The Body

Consciousness returned to him for a second time, this time woken up by someone gently shaking his body. He heard a voice talking, but his hearing was murky and muffled, making it feel as though the voice was miles away from him. He struggled to react to his awakening, as his head was still felt as though he had been whacked over the head with a bat, his eyelids were too heavy to open, and his body still hurt too much to convince him to make any sort of movement.

Suddenly, he was turned over onto his back and his head was placed on it's side. He felt several strong pushes were made on his chest, and they caused salt water to slide up his windpipe, making him choke and cough violently in an effort to rid his throat and lungs of the liquid. He was lucky hadn't drowned on the water.

He rolled his trembling body to his side as he continued to cough up the water, eventually causing an urgent feeling in his throat. He heaved what little his stomach contained onto the sand beside him, which consisted of mostly sea water.

When he finished, he felt an unsteady hand pat him on his back in a small effort to console him, and this helped make him feel slightly better. He rolled back over onto his back, his frame still racking with shakes and trembles. After good long minute of taking in slow and deep breaths to steady himself, his headache subsiding ever so slightly and his hearing became clearer. He slowly opened his eyes. A girl was crouched over him, a worried look spread across her face.

Amber blocked the light of the sun, so it was a bit hard for him to make out the details of her face. However, the first thing he noticed right away was her eyes. They were large and wild, with yellow-brown irises surrounding pupils that darted from side to side rapidly. Small, but dark, bags hung under each eye-socket, accentuating her eye colour even more. Her right eye was half-concealed beneath her wavy hair, which was styled so it fell across the right side of her head. While her eyes were erratic and unpredictable, her young features carried hints of affability. When the person she crouched over had opened his eyes, her mouth instantly curled upwards into a relieved smile.

"Oh thank goodness, I'm so glad you didn't choke yourself to death," Amber nervously sighed. She grabbed his hand, helping him up into a sitting position. He felt uncomfortable as he sat up, like he was somewhat off balance and that his upper body was weighing him down. He blamed it on just how horrible he was felt, his figure still fiercely quivering. It took every ounce of energy he had left to not double over in pain or not throw up again, and he thought that if so much as closed his eyes he might faint and not have the energy to wake up.

Eager to know where he was, he quickly spun his head around the area, recognising he was still on the same beach he found himself on last time.

Despite not knowing anything about where the beach is located, and despite how terrible he felt, he tried to shrug it off and, with a cocky confidence, quickly decided to push through it. Mostly in an effort to show off, but he wouldn't let anyone know that. Though he probably looked as bad as he felt, he wanted to make sure his first impressions were somewhat impressive. He was started to stand, but Amber grabbed his shoulder when she saw he almost stumbled off of his feet.

"Hey, uh, please try not to stand... you look seriously ill. Your skin has lost all colour, your eyes are incredibly bloodshot, you look malnourished and you're shaking, like, a lot. I'm just going to call some paramedics, you should be okay... just maybe try not to move, alright?" She tried to give a comforting smile to him.

Realising just how concerned Amber's face was, he simply nodded and, rather painfully, sat back down. Am I really that bad? he thought as Amber spoke again.

"You were hardly breathing at first... I was really scared for you! Do you have... any idea how you ended up like this on the shore?"

He opened his mouth to speak but stopped himself. He tried to remember any events leading up to this point. But nothing came to mind. He realised there was nothing about himself he could recollect, there were no moments he had experienced or people he had met that he could call to mind.

He didn't know where he came from, or how he had washed up onto the beach, or who his parents were. He didn't even know his name. Images of people flashed across his mind, but he could not recognise any of them, their faces replaced with ghastly smudges of colour. He couldn't think of one person he knew, or recall a single conversation.

He became somewhat frightened by the revelation, his heart starting to beat fast and his head turning around in alarm. He quickly restrained himself, trying to give off a calm demeanour. Amber, who had been watching him slowly become more and more confused for seemingly no reason, turned her head to the side quizzically, confused by his lack of response.

"Um... alright, I guess you don't have to answer. You're a little odd but you like you've been through quite a lot so-"

"I don't remember anything..." he whispered to himself before turning back to Amber. "I have no idea how got here, sorry. I can't seem to remember..."

He cut himself off, realising something strange. He grabbed his throat and his eyebrows furrowed in uncertainty. Amber was also in a state of confusion, although more about his previous statement.

"Wait, so you have no idea how you got here? Not even, like, a little bit?" Amber questioned him. She could see that he wasn't focusing on her, as he kept clutching his neck and clearing his throat. "Uh... you murmured something about not remembering anything... are you saying that mean you can't remember anything leading up to now or-? Hey, are you okay? Hello?"

"Why does my voice sound so weird? It's like... high in pitch. What is going on?" he replied, not recognising the voice coming out of my mouth at all.

"What do you mean? It sounds normal to me..."

"It's like... high in pitch. I know it shouldn't be this high." For a moment, he honestly thought his voice was replaced by one of a chipmunk on helium.

The individual in front of Amber was starting to scare her. They had a lot of weird things to say and it was making her uncomfortable. It seemed like they had a weirder mental problem than she did.

"Hey, look... I-I'm going call up some paramedics now okay? You look terrible, you seem like you're gonna faint again if s-someone doesn't help you," she tried to reassure him as he tried saying things in a deeper voice. "And, uh, if it helps you calm down, t-they might be able to sort out wherever you think is wrong with your voice. I... don't think it should be any deeper considering right now it sounds like you're trying to impersonate a guy or some..."

