Blank Slate | ONC2023

Chapter Five: Work Alone. No Exceptions.

The hum of hovercars flying past fills the air, merging with the bustle of the city around me. I turn a corner, tugging my hat lower over my curls.

Five days. It's been five days since I woke up with no memories. Only five days and I'm already ready to scream into the void.

It's not fair. All I wanted was silence and solitude after the Storm Cell team caught me. But now, after four days of quiet, I can't take it.

In my empty apartment, all I can hear are my thoughts. My questions. My doubts. Fears. Trepidations. There's nothing to distract me, to drown them out, or even offer a sense of comfort. I am alone in my head full of static and open-ended questions. Alone in my quest for answers. Alone on my side of the battlefield.

A sigh glides through my teeth and I flick my gaze upwards. Grey and white shapes confidently slice through the fading blue sky like trophies standing on pedestals and weave together in a chaos of metal and glass.

Light flashes off the window-paneled buildings, streaking orange light and razor-edged shadows across the sidewalk, making the pigeons fluttering here and there mere silhouettes.

My steps slow to a stop, hot breath fanning my face. How many times have I seen this view before? It should be familiar to me, like my memory of sitting at a worn kitchen table, gazing at the CDs hung in the window as they catch the light, waiting for words to fill my homework pages.

And yet, this view is separate, foreign, impossibly other, just like that memory is. These buildings were known to a former version of myself. They aren't mine, a known feature in my life; they are new and unknown, just like these questions about myself.

A heavy sigh trails out of my mouth, many more lodged in my lungs, and the static churns in my veins where answers should be. Shaking my head, I step into an alley between a drugstore and a bakery, pass the dumpsters, and lean against the smooth concrete, gaze cast to the sky.

My rules flip through my thoughts, followed by all the ones the heroes have given me that I am currently breaking. I am not supposed to be wandering around the city, and I am certainly not supposed to be hanging out in an alley on some unknown street far from home, but here I am.

I know it's a bad idea. I know I should go home. But at the thought of going back to my empty place to face another night of mindless tasks, my feet root themselves in place. At least out here, there's something new to look at.

Even if it's garbage.

Another sigh escapes me. Was this really what my past self envisioned my life to be? Was this even intended? Rule three: work alone. No exceptions. Perhaps...it is. Maybe. Possibly.

But what kind of life is that? What would make me choose to be alone in my mission instead of working with someone? Trust issues? I close my eyes, searching my memories.

Ghostly laughter echoes in my mind, full of smiles, camaraderie, and my old name—my old self—Elias. Again, my memories are happy. Content. Perhaps a little lonely—I am alone a lot, standing at the edges of the crowd or studying in the library, in my memories—but not betrayed or neglected or hurt.

Why did I turn into a villain? What made me reject all the hero promotion Ten School taught me? What made me choose this—no memory and endless questions—over a life that seems to be happy?

Perhaps...that's all it is: seems too. Perhaps there is something underneath it I can't see or remember. There...has to be, right? But there are no clues scattered between my memories. No shadows of doubt or frustration towards the system. I even said it myself, long ago, when Mom asked me. I want to be a hero, just like you. I want to help people.