All That We Were | NEWT (tmr)

P R O L O G U E

The end of the world came first.

Then the dark, then the cold, and then nothing. There was just pitch black, empty space, a cold void that left her floating in the darkness - falling, falling, falling.

She couldn't remember the day the world ended. In fact, she couldn't remember much of anything at all. Her mind was a blank slate, a piece of parchment once filled with information that had been recently erased.

Her eyes, which had been squeezed firmly shut - by her own will or by force, she wasn't quite sure - slammed open.

More darkness.

For a moment she wasn't sure whether or not her eyes were still closed, because the blackness that pressed against them was so empty that it actually hurt to look at it. It was everywhere, and the panic choked her. Was she blind? Was she dead? Was this what death felt like, everything and nothing all at once?

Just when she thought her eyes would burst from the stars dancing behind them, something swam into her vision: the faint outline of crates and boxes and holy hell were those bodies?

She was pressed against something. Something both hard and soft at the same time, and warm in a way that made her feel sick.

And it was moving.

No - not moving.

Breathing.

Scrambling away from the body beneath her, she tried to put some distance between her and the presumably unconscious figure she was lying on, but the way their limbs were tangled together and the small confinements they were trapped in made it almost impossible.

Her hands landed behind her, and she used the grip on the freezing metal below her fingers to pull herself further away, until - she collided with another body, and then another, and then another.

There was flesh everywhere, the sound of breathing, hot air, skin on skin - she felt sick.

How was it possible that she was hot and cold all at the same time?

Just as the panic threatened to consume her, there was a groan from behind her - a deep, throaty sound - and the figure she had found herself tangled with upon waking up began to stir.

"What the- oomph!" The stranger's head collided with the bars when they shot upright. She would have laughed if it wasn't for the terror thrumming through her veins and the nausea pressing at her throat, building its way up from her stomach. She was shaking uncontrollably when she found a corner to nestle in.

The figure in front of her was very obviously male, if the bulky shoulders and outlines of solid muscle had anything to say. His voice was gruff, deep, and she couldn't decide whether or not to be terrified or overjoyed that she wasn't alone in this.

But there was another problem - now her lack of memory or clue what was going on wasn't the only danger to her. She may not remember much - if anything - about herself, but she was fairly certain that if this stranger was to attack her she wouldn't last two seconds. Reaching down with her fingers to poke and prod at her arms, or more rather the lack of muscle on them, she winced at the confirmation. Yeah, these things are useless.

"What the hell is going on?" His voice was laced with confusion and fear.

There were other groans - sounds of shuffling as the other bodies seemed to rise from their slumber like zombies reaching from the grave. A collection of voices broke the air.

"What the hell?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Where are we?"