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Eyes fluttered open as a bright light shined against its eyelids. The figure slowly came to consciousness. It brought its arm up to shield its eyes when it felt something drop onto its face. A throbbing sensation traveled throughout its brain, giving it a terrible headache. They had to let their eyes adjust to the object hanging from their fingers. It was a necklace, the string tangled between its digits. The slender pendant was gold, but the stem seemed to be broken. The other half was in the palm of their other hand. "What the hell?" the figure said in a hoarse voice, its throat sore and voice raspy. It held its head up as it looked around the area. 

They were in a dimly lit room with a wooden table and overturned chair right in front of them. It was covered in strained, broken rope and blood splatter, which also reached the walls behind it. Above the horrid scene was a single electrical strand hanging from the concrete ceiling with a flickering lightbulb swinging back and forth. 

Well, that's not ominous at all. 

The figure finally decided to get up from the floor. It brushed itself off until something suddenly fell from its lap. A small silver flask. It reached down to get a closer look. On one side of it, there was a message engraved into it. 

Try not to lose your head this time B. From S, with love.

He had a hard time remembering everything, but at least he had a name for himself. Even if it was one letter. As he stuck the flask in his suit pocket and proceeded to clean himself off, he decided to take another look at the necklace in his hand. It was a golden key, broken in half. The bow of the key was acutely designed with a skull in the middle and vines on each side of it. It seemed old, ancient even. It had a black fabric cord attached to the bow. B didn't recognize the item but felt that it was important to him, for whatever reason that would be. He stuck it into the inside breast pocket of his jacket for safekeeping.

Dressed in a black suit with a white dress shirt and a black tie to clean up, B brushed off the dirt from his pants and jacket. He ran his hands through his hair to try and straighten it up some. He ended up making it a bit messier without knowing it. He looked around the room some more. Maybe there was something else that could help him remember. The light was still swinging back and forth, throwing the shadows around the small fortified room. He could see something tucked away behind the table. He walked closer, picking up the wooden chair and tucking it back under the table. As he got closer, he could see shades of red lying against the object. It took only but a moment to realize that some of the red was fabric on a body. A woman with blonde hair was dead on the ground. Her dress was drenched by the pool of blood she was lying in, making her dress a deeper shade than it was intended to be. Her eyes were wide open, terror the last thing written in her eyes. Her death had to have been recent. Her body was still warm. B walked away from her and found two more men down on the ground. They both were dead, each missing an appendage. They had bled out. An arm was missing from one, a leg from the other. The appendages were on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall. The one missing an arm also had a broken leg, the bone out of the skin at a 90-degree angle from the knee. It was drenched in blood and raw, able to see his muscle ligaments stretched out from the sleeve and skin. 

"What happened here?" B thought. Enough was enough. Maybe leaving would help him find some more of his memories. There were only two doors in the room. The first door he opened led to an unkempt bathroom, so he figured the other was his way out. There was a long stairwell up that led to a fortified metal door. Once he struggled enough and opened it, he found himself in the middle of an alley. He didn't recognize the city or the buildings in front of him. Right across there was a strip club with people flooding in at the dead of night. B abruptly felt his heart rate speed up tremendously. He couldn't tell why it was happening. It felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest. He started looking for something, anything that could possibly help him calm down. He was able to find a cellphone in his back pants pocket. He started scrolling through his contacts, hoping to find something that was remotely familiar. There weren't many to choose from. 

Mom.

Dad.

Some contact only labeled as "Emperor".

But there was a contact B couldn't help but stop on. It was simply labeled as "PJ". He didn't know why, but there was something pushing him to call the contact. There was no picture to the contact and he personally couldn't put a face to the name, but that pull was getting stronger. He finally decided to call. He looked around as he had the phone up to his ear. 

So, what's happened in the past 15 minutes? He was in an alleyway in the middle of a city with a flask, a mysteriously broken key necklace, dead bodies, and no memory of what happened prior. 

What in the ever-loving fuck was he going to do?    


Pray for the Wicked: The Aftermath (COMPLETED) *UPDATED*Where stories live. Discover now