2. Chicken scratches
He ran and hid like a rat scurrying away from lights and footsteps, he was being chased by the index and this wasn't the first time and it certainly wasn't going to be the last. He had finally remembered their true plan, their actual motive for keeping the world in the state it was in. All he needed to do was reach the ********* If he could do that...
"Found you." The man said before shooting the rat he just found in between the eyebrows.
Back to the present.
John jerked up from a lying down position panting as if he had just run a marathon, sweat lathered his face and he felt a sharp sensation in his chest. "Where. Where am I?"
He looked around and the room was empty, so completely so that he recognized that it was his house almost instantly. With the only piece of furniture in his bedroom being the bed he currently lay down on. He got up.
He headed to his living room, half expecting to see a dead body on his floor for some reason but nothing was there. "What was... I expecting? Probably a nightmare I had."
Unbeknownst to himself, John had forgotten about all the previous events and the people that followed. This wasn't the first time, and it wasn't going to be the last. He took a shower and headed to work.
He had a job as a sewer inspector, he and a couple of guys he didn't talk to worked the 9-5 job. However, he was the only one assigned to this specific sector. He got to the dressing room and changed into his work attire before heading into the sewers, his job here was to investigate. Which was more or less taking notes of everything that was faulty, or could become faulty in a few weeks so they could be repaired.
"Alligator sighting, please keep out." John read a text that was taped to a wall before he saw a 'do not pass' tape crossed over a section of the sewers. He was the only one that worked this part of the sewers. "When did I write that?" He stood there for a while trying to remember but it didn't take much for him to give up and continued moving, it wasn't as if he needed to do any investigation on that part of the sewers today. Plus he could recall getting an analysis for amnesia so maybe this was normal. It wasn't as if he could remember. Well, that proves the point even more.
He took notes of some faulty pipes here and there, some sections that needed to be cleaned and an area with some faulty valves. He got out, headed toward the dressing room and got into his usual clothes before going home.
"4.58" John checked the time on his watch as he walked through the streets of New Orleans. He didn't plan on moving to another city, and neither did he plan on getting a partner within the city. He just. He just felt comfortable the way he was.
He turned a corner and walked into a store and once he passed the doors he felt a sharp pain in his chest. "Fuck." He held his chest for about ten seconds before the pain subsided, this was the same pain he felt this morning. Maybe he really did need to go to the doctor again.
He walked into an aisle, his amnesia had made him forget his favorite food so he just grabbed a pack of noodles and that was it. His arm hit another noodle so he bent over to pick it up and after he grabbed it he saw a note on the floor.
"Umm." John looked around him to see if anyone had dropped the note but he was the only one in the aisle at the time.
He picked it up and flipped it around, there was a written note only on one side of the page so he read it. "If you're seeing this, I'm dead." He stopped reading it and almost laughed. "What kind of opening is that."
He was about to drop the note where he found it before he had a sense of deja vu. He realized it now, he had seen this handwriting before. This messy but clear style of writing. "Hen-ry?" John blurted out before realizing what he said. "Who's Henry?" John asked himself before continuing the note.
"If I'm dead then you've probably forgotten who I am. And if that's the case then it's gonna be a lot harder than it has to be. But I just want you to know. This isn't the real world. I don't know the full picture yet because you're the only one with that information. You kept it from us so the 'hand' wouldn't 'kill' us after Ethan and the rest. But it 'seems' I made a 'mistake'. I just hope you got to this before they do. Find Hannah's bar, she should still be around. Find Hannah. And one more thing John. Annabel's alive... When you realize the hidden message in this, remember. It was my decision, you weren't at fault. Everything I did, I did for myself."
Drops of water soiled the pages and it wasn't until he touched his face that he realized that he was crying. Why was he crying? It wasn't as if he knew anyone that the note mentioned. But... he wanted to find out more. He needed to. "Hannah's place... that should be on the 42nd if I'm not mistaken." As John dropped the noodles and ran out of the door, the shopkeeper looked at him. "He... knows."