Unlikely Heroes - Draft 2

Chapter 1

A man lay in the middle of a meadow, appearing for all the world to be dead if not for the barely noticeable rise and fall of his chest, and the small curl of dark mist that escaped his lips as he exhaled. It was with a start that he woke up, sitting upright with a grunt and lifting up his hand, blinking as he realized he had been touching long grass instead of the sheets of his bed.

He stood up, looking around himself. He ran his fingers through his tousled dark hair, "What the fuck? How the hell did-Where am I?". He looked down at himself. Thankfully he wasn't still just in his shorts, but was fully outfitted in a hoodie, dark blue jeans, and his work boot. But that only raised more questions. The last he knew he had passed out in his own bed, only to wake up with no memory of how he got here, or even where "here" was exactly.

He looked up at the sky, stroking his trimmed beard in thought. It was dark out, yet clear enough to see the stars. In fact they shone so brightly that it stunned him momentarily. He had never seen the sky so clear before, but there was something else there that made him take several steps back. He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head, thinking that perhaps he was hallucinating, but when he opened his eyes again there they were: two moons, one massive and gray-white, the other smaller and bluish.

He gaped, "What...the hell..."

He had seen his share of bizarre events, but this was out of the ordinary, even for him. Not that he was in any way ordinary, not anymore, not since the events of six years ago.

His name was Ash. Or at least so far as he knew. His memories were still in bits and pieces, scattered like leaves to the wind. With a sudden sense of panic he reached under his hoodie, sighing with relief as he felt the familiar texture of his necklace under his fingertips. It was of a skeletal arm, holding a rose in its outstretched hand. While he couldn't remember why it was important, it was always on him and the idea of being without it was far more upsetting to him than having shown up randomly in some alien land.

Comforted by the fact it was still there, he turned in a circle, studying the meadow, glancing up at the moons every so often as if he expected them to suddenly vanish at any moment. Maybe it was just a dream. Yet the cool air carried the scent of rain, the ground was solid beneath him, just as it would be if he was at home.

The quiet though. Yes there was the distant sound of thunder, the breeze rustling through the grasses and the trees, but there was the silence of something that he had become all too used to hearing. And now that he could not hear them, he as filled with both a sense of relief and a new feeling of fear.

He dug through one of his pockets, fishing out a smartphone that bore dried bloodstains and a small crack on its surface. It cast a ghostly light, presenting him with an image of tidal waves and the time. 4 am. No signal of course, with the last location showing Long Beach. He slipped the phone back into his pocket. No use wasting the battery when it wasn't going to be of any help anyways.

He squared his shoulders. Dream or no he needed to find out where he was and how the hell he had gotten here, and the best way to do so would to take a safer form. He picked a random direction in the meadow—taking a deep breath as his skin began to tingle—and willed himself into the wind, his body dissolving into a cold black mist that curled and twisted quickly through the air like living smoke.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting to find as he swept over the cold damp rocks that jutted out from the undergrowth. It was more curiosity that drove him onwards, tendrils of his essence slithering out every so often to flick at his surroundings. Like a bitter wind, he slipped towards the dense woods at the edge of the meadow.

The air was clean, pure, seemingly untainted by pollution and smelling of night-blooming flowers. He paused when he heard the distant whooping call of some unknown animal, but saw nothing, save gently moving motes of light that seemed to float past the massive trees.