He suddenly locked incredibly wide eyes with Amber, cutting her off in surprise. She watched as his hand released his throat and landed in his lap.

"I-I... I am a guy," he choked out.

"Uh, okay sorry..." Amber didn't know how to approach his strange reaction. "I didn't mean to, um, "assume your gender" or whatever, I just... thought since you were a girl that would-"

"But... I'm not-!"

He put his hand on his chest as he said that, and stopped talking when the hand connected with something unfamiliar. It wasn't something stuck to his skin, as he could feel his hand on top of it, like he was touching his own skin. He looked down, finding his chest now protruded outwards.

It was nothing short of a herculean achievement that he managed to avoid screaming. He still freaked out, however, and he jumped upwards onto his feet and started to run backwards, as if to try to get away from his own body. He tripped over in the sand, landing on his back, and wasted no time in frantically crawling backwards, still fearfully looking down at his body.

His back finally hit a rocky wall and he stopped skirmishing, staying frozen in a sitting position. He breathed rapidly, which caused his chest to rise and fall. He sunk his teeth so hard into his hand, he wasn't sure how he wasn't bleeding, just to give his mind something else to focus on. Hands shaking with worry, his thoughts were a jumbled mess again, and he was seriously debating running to the ocean, screaming all the way.

Amber chased after him, stopping in front of him. She had no idea how to respond to such a reaction, or how to continue with situation. Not only did this person look like she at Death's doorstep, but they also had some kind of amnesia, and now seemed to be freaked out by their own looks? Wow, how I wish I just got the courage to join the guild now, she thought.

Amber took a deep breath, and crouched down to the level of the person in front of her. Her thoughts were just as scatterbrained as he acted. He was still looking wide-eyed down at himself.

"Hey... l-look, you seemed to be really freaking out about this but... didn't you say you had a memory problem just before? Don't you think that... um, y'know, you might be overreacting a bit to how you look?" Amber was saying this all very slowly and carefully to him just so there was nothing she might say that might freak him out even more. Honestly she wished that she could just go back to her panicked whispering to calm herself but that didn't seem like the smartest option.

"I mean just... y'know, think about it, I don't know anyone who could be able to cast a spell that changes physical features... at least not on others... I'm not even sure if that exists so... this might just all be in your head...?"

For the first time since freaking out, he looked up from himself to Amber. His face had shifted from panic to skeptical curiosity.

"Spell? Like magic...? That's a thing that... exists?" Amber had mentioned it so casually he was almost creeped out.

Amber on the other hand was astonished. "How could you even possibly not know about the concept of magi-? Jeepers, how bad could your memory loss be?" Magic is such a major part of culture and society, maybe even even the very beginning of culture and society, so how could someone possibly be able to... forget about it?! Amber questioned.

"Wait, wait, so... are you one of the people who can do... spell stuff?" the apparent amnesiac asked awkwardly as he slowly stood upwards, clutching the rock wall behind him to steady his stumbling and trembling frame.

"Um... y-yeah of course I am. Why...?" Amber replied dumbly to his equally dumb question.

"Ah, okay. I see..." he said slowly, thinking he'd put all the puzzle pieces together.

"What-" Amber was cut off by a sloppy punch to the side of the head. It didn't hurt that much as it was pretty weak punch, but it at least had enough force behind it to knock Amber onto the sand. Her 'attacker' quickly ran into an entrance to a cave burrowed into the rocky cliff face that he lent on, and kept running deeper into the labyrinthian seaside cave until Amber saw him go out of sight.

"What the heck... just happened," Amber muttered under her breath, confused as to the unusual events that just transpired. She got up, and looked down the entrance into the cave. Now she was stuck with the dilemma of either helping the weird individual further, maybe calling some paramedics for them like she said she would, or just walk away, pretending the whole thing was some weird dream she had while daydreaming.

She looked at her phone as she pulled it out if her pocket. She may weirded out but she still had her morals and decided to call paramedics to help the person out.

Just as Amber started to type the numbers on her phone, her wrists were suddenly grabbed by a strong hand and thrown up over her arms, making her drop her phone. A heavily-built thug held her tight, refusing to let go as she struggled against him. She began summoning her fire magic, but another, leaner-built thug approached, runes flashing around his hand. Amber started chocking as the oxygen around her started dissipating, the flames she summoned dying, unable to sustain themselves with oxygen. When Amber felt oxygen rush back into her lungs a couple seconds later, she gasped heavily and slumped onto her knees, too weak to struggle anymore.

The lean thug knelt down and leant towards Amber, a small cackle of glee coming from his mouth as he reached down her shirt and pulled out her necklace's pendant in his palm.

"Well lookie what we have here, nice bit of treasure you got here," his voice commented in a slimy tone.

"You wouldn't mind if we... burrow it would you?" the other said. His voice contrasted his bulk, sounding like nails on a chalkboard. "Oh, don't worry, you won't miss it. Tell you what, so we know you won't, how's about we let you take a little sleep with the fishes! Sound fun?"

A/N: I went back and made a more solid plan on what I want this story to be, so hopefully it becomes somewhat more original as it goes on. I'm not a very good writer (never really have been) but I at least want to make this story at least as good as I can make it.
(Also, 2312 words for one chapter with a really bizarre early plot point. Pretty sure my writing has absolutely no filter, sorry)