The first thing he knew was the smell.
It was a thick, metallic tang that coated the back of his throat, a smell of rust and old pennies. It was the smell of blood.
Consciousness crashed into him not as a gentle dawn, but as a physical blow. He gasped, a raw, ragged sound that was swallowed by the dense canopy overhead. He was lying on his back, staring up at a fractured sky through a lacework of dark, needled branches. The light that filtered down was weak and green, doing little to chase the chill from his bones.
He tried to sit up, and a wave of dizziness forced him back down, his head spinning. His body was a symphony of protests—a deep ache in his muscles, a stinging across his palms and knees. He pushed himself onto his elbows, his movements clumsy and unfamiliar.
His hands were caked in dirt and dried, flaking blood. A jolt of pure, animal fear shot through him. He frantically patted his chest, his arms, his legs, searching for a wound, a source of the crimson stain. He found none. The blood was there, painting his skin and clinging to his torn, simple clothes, but it wasn't his. The realization was somehow more terrifying.
Who...?
The question died before it fully formed. He had no answer. He had no questions because he had no memories to frame them from. His mind was a blank, white slate, scrawled only with the primal, urgent language of survival.
Danger. Thirst. Hide.
The forest around him was unnervingly loud. Every rustle of leaves was a thunderous approach. Every snap of a twig was a gunshot. The chirping of unseen birds was a frantic, mocking chorus. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out, but it was no use. His senses were raw, dialed to a painful intensity. He could smell the damp earth, the decay of leaves, the coppery blood, and underneath it all, the clean scent of water.
Water.
The need was a fire in his throat. He had to move. Using a nearby tree for support, he staggered to his feet. The world tilted, then righted itself. His body, despite its protests, moved with a strange, inherent grace. He didn't walk; he crept, his steps silent and deliberate, his eyes constantly scanning, his ears tracking every sound. He was a ghost in a world he didn't know.
He followed the water scent, his instincts guiding him like a compass. After a few minutes of this painful, cautious travel, he found it: a small stream cutting a silver path through the moss and stone. He fell to his knees at its bank, his reflection staring back at him from the clear, rippling water.
A boy. A shock of messy, sun-bleached blond hair. A face pale with fear and smudged with dirt. And eyes... wide, frightened eyes the color of light brown, like weak tea.
He was a stranger to himself.
He plunged his hands into the water, the shocking cold a welcome pain. He scrubbed at the blood on his skin, watching as tendrils of rust-colored cloud drifted away from his flesh, staining the pristine stream. He cupped his hands and drank, the water so cold it made his teeth ache. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever tasted.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the water and his own ragged breathing. A fragile calm began to settle over him. He was alive. He was drinking. For now, that was enough.
He looked at his reflection again, studying the face that was his. The boy in the water looked back, his light brown eyes wide with a fear that went deeper than memory. As he stared, a break in the canopy above allowed a single, brilliant shaft of sunlight to pierce through and strike the water's surface.
The light hit his eyes, and for a single, breathtaking second, they were not light brown.
They shone. A fierce, brilliant, predatory gold.
He blinked, startled, and the angle shifted. The light was gone. His eyes were just his eyes again. A trick of the light, he thought, a strange hallucination born of thirst and terror. He leaned closer to the water, peering, trying to summon the gold back, but it was gone.
A sharp, definitive SNAP echoed through the quiet glade.
It wasn't a natural sound. It was the sound of a branch being stepped on, deliberately, too close.
Every nerve in his body screamed in unison. In a fluid, unthinking motion, he was on his feet and spun around, his body dropping automatically into a low, balanced crouch. His hands came up, one fist clenched, the other open and ready to deflect. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. The fear was gone, burned away in an instant, replaced by a cold, hyper-focused readiness.
He wasn't just a scared boy anymore. He was a weapon, poised and waiting.
Standing at the edge of the trees, ten paces away, was a young woman with a basket of herbs, her own eyes wide with shock and fear, frozen as she stared at the blood-stained, feral boy who had appeared from the heart of the woods.
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Chapter 1 End