The Awakening

PROLOGUE

Unknown POV

The tips of my fingers are deathly blue. I can hardly feel anything on them with  how prickling cold they are. I did my best wrap myself up with the only blanket  I had. It was given to me by a woman from the local homeless shelter who saw me with eyes filled with pity. Of course I looked pitiful; I was a dirty disheveled man in the snow covered streets with nothing but the dirty clothes on his back. 

I feel a tinge of anger when people saw me as charity, but I had to survive. When I took the blanket from her warm gloved hands, I swallowed my pride.

I tried my luck to acquiring a room at that shelter, but unfortunately they had reached max occupancy and refused to let me in despite me begging.

Sighing, I searched for another bridge to sleep under for tonight.

My feet ached from soreness. The distances I've traveled have been many. As I forced myself to continue walking, my feet crunched against the snow. I wasn't sure where I was headed. I just knew that if I continued to walk, I would find answers. In the back of my mind, I know I had to be somewhere. 

But where? That remains a mystery.

A few years ago, or so--maybe 3...4 years ago? I was found nearly dead,naked, battered, bruised, and thrown at a bottom of a river bank. A jogger found me on his usual hiking trail. The Good Samaritan didn't leave me for dead. He called the local ranger and immediately I was taken to a hospital via helicopter.

With no ID and no recollection of who I was and who my family was, they named me "John Doe".

Did I have a family? Where did I belong? There were no clues. People were baffled and I became a local spectacle.

After 6 months of being hospitalized I began hearing a strange voice in my head telling me to "find them." Whoever them was, I tried my best to find out who they were.

I believed for a short time that the voice was a clue to my past that would help me piece the puzzles of my identity together.

People who heard my story were eager to help "John Doe" find his family. I was made big headlines for the small town. As my existence became a publicity, I began feeling confined and prodded like some animal. The constant attention rilled me up inside. I became stir crazy and irate. One day, I ran. People had fed me lies; telling me I was their long lost relative. But deep inside my instinct told me they were not telling the truth. 

I had to leave!

 Something inside me told me to hide and so I did. 

Fast forward to now. Years passed, many distances scaled and none of my memories prior to when I was found had come back.

I was probably walking in circles, but at this point I did not care.

Find them. The voice in my head persisted to yell at me. Even in my sleep I wake up to it screaming.

FIND THEM

 I was convincing myself to forget. To stop the torment that kept growing in my chest and move on. Start a new life. I ignored my instinct to find, to find them. I settled in one place for a week without searching. But one day, as I was walking down a busy street, of that my head was exploding and I collapsed to the floor. 

The voice growled. FIND THEM NOW!

People gathered around me. Asking if I was alright. I was afraid of being taken to the hospital again. I was afraid to be names John Doe again. When I noticed someone talking to a dispatcher on the phone to call an ambulance, I hopped on my feet and ran like my body was on fire.