"A torn down city ruined by a massive disaster. The wounded roads and buildings appeared like they had been brutally scratched by a violent storm. Sparks of fire flickered up ahead behind the dead trees. The legs moved forward towards the sparks. Three skinless, red muscled giants stood in the middle of the street, sparks flickered around them as they disintegrate themselves and restructure back to a giant humanoid form. They continued to disintegrate and restructure again and again, trying to perfect themselves. The sky wasn't blue anymore. A pale red layer covered the vast sky, like the sky is filled with dried blood. The golden mask shined behind the sparks of fire, above the giants. The golden masked man stood up above the giants in the balcony of a nearby building, moving his hands as he manoeuvred the structure of the giants disintegrating and restructuring them to his liking."
I found myself lying outside in the middle of the streets. I am so glad, that those giants were just a dream. The nightmare felt too real that I got depressed from it, absolutely mind devastating. The sun up in the cloudless sky made my eyes twitching as they were trying to adjust to the daylight. My head feels so heavy and my ears are ringing. Every joint in my body made a cracking sound as I woke up from the road. I coughed out water from my mouth and some water droplets ran down from my nose.
Strangely, the ruined city is very much similar from my dream except that the streets and roads are narrow here. I positioned myself behind a building to place my back against a wall for support. My hip is almost broken but I don't see any other injuries in my body. Everything other than my hip is fine and the skin in my hands and legs are too smooth and polished almost like a plastic doll. My trousers are torn near my crotch, but I don't need to care about that anymore. There is no soul left alive here to make me feel embarrassed.
There is a little hope left in me as there is a possibility of someone being alive here those who share the same fate as mine. How did I end up here? I don't know the answer. My head is empty. I couldn't remember how I arrived here. All I remember is that the golden masked freak from my dreams was there in that apartment and I remember running away from him but stuck in the middle of the drowning city.
The city must be an island or a coastal city. That is the only explanation that the city got drowned in the first place. What is really weird is that the city is completely abandoned back then and right now. I couldn't remember anything but running away from the masked freak. It must be the new surroundings, which is forcing my brain go haywire. It must be something like when you decided to do something in your room, but you forget what you were planning to do as you exit the room. The sudden change of environment and surroundings is messing up with my brain. As soon as I get over with this phenomenon and regain my memories, I could figure things out.
I am already halfway down the path of remembering how I ended up here, but my memory is not so clear that whether I was travelling in a ship for a one week sea travel to Andaman or the time I went for scuba diving. Those are my last memories which are related to sea, but something is not adding up. The memories of the masked man are very surreal. May be, my brain is confusing with dream and reality, but about the golden masked man, I don't know, which incident was the dream and which was my real memory. May be there is no masked man in reality.
My brain is really messed up after I got washed up from the drowning city. Now I feel weird by remembering my own name. Leo, the name I got called by my whole life feels weird now. This is not the kind of surprise I expected when I reached up the roof of the building to scout the city. I have gotten nowhere, am I?
Everything is still the same as the drowning city. The magnificent palace in the midst of the city, the mountain with its peak capped with snow in the west and a bunch of buildings and houses. How did I end up here again? Shouldn't the flood cast me away to a distant land? It's like I got stuck in a cyclone formed around the island and somehow ended up in the eye of it. I really have gotten nowhere, and I still don't remember how I ended up here. The sun scorched brightly as it's in the middle of the sky and I am standing up in a roof of a building directly below the sun. It is kind of depressing that I am all alone here stuck in a ruined island city and not even my shadow is here with me.
Isn't this place supposed to be an island, I am sure that the other side of the mountain is sea shore and the whole island is surrounded by the ocean, except the north direction. I guess the answer for all my questions is waiting there. What exactly is that wall in the north, it runs long. The wall is huge in both terms of length and width. What? Is this a copy of the Great Wall of China? Everything I hope for must be behind this great wall. This island got its own panel of climatic conditions. The logic of climatic conditions is not meshing up with each other. The sun's heat is too harsh like a tropical island, yet the mountain peak is capped with snow.
