As the world slowly returns to me I begin to hear the sounds of waves crashing against a nearby shore. Beyond the roaring of the ocean, the roiling of waves and flotsam, I begin to make out the cawing of seagulls over the low and deep background ambiance.
My body feels stiff, aching, and still quite numbed after whatever Kayla had put me through. I try to keep my eyes shut, to go back to sleep so I could wake from whatever nightmare I was currently trapped in.
However, even through my dulled senses I begin to become cognizant of my surroundings. The scent of sand and salt begins to creep its way inside my nostril, the pungent smell of the shoreline reaching me...wherever I was.
With a deep inhale I begin to shiver, the brisk morning air chilling me to the bone. I can feel something heavy on top of me, maybe a blanket or jacket of some sort, though it did little to keep out the chill I was experiencing.
As my eyes gently begin to flutter open I find myself seated in the back seat of some strange car with my back against up against a car door. My head lolls from side to side as I rest it against the window, my vision locked on the opposite window with bleary eyes.
The window has been wound down, allowing for some fresh sea air to creep into the musty interior of the cramped car. My sight line of the outside world suddenly drops off, the beach stretching out below after what appears to be some sort of cliff or an extremely steep hill.
I find myself staring at the waves as they roll in and pull out, the motion soothing my anesthetic addled yet panicked mind for a moment. After several minutes of staring absentmindedly at the shore and the sea I begin to glance around at my surroundings.
I gently tilt my head to the left, looking out the back window. A long gravel road leads up behind the car, revealing the steep incline the car was parked at the top of. Dry grasses and reeds line either side of the road as it stretches out down the hill and along the coastline.
The road vanishes from sight behind a series of trees as it turns off to the right. However, as my eyes trace along the treeline I see where it was lead. On the horizon I can see it, a collection of small wooden buildings clumped together between two large hills. The walls, while hard to make out at this distance, appear to be mostly painted white with a few standouts among the pack. In amongst this quaint collection of structures a few larger wooden, and even a few brick ones, buildings stick out like sore thumbs.
The hills themselves are dotted with partially obscured buildings, most likely houses outside of the main town. Many of these houses seem more modern, with larger amounts of glass and metal in their design.
With a guttural groan I flop my head to my right, my neck creaking and making me want to howl in pain as I look over out the front window.
Even with my vision partially obscured by the passenger's side seat in front of my face I can make out the old wooden building in front of me. It was a house, a rather large one perched at the top of the picturesque hill. It looked worn, though well-loved, with the white paint of the wooden boards having been chipped away and reapplied many times over as uneven layers had built up.
The building itself was two stories tall, though with the attic it could almost be considered three. A large porch wraps around the front, a carved wooden banister acts as the closest thing to a fence this house had out the front. On the porch by the aged wooden door rests a pair of boots, looking strangely familiar as some part of me recognizes them as my own or at least an identical pair.
The side facing away from the sea had a wooden fence running around the side of the house and expanding out quite a ways before wrapping around the back and out of sight. Between the gasps of the fence what looks like chicken wire can be seen, sealing the area from outside animals or potentially keeping animals in.
The side facing the sea appears far more open. However, it is nearly impossible to see much of that side from my unfortunate viewing position.
Taking a deep breath I try to return to my original position, rolling my head to face the ocean and most importantly my own body. I can feel sensation slowly returning to my limbs, my toes being able to twitch and move as my legs slowly begin to wake up in kind.
Glancing down I'm met with the sight of hospital gowns, dozens and dozens of them. Piles of the flimsy, almost see-through, material lay stacked up over my body as some sort of makeshift blanket. The random assortment and placement of the clothing make it practically impossible to make heads or tails of what lay beneath, though I could already feel that it wasn't the same as what I had woken up with yesterday.
With my head throbbing and vision blurring I begin to sit up, my bones creaking and muscles aching as I begin to shrug off the gowns. As I move to the center of the back seat I turn to look at the house, my eyes trailing off as they catch my reflection in the rear view mirror.
My jaw drops as I see myself, the reflection staring back at me being that of a...
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