Where am I?
'I' turned about for a few moments in the head. No name came immediately to mind. Hands lifted in front of concerned blue eyes, counted down and then up the fingers from palms spread to fists and pack again. This didn't, naturally, produce any appreciable answer other than all ten were accounted for and functioning. Who am I?
Alright. Got ...a really bad headache and a bump on the nog'. What do people use or do for identification. Cards and wallets. Photos. Ids and cards. Where are those kept? Pockets and purses. No purse anywhere, ey? Turning face from the ceiling to hard by on the floor and looking at the rest of the room revealed a small backpack that looked familiar. Patting down hips and pants provided a bifold with some cards.
Jack Bromwch. Licensed Driver. Student ID. Is that me? Well, it was in your pocket, so unless you stole it. Yes....yes, I ...remember people. They say Jack to me. They mean me. Lot's of faces. Young, old, in between. Balls, remembering makes everything throb. Slowly, the body was commanded to sit up and prop pillow of the cot against the wall. There were lots of other cots. No one looked to be there. A barracks or camp in a cave? There was the sound of boots coming that echoed in from a door across the room. Who? Sitting very still, ‘Jack’ watched the portal between the barracks and what must have been a hall.
Umber wasn’t certain what to expect out of a confrontation like this, and no amount of consult between other officers would prepare him for the explanation of the Negaverse to a newly-corrupted senshi. His brother might have been a similar case, though the advent of assured memory loss and vastly different personality abolished any remaining synonymous nature between the two. Hvergelmir warned before that all manner of allegiance swapping entailed holes in the memories, so he dealt with someone who was likely alarmed by the sudden holes in their recollection.
If she remembered anything at all.
The halls remained quiet save for the distant hoarse yelling, but he paid it little heed. The infirmary stood far enough from the makeshift cell that the voice wouldn’t carry into their conversations. His steps sounded flatly against the smooth rock floor and fingers absently touched on the clusters of crystals while he passed. When at last he reached the infirmary itself, Umber was simultaneously surprised and gladdened that ‘Jack’ remained the only presence there. He was uncertain if glamour would permit him to recognize her any other way than by deduction.
And what do you say to someone you betray, if they might not even remember it? He crossed the threshold to sit on the adjacent bed, testing it to see if it might disintegrate beneath his weight. Luckily (or sadly?) it did not. Finally he elected to approach the situation as clinically as possible.
“Do you recognize me?”
Now there’s a dooze. I don’t even know where here is. Before offering a reply, the civilian-dress-senshi took in the officer’s browns, feathers, and beads with no few facial contortions of consideration. “Shouuuuld I?”
“Rumplestiltskin, right? There’s an expectation in a question like that- like you know me and I’m supposed to know you. But you’re not giving me much idea of if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. To be honest, my head is splitting, I have no idea where here is, and I’m only kinda thinking this piece of plastic out of this….wallet. Words. Words are hard. Everything is a little swimmy. Maybe after some advil, a sandwich and whatever the nog’ll kick in. Right now, I got nuthin’. ”
“So, who are you?” There was the barest start of a whisper that he’d been seen before, somewhere recent, and that it was important. Ghosts of panic tingled along fingers and toes, so ‘Jack’ wiggled them in agitation. Something bad happened. I’m bandaged up and hurt. But is dudefella here like a kidnapper ? Don’t tell baddies you know they’re baddies at least. Just act like it’s all a big ********’ mystery and see what I can find out, I guess. Unless he’s the guy who pulled me out of some SNAFU, in which case he’s cool. Don’t panic, first thing. Stuff is always harder when poke’s in a panic. Harder to remember stuff. I need to let it come gradual. Don’t go all Agatha Christie musical. No, not musical. Fugue. Blarglewarble.
Umber cocked a brow at the wild guess. “... Who?” Rumplestiltskin? Was that a senshi or knight name?
A single lieutenant filed into the room, staring dumbly at the captain interacting with a battered civilian. Umber took notice immediately and beckoned him over, then issued quiet orders to fetch food and analgesic for one of the latest recruits to the Negaverse. While the lieutenant nodded, he took off looking quite a bit more perplexed than he had before. For a moment, Umber wondered if that was the right course of action to take.
