmth made him giddy, combined with the brain fogging pain he experienced.

His location circled him in a panoramic vision of Hell itself. If he walked in just any direction there was no doubt he would end up somewhere eventually, though it wasn't ideal.

He examined himself, thoughtfully.

His clothes were dusty with a sandy, grayish-brown smut that clung to him.

He brushed off, noticing that his clothing was simple. A black shirt with sleeves that were too long underneath a white T-shirt. He tugged at it so he could read what was written across the top.

Zero-10

The numbers meant nothing to him. Just a fleck of inconclusive information that couldn't change anything. Viewing from the waist down, he had on a thin pair of white leggings reaching just below the knee underneath non descript black shorts. Paired with that, converse.

Curious hands explored his pockets, pulling out a few different things. He sat stiffly, looking at them, too cold to bother, but he reached out anyway, picking up the first object.

A smart phone.

He held it gently in his hand, turning it on. After a moment it was able to restart. The screen was black before it was fully turned on, but once it was, he flinched at the wallpaper of the lock screen. There were three people in the picture. Two men and a boy he could only guess was himself. The men wore lab coats and latex gloves as they stood in either side of the boy who sat on a desk or a table of some sort. The man on the left was tall, with a sinewy body that his lab coat molded around perfectly. His smile was offcentered and his eyes smiled with it. He seemed as if he was fairytale happy. As if in this very moment his every dream had come true. The second man was a bit shorter, smaller in frame and he wore glasses. His auburn hair was just a bit messed up and his smile less vibrant that the other mans. He was looking slightly to the side in the picture and his focus was clearly off.

The boy was turned towards the man with glasses and auburn hair. He faced the camera, arms folded over his knees, brooding. A shock of black hair nearly covered his dark, narrow eyes and he had a generally unkempt nature, it seemed. A muss of snarling black hair, scowling face, long, thin limbs as a result of malnourishment. All three in the photo had pale skin, the man with glasses being the palest by far. There were no captions on the picture. No further information about where, or when it was taken. Let alone what was happening. The only thing he noticed was that in the picture, the same 'Zero- 10' was printed across the chest of his shirt. He frowned at the picture before swiping up for the passcode.

The front facing camera switched on instead, assessing his features. He saw himself on the screen. The same as in the photo, as he had suspected. This time he was dirtier, grimier, and a trail of blood spilled down his face. As the phone matched his features and unlocked, the boy touched the blood in his cheek. The scent of copper took hold of him. He winced, then sighed, swiping through the homescreens. The phone was nearly blank. The wallpaper was simply gray with black flames leaping upwards and the applications on the phone were just mandatory. He went to the gallery, finding nothing but preset wallpapers and the same picture that was on the lock screen. Annoyed now, the boy looked through the notes. He found 3 files. Two were locked with a seven digit passcode that he couldn't manage to remember, but the third was a sequence of number combinations.

He read it over.

Seven- 2 (3)

Seven- 9 (0)

Nine- 4 (1)

Nine- 10 (0)

Three- 63 (4)

Three- 2 (7)

Twelve- 34 (8)

Twelve- 15 (4)

Eight- 34 (12)

Eight- 18 (1)

Four- 15 (12)

Four- 63 (3)

One- 4 (9)

One- 18 (8)

Zero- 9 (7)

Zero-10 (9)

Again, they meant nothing to him, whatsoever. He decided the phone was utterly useless at present and moved along, eyeing the few other things there were to look at.

A length of string.

Pocket lint.

And a small, black, round pebble.

With deft wonderment he picked up the pebble, marking how unnaturally smooth it was. The weight was almost nothing in his hand, and it was nearly as small as his thumbnail. A hole drilled through the center suggested it was meant to be a necklace. He glanced over at the string, but concluded that it was too short. He set the pebble down.

There was nothing else.. Nothing else to look at.. It felt as if there was nothing on Earth worth his attention. His surroundings were bland, his memories wiped clean, and there was nothing to do. Nothing interesting to think about. The childish prickle of boredom stabbed him repetitively. He sighed, looking around again. He wanted to go home, now... Wherever that was..

The sky was a mirror that replicated and expressed his dark mood. The oily scent of rain seized him suddenly.

He looked up as heavy, heaving black drops splashed to the ground, sending plumes of the thick-set dust into the air. The toxic rain splashed around him, a mix of oil and ash and unknown chemicals. He had no shelter of any sort and his eyes hurt with a faint stinging as the fumes danced around him.

Apathetically, he rolled his sleeve down, over the sensitive skin that curled around his forearm. He stood and looked up at the clouds, just the way he remembered doing. His stomach ached for his memory back. His former life. His past.

The only thing he wasn't sure of was if it was something he would have wanted to remember. Was there a reason he had so easily forgotten? Or was this simply one of those moments in life where the things you care about are seamlessly taken away from you. As if they were never even there?

The wet felt as if he was being stabbed with ice from the inside. The warmth from before was truly and completely gone now.