"Lost Identity" by Ikwaak D

Impossible. How is this happening? How did I get here? Standing in the middle of a dark
and gloomy forest with a horrendous stench of rotten eggs; I look down and see my battered clothes and my socks missing. I shut my eyes tight as if I am watching a scary movie and try to remember the last thing I was doing. Lightning strikes nearby causing me to get startled and lose my concentration. Almost simultaneously, as the lightning strikes, a pack of dogs can be heard in the distance constantly barking, as if they are hunting for something. Instinctively, my legs begin moving in the opposite direction, the dried leaves under my feet crunching as I sprint over them. As I am running for what seems to be an eternity, I notice something... I’ve been going in a circle. This doesn’t make any sense, I was running in a straight line; to what I could make out as straight in the dark forest. Suddenly, the disgusting smell of rotten eggs gets incredibly strong and a thick mist appears all around me, as if it was placed there. The mist begins to thicken and I don’t know where I am at and which direction to run in; I can hear the dogs barking all around me. Terrified at the situation in hand, a million thoughts rushing through my head. What is going on? Am I dream... before I can even finish thinking about my second question I feel my leg getting pulled from below, before I can react I get pulled through the ground and in an instant, everything around me is altered. All I see around me is abyss, just a lot of nothingness. For the

first time in my life, I was surrounded by complete silence; all I can hear is the sound of my heart thumping as fast as a solo drummist finishing his piece. All I feel is sweat dripping from the top of my forehead. As I am standing on what seems to be quite literally nothing, I can still smell the rotten egg. All of a sudden, just as quick as I fell, almost like a light switch flipped on, everything that was once black now turns white and I feel myself losing consciousness to what seems to be a made up reality. I wake up with everything except a shirt on, stand up straight, in what seems to be a cabin that has a eerie ambience. Outside, I could hear a thunderous storm brewing. I see an open chair right next to me so I take a seat in hopes of making sense of everything that occurred. As I sit down, I hear footsteps behind me, someone is running up trying to sneak up on me, not knowing what to do I stand up abruptly and turn around to face what I thought to be as a predator mistaking me for prey. No one is there. The hairs on my neck shoot up. Did I just imagine something there? Where am I? What is going on? I look out the window to see that I am on the second story of a cabin that is surrounded by a cemetery on barren land. Immediately, I turn around in hopes of running downstairs as quick as possible so that I can get out of this horror scene. As I run through this creaky hallway the stairs seem to get farther away the closer I get. I try running faster to catch up to this illusion but it doesn’t work. I stop moving, attempting to catch my breath, and I begin to scream with frustration. Out of nowhere, I hear a loud screech and footsteps behind me again. This time the footsteps are moving incredibly fast. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Almost as though the intent of this person is to hurt me. Quickly, I turn around but as I turn around the footsteps follow. They are behind me once again... Frantically, I rotate my body once more in hopes of making contact with what I concocted in my head to be a malevolent force. Once again, it's rotates with me, now being behind me. Before I

make my next move, I am pushed with such a great strength I've never felt before; causing me to fall face down at such a speed that I could be mistaken for an anvil dropping from the top of a table and hitting the ground. Just before I fall I notice one peculiar detail, when I was pushed from the back a weird residue was left on my back. It was egg yolk. In tune with the impact of my body hitting the cabin floor; I wake up on a table. There are five people around me all wearing green costumes and face masks to conceal their identity. I see a sign in the distance “Identity Removal Simulation.” The surgeon wearing glasses on top of their face mask yells in a raspy voice “HE’S REGAINING CONSCIOUSNESS BRING MORE ROTTEN EGG YOLK!” Attempting to get away, I try to pull myself up but I can't, I'm restrained with metal bars wrapped around my body. I try screaming and learn that my mouth has been taped shut. Despite knowing it's no use, I continue to scream and squirm. Another person rushes in the room, holding syringes full of some yellow ingredient. As the surgeon with glasses injects this yellow serum that smells like egg yolk into my body he takes off his mask. My heart drops, it was my father-in-law. Instilled with terror and confusion I attempt to try to scream louder. My father-in-law looks at me with a smirk, chuckles, and says “it's over.” A sharp and piercing pain starts from the injection point of the serum and travels upwards. Uncontrollably, my body begins to spasm. Even I know, it's over.