The Beginning

[danceinthelight]

They'd been walking--well, *he* had been walking--for the better part of an hour after that initial moment of everything, and not a single word had passed between them. The floating robotic eye thing--Ghost, as it said it was--glanced back at him every so often, but said nothing. Suited him fine, really; the silence gave him a chance to think.

He glanced at his hand as it pressed against a tree, his feet carefully treading on the least amount of debris on this path. This really was his hand he was seeing, right? He couldn't remember anything. Why he was in the bottom of a crumbled old building, why the world was the way it was, why every fiber of his being twitched and tingled with some kind of underlying energy that he hadn't figured out what it was... None of it. Not even...wait.

"Psst, hey," he whispered, and reached out a hand to grab the white floating object. The Ghost squeaked in surprise, then blinked at him as he brought it closer to his helmeted face.

"G-Guardian, we need to keep moving!" it hastily whispered back as it wriggled out of his fingers, obviously not enjoying being snatched out of the air.

He knew that. He knew they had to escape the area as fast and quietly as they could. He only had the barest of armor on him and they hadn't yet found him anything he could use to shoot back at whatever it was that they were running from. Those things around them made noises that definitely made the hairs on the back of his neck stick up. He wasn't sure he wanted to see one face to face.

But then again, he wasn't sure he had any choice.

"I know," he hissed and kept moving. "I just...I think I remembered something."

The Ghost stopped and turned. "You did?" It sounded genuinely surprised.

He nodded, glad for the moment's pause. "Yeah, something popped in my head. A name. 'Galen'." Another pause as he searched for any kind of reaction in the Ghost's blinking eye. "Does... I mean, is that me? Is that my name?"

A beam of thin, horizontal light shot out of Ghost's optical lens and shone across his face. "Hm... Yes. Yes, I do suppose it is." It blinked the beam off and some how looked like it smiled. He wasn't sure if Ghosts could do that, but there it was. "Hello, Galen. Now let's move!"

Oh he moved all right but that just added more questions. Did the Ghost know more about him than it let on? When they could talk, he was going to pummel this thing with so many questions, but right now wasn't a good time.

Unfortunately, the sky was slowly turning orange, and he had no idea how much further they had to go, or where they were even going. He just implicitly trusted the thing he saw when he woke up, and for some reason, he didn't feel that was at all troubling. It felt...right. It was the only thing that felt right in the world at that moment.

"Do you have a name too?" he asked quietly as he slid down a riverbank and kept his balance well enough not to faceplant in the mud. The Ghost waited patiently for him to gain his footing before floating on ahead. There just seemed to be more of the same foresty, overgrown terrain around old, old buildings as there was before. It was a shame Ghost couldn't have found him earlier in the day. They'd have had much more time to find their destination. "Or is it just Ghost?"

There wasn't an immediate reply. It continued to zoom above the river while he did his best to keep his footsteps as light as possible to minimize splashing and not let his feet slip on any algae-covered rocks at the same time. Behind him he could still hear those sharp cries and chittering, though they didn't seem to grow louder; him and the Ghost were doing enough to maintain a good distance between them.

After it seemed like his question would go unanswered, the Ghost flew through the frame of an opened doorway and searched along the ground, that same beam of light flashing around the different debris-filled surfaces. "There should be a basement around here," it said quietly, the bits of it shell whirring from side to side, sometimes in unison, but sometimes only one part cycling around it. "When we're safe for the night, we'll talk more." A pause. Then it spoke again, its voice a bit softer, more sombre somehow. "You've missed so much, Guardian."

"Galen," he interjected. Yes, that name felt right as it passed through his mouth. That made two things he was sure of in this world.

The Ghost's light flicked off again and it nodded. "My apologies. Galen, my sensors say the entrance is here." It turned around and floated over to a pile of rocks in the corner.

"You're kidding..." he sighed, his shoulders slumping. Of course it wouldn't be easy. That word probably should just be erased from his vocabulary now to save himself the trouble. Could Ghost do that? Make him forget a word? ...Or even a full head of memories? He wasn't sure he liked that avenue of thinking so he returned his thoughts to the task at hand. "All right..." Straightening up, he headed over to get a better look of the mess in front of him. He wagered he had a couple minutes at best to clear it or at least find the entrance and go from there. "I don't suppose you can move things with that beam thing of yours...?"

The movement was subtle, but he saw the Ghost tilt its head (body?) ever so slightly. "I wish I could but, I can't. I can do many other things, just...not that..." The way it trailed off made him wonder if there were more things it couldn't do but wouldn't own up to until the situation came up.

"Had to ask," he said, his voice a little strained as he lifted the top-most slab of rock. "Didn't...think you could." He resisted every urge to drop that damn rock slab and instead set it on the ground nearby.

"Hurry Galen, the longer you take, the less of a chance we'll have of making it out of here alive."

He couldn't help gulping and redoubled his efforts of clearing the rocks.

