The Incident
#1 of Elf of no past
Griswold's eyes slowly cracked open, then snapped them shut again against the bright lights of the room.
His head hurt.
"Hello?" he croaked weakly.
Not hearing an answer he slowly moved the sheets away discovering himself to be wearing a rather backless hospital gown. Griswold got up, (trying to preserve as much modesty as possibe)dragged himself to the door and tried it.
"Locked" he said in a slightly scratchy voice. He decided that perhaps he was just a in a private room and that the door was locked for his own comfort. He tried knocking, and then waited a good thirty seconds before returning to his bed and laying on top, trying to organize his thoughts.
No memories. He could not even remember what he looked like. Desperately he turned around and tried to view his reflection in the metal of the bed frame. He stared in shocked silence at his reflection. He knew that of course he was an elf. Slowly Grisswold started to remember bits of his child hood; running, playing, and all manner of childhood games but, strangely nothing specific like locations or names besides his own. Severly confused by his lack of memory, he began to panic a bit.
Sitting upright again he took a deep breath to calm himself.
Just inhale and exhale.
Now somewhat calmed he took another look at his surroundings, searching for anything he may have missed. Quickly he noticed that in the top right corner of the room from his bed, was a camera.
He spent the next two minutes waving and shouting trying to get the atention of someone who was hopefully in another room watching a monitor . Failing that Griswold slumped down in defeat, decideing that prehaps patience was the best option.
Suddenly there was a crash so large that the hannging florescent lights shook, splaying light all through the room in strange patterns.
Instantly his instincts took over as he dropped to the ground and looked towards the door, searching for the source of the noise. Following the loud bang was the distinct sound of gunfire rattling some distance away.
It may be relevent to note that Griswold knew it was gunfire, but could not even remember having ever seen a gun.
The gunfire seemed to be getting closer and steadily increasing in volume. Suddenly another thundourusly loud boom. This one created a loud ringing in Griswolds ears, simultaneously the door to the room broke off its hinges, smashing into the bed where he had been two minutes before. Griswold imeadietly froze, waiting.
When no one came through or otherwise aprroached the door, Griswolds curiosity took the better of him. Straining his ears for any other sound in the otherwise silence since the door blew away
Seeing his chance to escape Griswold rushed out of the room and imeadietly slid on a pile of what he assumed was the lower intestine of some poor creature and fell face first into a bleak steel lined corridor, with scorch marks on the floor. Fire sprinklers going full flow in the places they hadent been compleatly blown off.
Quickly rounding the corner he stood behind two armed wolves, black as night, pointing there unidentifieble rifles at an unarmed rather beautiful, black and white skunk who was busy cowering in fear and begging for her life.
" I say we take her back with us and have a little fun" said the first wolf.
The skunk if it was possible paled at the remark.
"Why wait?", said the second, "who's gonna stop us here? second squad tookout everyone in the living quarters."
"Good point"replied the first, obviously less intelligent, wolf
The skunks eyes going wider than should have been possible.
slowly they started to advance on the poor frightened skunk. All Griswold knew was that these two brutes were going to do terrible things to and unarmed, defenseless creature, and that was all the reason he needed to instinctively rush up behind the first and twist his head almost in a complete 180 killing the wolf instantly.
Shocked at his own strength, Griswold was not quick enough and the first fell to the floor alerting the second wolf who turned and pointed his rifle at him.
The wolf seemed just as shocked at Griswold's appearance as he himself had been.
This was all the delay Griswold needed to deliver a vicious punch right at the wolfs breast bone and completely shattering it. The wolf swayed for a second then collapsed on the ground with a dull thud. Griswold didn't know if the wold was dead, he didn't have time to check.
He ran straight to the skunk, "are you all right?" he asked.
The skunk was slow to respond seeing the damage this creature had caused with nothing but his bare hands and a rather backless hospital gown.
"Fine.." she managed to breath, "fine"
Seeing that she was indeed all right Griswold started to walk past her
"Wait!" she called out, "Take me with you there are more of them"
Griswold knew she would just be a liability if there was trouble again, all the same he felt guilty about leaving her. Also wondering what of his memories made him think of a living being as a liability and how he knew to twist necks in that fatal fashion.
Sensing his hesitation the skunk called," I know where your things are!"
This gave great pause to Griswold. This female knew that he had objects belonging to him, therefore she must have known at least something about where he came from or how he got wherever he was.
"Come with me" is all he said
She got up and followed,
"Your things are in a secure storage room down this way, I have the key code for the door."
Down more of the same steel hall the walked peaking around corners whenever they got to one, eventually arriving at the end of the hall Where a massive steel door that took up the entire 7x7 foot wall waited them
"Open it"
She dialed in the code for the massive door
With a loud hiss the door slid open into the wall in 3 different directions making a Y like shape as it opened.
