Lone Wolf

Chapter 1

Some people have described the feeling of losing consciousness as smooth yet heavy; as if you are falling from outer space back into the forceful grasp of Earth's gravity. You feel like nothing is real, but you are also overwhelmed with panic as the stars fall further away from you. Addison Amber's unconscious dream sequence seemed more like that of Alice's during her time in Wonderland.

Accompanied by a faint piano melody, Addison watched as she slowly fell away from a vast field of daisies into an endless void of nothingness. No matter how far she fell, she could still see the strong stems of the flowers leaning slightly in the breeze. However, the deeper she fell, the warmer she became.

The heat grew stronger on her back and neck, eventually becoming so intense that she began to feel tears form on her face, but due to her trance, she could not move her hands to wipe them away.

As the burning continued to rise, her face became increasingly wet, and soon, she felt as if she were drowning. Her vision went blurry as faded photographs began to float by her. She watched as distorted pictures of men and women rolled by. She began to hear muffled moaning as she struggled to breathe, and in just three short tries, she managed to force a cough.

With the first, it felt as though she had just opened her mouth into a bucket of water. The taste of salt coated her tongue. She coughed again and again, each time inhaling just as much water as she was pushing out. Blindly, she reached her arms forward and felt grains of sand wash over her fingers. She coughed once more, this time pushing herself up with all her might. She felt water fall from around her head as light filled her eyes with even more force than the water to her lungs.

She heaved again, spitting up more as her vision began to clear up. Her back was still burning as she saw her soaked, blonde hair falling down her arm and sitting on top of the foamy but clear blue water.

She turned out to see an endless ocean just as an incoming wave broke over her head. Her hands slipped as the wave rolled her onto her back. The incredible heat was now bearing down on her exposed stomach. She squinted as the blinding sun stood high on what looked to be a cloudless day.

"About time you woke up," a thick Hispanic laughed from behind her, "I guess I could have moved you when the tide started coming up, but I know how you white women are. I'm not about to pickup an unwanted touching charge."

Addison rolled over to see a heavy set Latino sitting under a tree. He had taken hos shirt off and thrown it over his head, the tail falling back to shield his neck from the sun's rays.

"You okay?" He asked, not moving from his spot.

She nodded before coughing up even more sea water. Addison had a drinking problem, something she had been dealing with for years, so waking up in random places with a headache was nothing new; the problem was that she didn't remember drinking the night before nor being on a boat, or anything that could have been on the ocean for that matter. In fact, she didn't remember anything aside from a few basic details albeit even they were fuzzy. Figuring she went on a drinking bender, she didn't panic.

"What's your name?" She coughed before spitting out a huge glob of wet sand.

"Raul," the man grinned. His face was one that only a mother could love, and even then, it still would have taken a mother a lot of effort to find it nice to look at. "And before you ask, I don't know where we are. I woke up on this beach just like you did. I just happened to wake up first."

"How long have you been awake?" Addison managed to pull herself up to her hands and knees.

"I don't know. Probably an hour." He looked down at his wrist where a watch would be if he had been wearing one, "My watch is broken, so it's hard to tell."