My lungs are burning, my chest feels as though it's about to be crushed. "Someone, please anyone, save me!" I managed to shout before my conscience utterly began to drift away.
As I awoke sometime later, I could see it, light! Not just light but a strange figure lifting away debris three times their size. "How is such a feat possible," I thought but I was quickly overcome with joy as the figure extended out its hand towards me.
"Grab on, I can't possibly do this forever!" The harsh voice said but then chuckled, which made me think that maybe this man could go on doing this for hours. Although I wasn't going to test my luck by waiting around here for another minute.
As my hand latched onto him, I was suddenly pulled up through the rubble. And landed on my very own two feet, which for some reason looked different from what I could remember. Now that I think about it, what is it I can remember?
What's my name, and how was it that I was underneath a vast pile of rubble? "Are you not going to thank your savior boy? I mean you always were the quiet type, ah just the other day, you were merely this tall." The man spoke as he used his hand to measure right beside his right leg.
"How, do you know me? Wait, better yet, who are you and why is it that I can't remember you?" I said as I raised my guard but then quickly remembered two things.
One, if this person before me wanted me dead, he would have just left me underneath the rubble, and two. He's far stronger than he looks, and based on him lifting the rubble, I say he can lift three times his size.
"I guess your body isn't the only thing that's changed, but your memory as well. Either way, I'm your uncle Kadar." Kadar said as he took off his coat and handed it to me.
Just then I felt a breeze go right through my legs, and I quickly found out that I was practically naked, with only a very small ripped blue shirt on.
"What happened to me or better yet where are we?" I spoke out to the man who claims to be my uncle. Just then he brought me in for a huge bear hug and lifted me high into the air.
Which was odd seeing as he appears to have hardly any more muscles than me. And I was a good head taller, so why was this man so much stronger than me? Before I could ask where this man's strength was sourced from, I heard a ding sound in my head, and before me occurred a virtual screen.
[Would you like to activate Ki Drain?]
I was about to click yes just out of curiosity but once the young man put me down, the screen soon vanished. There were only two things I could think of, option one which is a very likely option. Is that I was hallucinating and option two is because the man and I were no longer in contact with one another.
"Sorry just had to get that over and done with, ah just like old times. Now as an answer to your question, we're currently at your father's laboratory, well what's left of it anyway." Kadar told me as he began walking off and away from the rubble.
Precisely then another notification went off and the same high-pitched ding was heard in my head.
[System Operations 100 %]
[All basic functions are now available!]
[Your Wendigo System is now online!]
Now I was sure of it, these virtual screens weren't simply hallucinations, but of something much bigger than my current understanding. And just what on Earth was a wendigo? But to keep the conversation flowing with my uncle, I asked him a very serious question.
"What was it that happened to me while inside of that lab?" I asked as my uncle and I soon came to a stop, on the street of King Lane.
"I'm sorry, I can't answer that question, you and your mother, father, and older brother along with the lab's staff were the only people inside. And I'm going to be saying this to you a lot over the time we spend together, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry because you are the only survivor of my brother's accident." Kadar relayed to me with tears somewhat filling his eyes, and as he hung his head down low.
Before I could even reply, he continued as the last soldier on a battlefield with a duty to fulfill.
"I apologize for your newfound body and the loss of your childhood. If I was to make a guess, I would say you're either fourteen or fifteen. Now listen to my voice, I'm truly saddened that you've gone from being a mere eight-year-old to a fully-fledged teenager." Uncle spoke as tears began falling from his face and onto the cold concrete ground beneath us.
However, he wasn't the only one filled with sadness for some reason. I too was crying and the tears just wouldn't stop. "GET A GRIP," I said to myself as I grabbed at the torn shirt where my heart would be located. There just was this pain in my heart, that seemed like it wouldn't go away, and to know that the family I once had was gone, while I had no way to remember them bye just added fuel to the fire.
Then my uncle turned around and could see the state that I was currently in. He swiftly made way to me and scoped up my face and pulled it closer to his and said with the last bit of joy he could muster. "Although, we should be thanking the heavens and not spending the time we have with one another in such a way, so for just this night, we'll let our tears carry our hearts away!"
After that, we began our way toward the home I once knew. Yet, the world still felt as though I had not suffered enough this night, and in came a headache along with a memory of the past.
***
"Don't, no, father let me go!" I shouted and kicked, wiggled, and even tried to worm my way out of my father's grasp. Even so, I did not reach the ground and so I looked up to see my father's face and on it was a smile.
He then proceeded to strap me into some kind of machine, and once strapped in five needles on both sides of the armrest poked through my skin and began pumping in a plethora of foreign liquids. As my screams filled the room to the brim, soon came a boy that looked almost identical to the man before me, the one that I had called my father.
"FATHER, STOP THIS MADNESS AT ONCE!"
He shouted as he tried to tackle the man to the ground but was soon hit by a metal pole that formed from the man's hands.
As the boy's body touched the ground, the man shouted as loud as he could, far louder than my piercing screams. "I will not leave this world without fulfilling my GOAL!"
***
As the vision ended I found myself falling headfirst towards the concrete pavement…