Inside the door there was a dimly lit room with a few different sized steal tables holding several objects
On one table there was a pair of brown leather gloves and boots, with a strange symbol on the back of the hand of the gloves. on another there was a set of simple white robes which Griswold quickly put on discarding the gown that he had come to rather dislike because it itched. Griswold also noticed that the skunk did not look away when he took the old gown off but still had the curtsy to blush when his rather impressive manhood became exposed Next he picked up the gloves and slipped them on. They fit him like, well... a glove.
On the third and largest table was the most impressive of the objects, a breastplate with a runic circle design on it, and it was scared by a black scratch running across the circle distorting some of the symbols in the circle. Also plainly visible was a ,cape of the purest white color with the same circle ruin design as the armor
putting on all of what he supposed was his he turned to the skunk who seemed somewhat impressed by his new look.
Griswold supposed he was a rather impressive sight to behold, shining white at a tall 6'5, sleek faced with a narrow chin, pointed ears, tilted eyes, strong slim build, and blond hair with one hazel eye and one cloudy Grey eye.
Griswold had to admit that the skunk herself wasn't looking to bad either
She had a small slim build with a narrow waist and medium sized hips . Wearing an office skirt and a very lose blouse that would have made it difficult to judge her chest size where it not for the fire sprinklers having soaked her in the hallway. She was of course typical skunk coloring and style with sharp brown eyes and C cups
"I'm Griswold by the way", stated Griswold.
"Candice", she replied with a smile
Shaking his head to clear his mind of that smile he asked if she knew the way out, and of course she did.
The managed to run all the way to the exit without seeing a single mercenary/soldier/terrorist thing the rest of the way, however they ran into numerous bullet ridden corpses in the hallway, Candice doing her best to not notice them.
This was because as Candice claimed, they were after more valuable things located deeper in the building.
It took at least another five minutes to finally arrive at the exit, having traversed much the same steel corridors and feeling like a rat in a maze. Griswold was happy to finally see the sunlight reflecting of the thousands of shards of glass from what must have been a glass front door now destroyed from the first explosion.
Realizing that Candice was not wearing shoes Griswold offered to carry her out the door, and too which she graciously accepted.
She held onto him in what was perhaps an unnecessarily tight grip but Griswold didn't mind at all. Even when they were passed the glass and at a nice grassy lawn she still did not release him so neither did he. She directed him to a simple black car where she unwillingly release him and took the drivers seat.
10 minutes later
"The only safe place I can think of right now is my cabin in the woods", said Candice interrupting the silence held since entering the car. This silence had been mostly to do with Griswold trying to think things through since his waking: the attackers who ever they were were not after him, they had gone deeper into the compound than he was. Griswold could recognize the symbols on his gloves, cape and armor but he could not decipher their meaning
"Thats as good as anything", replied Griswold suddenly remembering that Candice seemed to have been employed In that building, whatever it was, and so he asked her.
"The building is just a research lab a built in the middle-of-no-where so that protesters to some of the more...morally challenging experiments, could not be made heard."
Candice also admitted to being only a secretary and that all she knew of his presence there was that one night there had been a large beam of light in the middle of the woods that surrounded the research complex. When a team was dispatched to investigate They had found Griswold laying on the ground unconscious and near death. Candice was also disappointed to learn that Griswold had no memory of how he had arrived there in the woods.
Griswold decided that he believed her, but was still frustrated by his own memories yielding no result.
They continued to the cabin making small talk driving down a paved road in the middle of the woods. Griswold learned that Candice had no living family or relations outside the complex, she was struck with a sudden bout of sadness realizing that most likely all her friends were dead and that she had no one anymore.
Pulling off the side of the road, Candice took a moment to herself muttering, "Most of them slept in the lab, they had their own rooms there, but I liked the solitude of the forest...I wish they had too."
Pulling her over to him Griswold gave her a firm hug and let her cry on his shoulder for a while.
When Candice had finally recovered enough Griswold wiped away a solitary tear on her Muzzle looking her in the eyes and seeing the sadness there. Griswold felt The reflection of loneliness in her eyes mirror his own at being alone in a new apparently volatile world.
When they finally arrived at her cabin it was near midnight, The cabin itself was not overly large but it had the essentials like a kitchen, bathroom, and dinning room, as well as one bedroom and a couch.
Candice told Griswold to make himself at home while she changed out of her still wet cloths. Griswold made his way to the kitchen where he found an opened bottle of hard liquor of some kind and poured both of them a glass figuring they could use a stiff drink.
Candice came back out of the bedroom wearing naught but a red silk bathrobe, immediately took the drink offered and sat on the couch where Griswold joined her. Rain started to patter on the windows and roof making a wonderfully soothing sound.
Candice snuggled against him, "I don't want to be alone"
"I'm here"
Candice looked up at him and into his mismatched eyes.
"I don't want to be alone."
"I'm here."
They kissed.
They held lips for a moment then broke apart.
They kissed again more passionately
Griswold, with infinite care and tendernesses picked Candice up and carried her to the bedroom.