I guess my destination is fixed – the other side of the wall. I wish the people on the other side speak English. I will find that out that when I reach the other side of the wall. You got this Leo, even though your body condition is not too great, you must do this. Broad shoulders, strong legs and as a boy in his nineteenth age, I could actually pull this stunt, before my body completely wears down all its strength.
It isn't really scary, but this is supposed to be scary isn't it? I should be depressed after realising I have been stranded in an abandoned island. I guess I have always been weird all the time. I always have paranoid thoughts though I enjoyed my life. Always making decisions impulsively without worrying about the consequences, but never regretted because I know I have to face anything that comes later. It must be my fault, that I am stranded here now. Knowing me, I somehow know that everything is my fault because I always jump into decisions, never caring about the consequences. I am supposed to be scared like a normal guy. Of course I am scared, but there is little part of me is excited about being here, because that little part of me thinks this is all I wanted all the time.
My ears are still mildly ringing. I am on my way to the palace and then again find the way for the north wall from there. The trees and plants must have died a long time ago. The city is filled with dead leafless hallow tress, thorny plants and cactus which grew adapting to this island's climate. There were some mushrooms here and there fungus and other organisms on dead land and dead trees. The city looked like it got subjected to poison, but a slow poison, slowly killing the city but had almost completed its work.
The worst part of this city must be this gas station, stained by burnt ashes. The gas station must have been severely burnt. Even after drowned and swept down by the sea it still got that burnt stains, like it had been burned in hell's fire. This city would have been inhabited once but not anymore, I am convinced now.
What is this shiny jewel in that dirt? Is this some kind of omen, I am being constantly followed by gold objects but I am not sure that golden masked man is real. I cleaned the dirt with my dark blue ink stained yellow t-shirt, couldn't care much about that blue stain, must be an algae or something. The golden jewel looks like a tiny cylinder shaped battery, slightly bigger than my palm.
The gas station exploded as it had some fumes left in there.
The battery slipped out of my hand as my hand forgot to hold it in the shock after seeing the explosion. The explosion impact blew a heavy wind against my face. All I did was pull up the tiny holder in the battery end, it pulled itself back down and laser shot out from the end like a mini lightning. The battery turns out to be a laser gun, but it shoots blue flamed laser.
Holy mother! Isn't there anything normal that exists here? I have to reach to the wall before I lose my mind. But it won't hurt to try shooting it again. Funny thing, though it's tiny, it needs the use of two hands to shoot it, one hand to hold it in position and the other hand to pull up the lever. I made two or more holes in the road and nearby buildings with the battery gun.
The battery is not even getting hotter. The gold layer must act as an electro static shield, who knows? So the guy behind the golden mask must have a reason to wear the gold mask. My brain is really messed up, why am I thinking about him now? I feel like I know him for a long time and the same time, I don't know anything about him. But there is no way he is real. I ran away from him, but I now I feel like I know him. But it would be still horrifying if he comes back and sing daddy's home. The next time I see him, I am shooting him in his head point blank with the battery gun. He better not be real. The sun is slowly making its way to set behind the mountain. At least I have to make it to the palace before sunset.
I walked for hours to make it to the palace. I never imagined that I one day will suffer from partial amnesia and wander around an unknown ruined city. The welcome to this dead city is too harsh.
My mind replayed the same thing, for the whole time. My brain is repeatedly playing the classical two door IQ test game. Two guards, two doors, one door leads to life and other door leads to death. Only one question can be asked to one guard, one guard always says the truth and while the other guard always lies. You don't know who is the truth telling or the liar guard. I am playing this game in my mind again and again but not wanting to find an answer, I just imagine myself being there in front of the doors and staying put, trying not to choose any door. Not the door which leads to life, not the door which leads to death, I just stand there not willing to make a decision.
Finally after travelling through the deserted dead city for hours, I reached the palace.
The palace is too big. I can literally reach to the other side of the city if get to the back entrance. The arches went on and on, the palace is much bigger on the inside, the architectural design is too old but grand and flashy. It must be at least 300 – 400 years old, if it could withstand storm and tsunami, it must have been built before several hundred years. The safest shelter in the dead city, I could use some sleep, without worrying that the roof might collapse and fall on me.