Unloved

If there are monsters, Unloved realises, he needs a weapon. His mind instantly goes to the bow he found in his room, but he doesn’t remember finding any arrows.

He also remembers the red button he’d seen in his own room, and theorises to Protector that it might be a nurse call button or something along those lines, pointing out that they both have retrograde amnesia and his vague memories of doctors, suggesting they might be patients in a hospital.

Protector’s mouth twists. “This place isn’t like any hospital I’ve ever been to.” He pauses for a moment before waving his hand, saying, “I mean, sure, I can’t actually remember ever going to a hospital, but whatever. This place is weird.”

Unloved nods. “There’s definitely something strange going on here.”

“Either way,” he says, walking past Protector and towards the door, “I think I should head back to my room to grab the bow. Just in case.”

Protector’s voice stops him in his tracks. “You’re really going out there on your own? When I’ve fucking told you there are monsters walking around?”

“But you dealt with them, didn’t you?”

“There are probably more, idiot. We should be sticking together. Strength in numbers and all that.”

Unloved considers that for a moment, then asks, “Do you want to come with me, then?”

“What, escort you to get a bow that’ll be useless unless we somehow find arrows? No thanks. We should be prioritising finding other people and finding a way out of here.” Unloved catches a glimpse of him lifting his sword, and there's a note of confidence in his voice when he says, “I can deal with any monsters we find along the way.”

He still wants to get his bow, but agrees with Protector for the time being. It would be useless until they could find arrows, after all. Once they did so, he would bring it up again.

“Alright. Shall we head off, then?”

Protector’s silent for a moment. “What about you? Tall, dark, and silent?” he eventually asks, addressing the third person in the room. “Are you coming with us, or staying here?”

They don’t react. Unloved shrugs. “I think we should leave them be.”

“Suit yourself,” Protector mutters, before coming to stand by Unloved. “Let’s go, Love.”

“Onwards ever onwards.”

He opens the door.

Oh. Well, that isn’t what he’d been expecting to see.

There are three doors, their plaques reading “Ghost”, “Wildcard”, and “Father”. The hall stretches off to the left and the right, nothing else in sight. What should he do?

Unloved takes a moment to look around the room. He finds a couch to his right and a screen on the wall beyond that, though it is currently turned off. On the wall is scrawled “This Is My Fault”. The only exit from the room is the door in front of him, and the window covers the entire wall behind him. There is also a countertop to his left, which he can see has cupboards underneath.

He tries again to grab the attention of the person by the door, this time seeing if insulting them will work. They still don’t respond.

He decides to interrogate Protector further, asking him if he found anything in his room. After a moment, Protector answers.

“I didn’t find much in my room. I had a bed, some drawers with more clothes in, and a mirror on the wall. I found this in one of the drawers. There was also a ring? But I don’t know whose that is, so I didn’t take it. Oh, and there was a red button on the wall. I didn’t press it, though, because I’m not a fuckin’ idiot.”

Unloved mentions the stuff he found in his own room, pointing out the items he took with him. Protector looks confused, especially when he mentions the red string. Unloved pauses before mentioning the poems and logs, and ends up asking further questions about Protector’s sword instead.

“It’s a sword. It weighs about as much as you’d expect a sword to weigh. I think anyone would be able to use it, yes. Assuming you had training to be able to properly use a sword.”

Unloved feels like Protector is getting annoyed with him.

“Either way, I’ve found that it’s useful against the monsters.”

The breath feels like it’s been knocked out of him. Monsters?

And thank you for sending in suggestions! I hope you like what I’ve done with them.

Unloved turns to wave at the new figure, who waves back with a small smile. They seem familiar too. He puts that from his mind as he approaches them, holding his hand out.

“Hi!” “...Hi.” “I know this might sound weird, but I just woke up with amnesia and-” “Yeah, same.”

Unloved opens his eyes, unsure if he heard them correctly. They don’t seem to notice as they continue speaking.

“The room I woke up in had ‘Protector’ on a plaque outside the door, so I guess you can call me that.” “Yeah, mine said...” he makes a quick decision, “Love.”

They give him a weird look, but don’t press the matter. Unloved briefly debates asking if they know what’s going on, but since they also mentioned having retrograde amnesia he doesn’t think they’ll be able to give him any answers. He wonders what he should say.

Unloved creeps closer, trying not to disturb the other person, until he can see their face. The feeling of familiarity grows, but he still can’t remember anything. His chest twinges.

