Chess stumbled back, overwhelmed. A wolf stood behind him. Yet, as he spun around, he thought dumbly, wolves don't live on islands. Then he noticed the eyes. So much like.... "Artemis?" Chess was confused, and still a bit angry. He didn't know why he was on this island, why those people blew up the ship, why everything around him was disintegrating into an insane mess. Then he knew why he had hung back for his entire life. If everything was as maddening as this whenever he interacted with anyone, he was better off alone. Chess then took a deep breath. calm down, Cheshire. Do what you've always done. Disappear. Chess thought back to what he had done before, and tried it again. Slowly he began to fade, and he watched his disappearing hands with a mixture of fear and awe. Then he was gone. He looked back, and saw that his shadow was still there. When he moved, the shadow moved. He wasn't entirely invisible, then. Just invisible to the human eye. Chess retreated into the shade, where he couldn't be tracked, and sat down. He had been trying not to remember his memories, had been trying to forget them, but he needed to know. So he closed his eyes, and remembered.
It was cold. Very cold. There was no breeze, and the air hung still and unmoving. He had opened his eyes to a harsh bright light, and he tried to use his hand to shield his eyes, but it wouldn't move. He looked over to see his wrist strapped to a large metal table. His eyes slid over to the other hand to see the same. His mouth tasted dry and raw, like he had been screaming, and he had no memories of anything before his waking point. He was in an empty room, with a glass partition in front of him, and a door to his left behind him. The room smelled like alcohol, the kind they used in hospitals, and there was a tray next to him that held multiple needles. They were empty. The doors behind him swished, and he strained to see who had came in. Two people walked around the table. One was holding another needle. The next thing he knew, a searing pain came into his left arm, and the pain spread throughout his entire body, tearing through his veins. His skin felt like it was on fire. Then he passed out.
He had reawakened in a bed, in a room that was just like the one with the table. He sat up as a man walked in. "What do you remember?"
He hadn't remembered anything. Not the experiments, not even his name. A nurse came in and injected something into his arm, and he felt numb. Then he remembered. His name was Chess. He had been in a car accident. He was now in a hospital, and afterwards would go to a cruise liner provided for him. Many other people were there. His parents were dead, and he had no friends. Chess related this all to the man, and he nodded and checked something on a paper. Then he smiled. "You will board the cruise shortly." Then the man stepped outside to talk with someone who had been waiting out of the door. "The operation was a success. If he remembers, you know what to do. We can't afford to let the public know."
After that, Chess had simply boarded a ship, and sailed out, only to crash. It hadn't seemed strange to him then that he was going on a random cruise that had been paid for that was going to an unknown location. So....They didn't want us to remember whatever they did to us. Is that why they sabotaged the cruise? Where would we go if we hadn't remembered?
