1 Waking Worm

John Doe POV

The heat was blistering, and the sun blinding. Wait, blinding?

My room doesn't even have a window on that side, unless I somehow slept all the way til noon, though I doubt that.

I opened my eyes, and found myself hanging on to a board, yes, a single plank of wood, as I floated along the ocean waves.

My family, my mom, dad, and... wait.

What was my sisters name? What is my name? Why can't I remember their faces, who they are?

I don't know, but right now? Right now, that doesn't matter, right now, I have to survive here, somehow.

And then I will find whoever did this to me, and I will rip their spine out and hang them in it.

That is a promise.

___________________________

I survived by pure dumb luck, a ship passing nearby that saw me and picked me up.

The captain, I didn't get his name and it would be rude to ask again, was nice enough, but the people on this ship? They weren't.

They were the snobs you saw in movies, looking down on all those "plebians" and "middle class" just because they got born into a rich family.

It disgusted me that I remember movies by heart and quote them by when I tried to recall my family all I got was blurry photographs, different each time.

Did I ever exist? Or was all I had done just a lie?

Then the ship halted, for some reason, and the medical bed I was sitting on slammed into the wall, almost knocking me over.

I was a large man, although I didn't feel as if I was meant to be one.

I felt as if I was meant to be somewhere else.

I got up on steady legs, finally, and walked out of the medical room and onto deck to see what the problem was.

It wasn't that I still needed to stay in the medical room, it was more that I was expected to stay out of sight, and while the captain didn't phrase it like that I knew that was what he meant-

And then it hit me.

This overwhelming aura of sadness. Of grief and of mourning in the most peaceful ways, and at the same time ripping themselves and everyone around them apart.

It was the most beutiful and horrid thing I had ever felt, and I lost myself in it's horrible message and it's divine tune, and I absentmindedly walked towards it.

I needed to see this thing, but I also needed to run away, and hide as far away as I could, in hopes that it would take that little longer to find me.

To rip me apart on levels I didn't even know exist.

And then I saw him, in all his shining glory.

Zion. The Warrior. The entity. The enemy. The protector.

All horrid elements that clashed into eachother to create a symphony not meant for human minds to understand, not meant for us to lay eyes upon, and as quickly as it was there, it vanished.

I wanted it back more then anything, but I was also relived it was gone, and I hoped I would never see it again.

I ran back into the medical room, and I stayed there in a daze until the captain shook me out of it and told me it was time to leave.

It was over, because we only had thirty years to live.

"Captain," I began "what would you do if you only had thirty years to live, maybe even less?"

He quirked an eyebrow and seemed to think for a short while, before smiling.

"That's for old men like me to worry about, not young men like you, now, live your life."

I smiled. It was hollow and false.

________________________

I lived. No, I survived, and even with no powers in this supernatural world, I was surviving.

My own skills, honed in the twenty first century led to me being able to handle coding with ease.

It stung to be degraded to doing homework for wealthy children, but it payed, and it may have been a step up from what I used to do.

Who knows, I sure don't.

I was surviving, until I met her. Alicia, a girl far nicer then a person like me deserved.

I still remember meeting her in that bookstore, things that used to exist in those days. These days, I suppose.

She smiled kindly, and placed the coding book down, and she walked up to me. I was stunned silent, and I suppose it was love at first sight.

"So," she began, and I loved her voice, smooth like honey flowing down my spine and into me, changing all I was, "and recommendations on books?"

My silence continued and she giggled, pointing down at my book.

"Ah, well..."

And we clicked.

I taught her codes that didn't exist yet, and she loved me for it. She took the broken pieces of a person and put it back together, piece by piece.

I would do anything for her, because I loved her.

I remember the first time we ate dinner together in a resturant, a fancy one, and I dressed up in my best suit, and she her best dress.

I got envious looks the entire night, and I was on cloud nine.

It felt like I could do anything, even here in Worm, even with the counter of thirty years ticking down, because I had her.

But what changed? When did she change?

She got colder to me, and that was fine. She ripped me down, and that was fine, because she built me back up again, better.

She published books in her name of what I taught her, and I smiled and nodded, because why wouldn't I? I loved her.

I loved every part of her, even the imperfect ones. Even the cruelty, even the hatred and jealousy, I loved her.

And she had left, and I still loved her, and I loved her even though she had taken everything but my life from me, and even that was simply on a timer.

It was over, and my dream was broken, and now I was barely even surviving, as she went through man after man and took everything from them, I still loved her, and I asked myself why? Why did I love her?

What was there to love? In my memories she seemed so perfect, and voice so smooth, but the pictures, the recordings?

I heard nothing of what I loved in there.

I remember this apartment. My apartment, where I let her stay during a rough patch, where we shared everything but one thing.

The book I was never allowed to read.

The book that didn't tell a story of love, but of a young girl that broke just right, in just the right place, for a piece of something greater to accept her.

For her to find a target of obsession, me, and rip me apart piece by piece with her glorified claws, with a silver tongue made of lead.

And she had broken me, not for a reason like money no, that was a side effect, but for amusment.

No, not her, powers had broken me. And some people didn't deserve power.

And for just a second I saw two being, greater then anything I had ever seen, as I broke just right for them to give me something, a fragmented piece of themselves, and then I forgot, waking up with a book clenched in my hands.

I burnt the book. I burnt my clothes, and then I burnt the apartment for good measure.

For it all to wash away in fire.

I embraced the hate in my heart, and I smiled.

___________________________

I got a new suit. I got a new place of residence, and I forgot the face of the girl that broke me, because it didn't matter anymore.

We were all living on a clock, slowly counting down to zero.

Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Says The Clock.

Even as I was ripped into an alleyway by a drugged up madman with spikes all over his body, I didn't panic.

I didn't care, even as his spikes bit into me.

Because we were all on a clock, but some part of me still cared.

And that part pulled with all it had, and I left that alleyway, bloodied but alive, leaving a body torn apart behind me. Torn apart by spikes that tore themself out of my body.

I would take and take until I got home to a family I didn't remember or care about anymore.