He decides to try and ask their name, but they don’t respond. In fact, they don’t give any indication at all that they heard him. Having hit a dead end, Unloved turns towards the window, feeling a fluttering of fear at the wrongness of what lies beyond it.

Despite that, he finds himself enraptured by the bright light - it can’t be the sun, he decides, because it doesn’t hurt to look at - and the soft colours. For a few moments, all he can do is stare.

The light comes on.

What should he do?

After a bit of dithering and wondering if he should just go back to bed and hope this whole thing blows over, Unloved decides to head to the right. That feeling of creeping danger grows as he wanders the corridors, all looking near-identical, until he comes across a large room.

His attention is instantly drawn to the figure sat on the floor and the large window they’re staring out of. They seem... familiar.

What should he do?

Unloved stands in the hall outside his room. As he peers first one way, then the other, he finds no difference between the two. But he does feel a growing sense of danger. There is something very wrong with this place.

What does he do?

He checks himself over and finds his skin unmarred. No scars of any kind, not even from surgeries or old injuries. It doesn’t seem right... And the glass in the drawer clearly has blood on it. As he looks them over he feels a phantom pain in his chest, right over his heart. He can almost remember-

He shakes himself and turns towards the door. He’s certain that he’ll find answers out there, not least of which being his own name. There should be a plaque just outside with it on. He’s certain of that.

Without touching anything else, he steels himself and leaves.

...

Well. Looks like that’s his name.

Unloved.

He looks over the notes. A lot of the information has been erased, some of it burned away. What remains is... worrying.

The note under the scarf appears to be part of a poem. The frame on the wall also appears to be a poem. Apparently he is someone who likes poetry?

He doesn’t really know what to make of any of this. Maybe if he had his memories, this would all make more sense. And he thinks the answers to his amnesia must lie outside, but...

He’s scared to leave this room.

What should he do?

He puts the sunglasses and necklace on, hiding the latter beneath his shirt. When he picks up the scarf he finds an additional note under it, which he places on the top of the dresser for the time being. He then ties the scarf around his head like a bandanna.

His coolness boosts by 100%

But the scarf is heavy and pulls at his hair, so he decides to wear it around his neck and starts gathering the rest of the notes to look over. As he does so, he finds more red string within the drawer, as well as shards of glass. Looking closer, they appear to be from a mirror. They also appear to have something reddish-brown dried on them.

The picture on top of the dresser shows two birds. He feels sad as he looks at it, but doesn’t know why.

The door is unlocked. There is nothing under the bed, not even a speck of dust.

Hey, I know it’s been a while! There was kind of an impromptu hiatus courtesy of starting a new job and not having a drawing tablet, but I recently managed to rectify the latter and have had the free time necessary to get some stuff done! I would say the next update is 99.9% complete - it literally just needs a few minor tweaks - and so it will probably be going up 19/04 if all goes well.

And without spoiling too much, this was a fun update to plan out. I hope you enjoy it!!

For the moment calling the wall behind the bed ‘North’, he takes stock of the dresser against it, which has a framed picture on top, as well as the bed he’s currently on and the small red button on the wall. To the ‘South’ there is a door, the only entrance or exit in the room. The ‘East’ wall holds nothing important, while the ‘West’ wall has words written in something red. Most likely paint. Even with the dresser and another frame blocking parts, it’s easy to tell what the words say.

“Take My Heart And Make Me Whole”

He puts it from his mind for now, instead pulling the drawers out as he tries to remember anything about his dream. But there’s nothing. Not even any emotions, so he doesn’t know if they were dreams or nightmares.

The top left drawer contains papers covered in words, though he can already see thick black lines hiding much of the information and burns around the edge. There is also a single torn photograph, and at first glance he does not recognise the figure in it.

The top right drawer has a green patterned scarf, gold-rimmed sunglasses, and a necklace with some strange symbol. None of it is instantly familiar.

The middle drawer contains a bow - specifically a recurve bow. He feels fairly confident he would be able to use it, if it weren’t for the lack of arrows.

The bottom drawer contains nothing but a mass of red string. He quickly closes that one.

He has not inspected either frame, nor has he pressed the red button or tried to open the door.

A young man awakes in his bedroom. He remembers nothing - not his name, no memories, not even the dreams he’d been having a few moments prior. All that remains are two certainties.

One - that he had recently been ill

Two - that this was his bedroom

What does he do?