Eden

I couldn’t see. Pushing my eyes wider and wider was useless, they were perfectly open however I fell blinded to a cold shade of blue.

As sight came partially into focus, my head began to pound and joints ached with a stiffness I couldn’t shake. Slowly, images began to come clear, everything was still blue but shapes formed and shades altered. Glass shards spread over the floor, shattered into a thousand pieces each surrounding my body of which appeared carelessly thrown to the floor, a doll thrown by a child as dusk draws near and the day ends. I could taste blood, but nothing bled. My tongue shivered with a chilled taste of rust as I brushed my hand against the sharp glass, each one a blurry block of baby blue.

It took more effort than I had anticipated to push my weight off the floor and into a stable sitting position, a lightheaded dizziness knocking me around. I tried to balance the throbbing of my legs with the agony of my head. It wasn’t uncomfortable though, in fact I couldn’t seem to think clear enough to worry about the pain. I couldn’t so much as rest on an emotion to feel in that moment; anger, sadness, confusion? My mind was blank, not a single thought passed through my head. No emotions, no ideas, no memories. I racked the cloud in the skull for even a drop of remembrance but even a name escaped me.

There wasn’t so much as another soul around, no sound or speech broke the silence that resonated in the atmosphere. I wanted to cry, to shout or scream, anything to break the absence of sound, but my lips were sealed and voice box dry: the lack of a tenebrous feeling was replaced with one of a chilling cool that rushed down my spine.

It took a while but once I was finally able to push myself onto my knees my eyesight continued to adjust, clicking into clarity like a camera and it was easier to determine where I was.

A hospital room seemed apparent at first however that thought was quickly interrupted by a blinding light, countless white tiles broken across the floor and unknown machines that grew from the walls, each one damaged in its own way. The machine closest to me had fallen on its side, glass in the window of the strange pod had smashed resulting in the glass that surrounded me. Each machine was life sized and each pod caved in, many broken completely in half. My closest pod was far more intact than the others, whilst six looked as if they’d experienced an explosion, violence pulsating through the metal, my closest and a single other, the eighth in the room stood firm and strong with only the glass broken and metal no more than slightly cracked, the door swung widely.

I stood myself up, one leg in pain followed by the other as I rose to my feet. And at moment everything was finally clear. I was definitely in what appeared to be a medical laboratory from what I could make out of rubble and remains. The roof of the building completely caved in, beams of light emitting through creating patches of sun in circles on the ground. Small accessories lay thrown across the room, stereotypical lab coat burnt to a crisp couples with more mundane items. Pieces of jewellery wrapped around what I hadn’t previously noted as bodies.

Skeletons to be correct, the ground began to sway beneath my feet as a nauseous sensation overtook me. Rings adorned each boned finger and necklaces wrapped each bones neck. A decaying skeletal figure lay at my feet: black diamond jewels and a heart shape locket decorated the remains.

Pushing myself towards the light in a frenzy of sickness, I managed to stumble my way through the massacre and up the rubble of caved in brick. I dragged my ankles over broken concrete blocks, the sun hitting my face and scorching my skin as if I hadn’t seen light in a hundred years. As if I’d been stuck behind glass until now. My feet cut on nails, skewering out of the ground.

Heaving myself over the edge of the crumbled wall, my face hit a second burn of the sun and I stumbled backwards.

Everything in sight was a shade of sand, stone and moss. Abandonment was staring back at me, looking me up and down as if I didn’t belong. Structures towered over the clouds, each one draped in vines and swaying with the winds. Buildings danced in isolation as dirt and foliage swarmed up the side of each one. Not a creature in sight. An odour of burning fumes drafted through a solitude society, pungent and forcing my hand over my face.

As I stumbled around, the sole of my foot pressed gently into a rusted nail. As I looked down scarlet red and a flick of white caught my eye. Inspecting closer, a tag was notable, tight around my ankle. An array of numbers and letters glared up at me from below.

B.2406 ADAM

Adam? No surname, just Adam. I stood back up to the sun, blinking away a storm of sand and dust. I lifted my foot of the nail. Salt stung my throat and the taste of blood remained. Reaching the end of the concrete, me feet lay on sharp grains of sand. Sticking into my soles like a stoned beach, I left the debris to make my way across the barren land.