Clearing his throat, the captain shifted to recover from his momentary lapse of guard. “I do know you, but your memory is damaged. I wanted to see which side of me you might remember. Research has indicated that your memory would be undoubtedly affected, but there’s no way to determine which side of your ego would remain intact.” She looked pained, bruised, and he could imagine a great deal of frustration in searching for answers inside one’s own head and finding none. She sat within the infirmary in Negaspace, a land completely foreign to Order and civilian alike, so no memories awaited her here.
The captain shifted forms to the man behind the power, and Shale stood slightly more lax in his pair of dirty-washed secondhand jeans and a dark grey screenprinted shirt that read ‘Caesar is my Romeboy’. His hair remained tied back, the tattoos remained in place, and a host of leather and other organic jewelry claimed their respective places on neck and wrists and ears. Shale looked nonplussed when he took a seat on the bed adjacent to Jack’s, but he made no comment to clarify the source of his frustrations.
“More research suggests that letting you try to discover the answer on your own will promote memory recovery. I don’t know how much of that research is applicable to magically-incurred damage. Do you remember me now? Or, can you remember what happened to you?”
"To-morrow I brew, to-day I bake,
And then the child away I'll take;
For little deems my royal dame
That Rumpelstiltskin is my name- You know? Fairystories? Weaving straw into gold? Three guesses? Memory damage.." That’s bleak. My memory is legit borked, so the fact that nothing is clear is...fact. Good deduction, Sherlock. Attention drew again as the uniform just WENT AWAY. Like it was made of nothing, or had there been a blink where something happened? Either way, the man was different, distinctly so. ‘Jack’ leaned forward, resting elbows onto knees and staring with open evaluation at the man’s face, body, clothes.
The voice was familiar, even as little of it as had so far been heard. Familiar, and the so-called facial expression was as well. Jack’s eyes closed, silence left to just the muffled sounds out in the halls that hardly mattered, morphed, memory-pressed to echoes of thoughts- "I think this place is still quite alive. There are many stories here - new and old." - This guy. He said that. It was dark. Lantern. My lantern. UrbEx. Exploring. We were together, alone in a passage, in the ….trains. Subway. This isn’t the subway. “Shale. Your name is Shale. ...woooooooooo that took a bit. It’s a start. “
A vague wave was offered at the surrounding barracks, “The ‘what happened, “ not so much. If you mean where here is or how I got here. I remember…..I’m not sure where the first complete days are. If I could have pen and paper, maybe I could try...no, no you know what would do better? One of those desk calendars. Phone...I have a phone. Books… I was taking classes. Destiny City University away from home and all. What even IS today? There’s not exactly windows. Is it day? Night?“
There is at least some foundation to work with. She remembers Shale, not Umber. She doesn’t seem to be reacting to any dread held for me. or anger. Does she not remember how it happened? Good.
Hands slid into back pockets while he adopted a more casual stance. It eased his back; standing so authoritatively required body posture he hardly ever held. “Yes. Shale Blackwell.” He hoped that some of the impairment stemmed from head trauma, which would clear up significantly faster than chasing memories forever erased. She recalled some details about her prior life, none involving the magical nature of the war or any senshi activity. Did that offer more complacency in training? Uncertain, he tried to move past it. “And you are - or were - Jack Bromwich. We explored several places together. Now you’ll need to pick a different name.”
He never had to explain the war before, and starting now with the outspoken and energetic Jack Bromwich who had no evident knowledge of powered life seemed like a poor start. His shoulders sagged slightly in a sigh and straightened up afterward. “If you want to know the whole story, I’ll tell you when you’ve recovered more. It was revealed that you were a part of an opposing insurgent faction. My choices were to detain you or kill you. But you were - still are - my friend. Now you’re here.”
Shale paced to the bed and sat with respectful distance between them. He imagined that the shock of waking up in such a place combined with her condition might provoke some unnecessary backlash to perceived threats. Shale flatted his palms against the bed behind him and leaned back slightly, arching his shoulders to prominence. “This is a safe place. It’s not possible to walk out of here, but if you wanted to leave, I can bring you out at any time.