It struck him as odd that he could easily shift some of these rocks. These weren't thin sheets of stone, but thick, heavy chunks, and some had rebar sticking out. He didn't think he was this strong. He had to remember to stop himself from thinking, "I don't remember..." so often. That was just...a fact now. He didn't remember. Plain and simple.

"How're we looking, Ghost? Am I close?" he asked a couple minutes later, sweat beading on his forehead and all over his armored body. Naturally as he asked that, the chunk of rock he shifted to the side exposed part of a metal trap door. "Oh. Is this it?" His brow furrowed, watching the Ghost fly over to verify his work. He could probably squeeze in, but there certainly wasn't time to move it all away, hide the fact that he was there, and then hope to get out later on.

"Can you open it?" the Ghost asked, a note of desperation in its voice.

"Well yeah but--"

"Then do it! They're getting closer."

He cursed under his breath and grabbed a smaller hunk of rock, left it next to the hatch opening, and then reached over and tugged up hard on the handle. His muscles snapped taut; it seemed like he found his weight lifting limit. But he managed to open it just enough to get that chunk in, his foot nudging it in. Darkness waited below in that hole, but it seemed far more inviting than what was trying to find him. Still, he kicked some of the smaller bits of rock down the hole, listening to them clatter. Nothing stirred down there. Good, and now he had some hand held weapons. Before he squeezed into the hole himself, he threw a few more bits of the debris on top of the door opening, grabbed a piece of the debri with rebar sticking out and kept it in his hand as he slipped feet first into the hole. There he found purchase, his toes making contact with ladder rungs. He just barely managed to get his shoulders and head in, but he did it.

"Get in, Ghost!" he hissed, one hand clinging to the ladder rung while the other had started to find a good place to brace that piece of rebar.

No sooner had the Ghost drifted down into the ladder shaft with him did a broader beam of light light him up from below. He could see the rust eating into the metal and saw that the hole itself wasn't too terribly deep. He fought his surprise at that new development--he was glad he wouldn't have to sit in there in complete darkness--and gave that chunk of rock keeping the door open a good shove with the rebar. It gave easier than he thought it would and the door slammed shut on the bar with a loud clang. The Ghost's light bobbed slightly, though why, he wasn't sure. Maybe surprise?

"Come on...just a bit more..." he said, straining to pull the rebar out. He had to be quieter about it. Every second he took tugging on it was a second more that those things had to find him. But then the rebar suddenly gave way and it shut with a softer thunk than before, and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Silence fell between them as he quietly made his way down the ladder, his ears straining for any sound from above. With the light from Ghost, he found his new handheld weapons and clutched them against his chest as he followed the light further into the room. It looked--and smelled--like it hadn't seen a single soul in there for a long, long time. Dust flew up into the stagnant air with every quiet, soft footfall.

"It's okay, Galen," Ghost's voice said, the thing not turning around to look at him. It was scanning the room for whatever it was searching for, that thin beam coming out once more as it made a quick, wide sweep before the light settled on a long rectangular object against the far wall. "Here, it seems to be in okay condition. Have a seat." Its tone was gentle and reassuring.

As he sat, he realized he was clutching those rocks like a lifeline, and he just stared at them for a quick moment. This fear... He'd never experienced anything like it, and he had a feeling that might have been true with before as well. He was afraid--and he didn't like it.

Suddenly from above, he felt a slight rumble that shook his seat and the ground, the dust stirring in what he could see of Ghost's light. He sucked a breath in, the Ghost pulling back until its body came to rest against his shoulder.

"We'll be okay," he felt himself saying absently, his hand gently moving to cover the Ghost's illuminated optical lens. He wasn't sure if he believed his own words, but Ghost had told him it would be. He had to trust that. There was no way he was brought back to life only to be killed a couple hours later. What a waste that'd be.

The noises grew louder overhead, the occasional burst of ear-splitting pulsing alarms joining in with the guttural chatter and screeching of more and more creatures. Ghost's light turned off and they sat in silence, not moving, not talking.

He didn't know how much time passed, but he didn't dare move an inch until the only things he could hear were his heart thumping in his ears and Ghost's gentle, twitchy whirring in his hand. It wriggled against his fingers and soon broke free. He didn't stop it, though he did hesitate to speak. After a moment, where he had no idea where the Ghost had gone, he finally forced words out.

"Think they're gone?" he asked, his voice breaking. "Can you do that light trick of yours and see if they're just waiting for us?"

Across the way, much further than he’d thought, the single ocular light turned on and looked right at him. “It... I’m sorry, it doesn’t quite work like that.” For a moment, his heart began to sink until the Ghost added, “But I can try something else.” The light turned away, and for a good few minutes, it flitted back and forth, and all around until it disappeared into a side room.

As he waited, he slowly felt the adrenaline fade from his system and the day’s events really started to sink in. He couldn’t remember anything before he was told to start moving. From what he saw of the sun, it was starting to set, but...he couldn’t remember the last time he saw the sun rise. Had he ever seen a sunrise? He must’ve at some point.