– Where Am I?

Chris woke up with a start.

Looking around he wasn't sure where he was. He wasn't sure how, but he seemed to be in some kind of wooded area. The sunlight was orange so it was probably either dusk or dawn.

Last thing he remembered was his crazy ex having snuck into his new apartment and stabbing him. They had broken up just a couple of months before when they finished college and he realised he needed to be more serious about his life. Along with this realisation came the realisation that just because the sex was absolutely amazing, it was a bad reason to stay in a relationship with her given all the issues she caused in his life. He knew she was crazy, but he would never have dreamed that she was crazy enough to sneak into his home months later to kill him so he couldn't be with anyone else. Who even does that?

'I guess you really shouldn't stick your dick in crazy,' he thought with a sigh.

'Despite what my memories are telling me I don't seem to be dead though, unless the afterlife became really lame. So what happened?' he wondered as he scrambled to his feet.

After brushing the worst of the dirt off he tried scoping out the area, but couldn't find anything that stood out. He really wished he had paid more attention to some of those survival shows on tv right now because he didn't have a clue what to do or where to go.

In the end he just picked a direction and started walking in hopes it would lead somewhere. It wasn't like someone knew he was missing here and would come looking for him so staying would just be stupid.

After walking for a little while he could hear some sound off in the distance. It was rather quiet, but if he listened closely it sounded kind of like a road. As soon as he realised this he started running towards the sound. He was worried that the sound would stop and he would be entirely lost again.

Suddenly as he ran past a few trees he ended up blinded by a bright light. He heard a screeching sound and then there was just a lot of pain before he lost consciousness.

When he woke up again he was laying in a bed. He could hear some beeping. His entire body felt sore. After opening his eyes he could tell he was in some kind of hospital room with his finger hooked up to a heart monitor.

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

'Things have been going just great, haven't they?' he thought to himself.

Although he felt pretty banged up being in a hospital should be better than finding myself in the middle of nowhere.

He tried to move his body and to his relief he seemed to be able to move every part of himself. At least the possibility of him being fatally injured was low and thankfully he wasn't paralysed. He wasn't sure whether he was unlucky to keep getting in such situations or lucky that he still kept managing to survive them. 

There wasn't much he could do being in the hospital and he was sure someone would show up given enough time.

It took a while, but a young woman with short brown hair walked in. She was wearing scrubs and had a chart of some kind so he assumed she was a nurse.

She looked surprised when she saw him. "Oh, you're awake," she said.

He nodded slowly.

"Well welcome to Jump City Hospital Mr. John Doe. How are you feeling?" the nurse asked.

'Jump City? How did I end up in another city? I don't even remember a Jump City nearby,' he wondered to himself.

"Urgh, what happened?" he said.

"You got side-swiped by a car while taking a stroll through the park. You should probably watch where you're going," she explained.

'It was a park? Well that sounds embarrassing,' he thought.

"That would explain the pain," he said with a mirthless chuckle.

"You're pretty lucky they swerved and didn't hit you directly. You probably have a light concussion and some serious bruising, but that should be all," she said happily.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"Oh it wasn't even a whole day. It was yesterday evening," she said.

She looked at the chart some more before looking back up at him. "We weren't able to find a wallet or any form of identification on you so we'll need a name and if you have insurance the company and if possible policy number," she said.

He groaned. 'At least it wasn't the first thing she asked for,' he thought to himself.

"Sure, I'm Chris Howell. I uh... don't have any insurance," he said with an awkward smile. He was a broke college graduate who hadn't even managed to start his career yet, how was he supposed to afford insurance in such a situation.

"Of course you don't," she responded with a a sigh.

"Do you know your social security number?" she asked.

He just remained silent. How was he supposed to remember that.

"Ok. I'll just take that as a no," she said.

"It's fine. In that case we will need your address for billing purposes," she said.

He ended up giving her the address. Whether he could pay for the bills was a problem for future him, right now he would just focus on recovering.

She asked him a few more questions regarding how he felt while checking his movement to make sure there wasn't anything they had missed during their initial check-up.

After the nurse left a square with text on it suddenly popped up in front of him.

[Hello host.]

'What the hell is this?' he wondered.

[I'm the fictional world simulation system.]

'I must be going crazy," Chris thought, wondering if he had finally lost it after everything that had happened.

-X-X-X-

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