“Speaking of…” He paused to check the watch on his wrist. “It’s five in the afternoon.”
“Wait, why do I need a new name? “ It was said while extending parts of pronunciation to emphasize the combined ridiculousness and imposition of such a statement. Clicking a name Generator like on BuzzFeed to find out that your Mad Max persona would be called Feral Crankcase or Duke Rifle was completely separate from witness protection, which was again separate from James Bond espionage with twelve passports with complete credit histories, biographies and personas. Detain me or kill me? Yeah, that’s real friendly sounding set of options. Am I supposed to be thankful I’m not dead? Are YOU thankful I’m not dead?
It was hard to answer the question just looking at him. It didn’t feel to hold weight compared to other concerns, either, whether there was squishy-happy-feels rolling off the guy or not. ‘Insurgent faction just’ sounded funny. “So you’re not here to actually DO much helpful then, are you, if you’re not going to explain anything until I’m ‘better’. By what standard? Just poncing around to show me some fancy duds, let me know my head’s been Hoovered, that it’s five on some unspecific day and I can’t get out of here but not why. Nice. You did the food thing, assuming that yahoo gets back, which is cool. “ Lifting an arm and an exploratory sniff of armpit revealed nothing too awful yet. Then ‘Jack’ leaned over to Shale nearby on the cot, heedless of his personal space and sniffed him as well. “What about showers. Are there showers available? You might want one yourself. Your hair, man. Do you own a brush?”
“How about get the food from person mcdelivery you sent out, and then boogie for showers, yeah? ” After a pause, listening, and trying to parse out why walking out wasn’t possible, and how that affected the sound from the hall, “Like can’t walk out from this room? It sounds like someone’s yelling out there? Or like...this building? The no windows thing is like….cult creepy. Even hospitals have windows, you know? “
His eyes dropped to lidded in a paced sigh of exasperation. ‘Jack’ tried his nerves greatly. Perhaps he should’ve expected it, given her previously overblown and energetic nature, but the amount of irritation and impatience coming from her only drove him up the walls by proxy. The thought of confiscating her starseed until she calmed down came to mind. “I’ve never never explained this to someone before. I’ve never dealt with fractured memories firsthand. If my explanations don’t satisfy, I will find you someone else.” Irritation colored his tone because he didn’t care to hide it.
“You need a new name because it’s dangerous to use your old one. The people you aligned yourself with would kill you if they made the connection between who you were and who you are now.
“If you want all the information now regardless of potential brain damage then that’s your decision. It’s June sixth. You’re deep underground and asking any officer to teleport you out is possible. You yourself could learn to teleport from here. Buildings that are underground generally don’t have windows because there’s nothing to look at. And there aren’t any showers here because this place is much older than that technology. There are bathtubs, but no viable access to water that I have seen. If you want to shower, you can do so at my apartment.” Shale mentally recounted all the points of irritation she expressed to check for anything he missed. It might’ve been everything. Should’ve been. He wasn’t certain anymore.
He should’ve assigned some other kindhearted omega to take on this role of explanations - they’d have had more patience for it.
Shale only barely managed to close his eyes to count backward from ten, and ‘Jack’s’ luck of recognizing him as Shale was the sole factor in preventing a starseed seize to end the affronts. Even though his hand twitched for it, he managed to remember that such feats were not possible as a civilian.
“The lieutenant will be back in a few minutes. While you wait, I could show you around or you could look of your own accord. But I don’t recommend visiting the…” He trailed off, realizing he was too late in cutting off the thought. “Cells. And don’t walk through the hallway with double doors without someone like me to accompany you. It will kill you.” This introduction to the Negaverse grew more pathetically grim with each answer that came from him, and he knew not how to improve the appearance of the faction for her. He considered explaining his own interpretations of the Negaverse, but… Would she listen? Would she want to? Having never ventured such an idea without specific prompting, he was uncertain that it might find any success.
Ivynian
