A man wakes up in the woods at night. Next to him is a dead body, who’s clearly been shot in the head. The man finds that he is holding the gun. Unfortunately, all memory leading up to this moment is seemingly gone, he has no idea who he is or where he is. He tries to sit up and realizes his head and left arm are throbbing in pain. He finds blood in both places but with the small amount of moonlight filtering through the clouds, he can't tell what the injuries actually are. He also can tell something is wrong with his left eye, not being able to see out of it. There are bandages covering the eye that he chooses not to mess with. He tries to look around to piece together what happened but the light rain that was falling when he first awoke is quickly turning into a downpour. He looks over to the body lying next to him. The man is wearing a large, heavy looking jacket and appears to have been sick with sallow, pale skin and open sores. He takes the dead mans jacket to offer some protection from the rain and starts walking.
As he makes his way though the woods, he starts to hear things moving around him, he can't tell if it's his mind making things up or the rain but soon he is jogging, then running through the dark trees. He makes a turn and runs right into a large man. The man looks normal, with clothes that perhaps a farmer would wear, except his face is obscured with an old gas mask, the tubes hanging down, connected to nothing. The man helps him up and asks what he's doing so far out in the woods. He stands there, stuttering, trying to come up with something, but eventually settles on "I don't know". The man asks him to explain but he can't and tells him that he woke up in these woods with no memory, leaving out the part with the body though. The man still seems confused but offers to take him into the town, telling him that the town doctor should be able to help. The man asks if he will be okay to walk and he nods. On the way the man introduces himself, he says his name is Lindsey and he's new to the town. His daughter and her husband moved here and as she was his only family left, he moved with them. He warns that the people may seem strange but they're all good god fearing folks.
Soon enough they make it into the town, just as the rain tapers off. The town is small, with buildings made from many different materials but all seemingly new, and none of the roads are paved. Gas streetlights dot the paths, illuminating most of the area. The town is quiet but it makes sense, since it is late and a storm is rolling through. A few people are out though, looking intently at him, or he assumes they are since they too are wearing gas masks. The man, Lindsey, takes him to a large house just at the edge of town, the doctors house. He tells him that he must get back to his family but that the doctor is up all hours of the night and will be able to help him. With that he gives a wave and leaves.
The doctor answers the door, also wearing a gas mask. He is a tall man, dressed in a disheveled, but seeminly high quality vest and pants. He asks why the man in knocking at his door so late. He starts to explain his story like he did for Lindsey, once again leaving out the body in the woods. The doctor stands for a second, his expresson covered by the mask, he sighs and lets him into his house, agreeing to help him. He leads him to a room off the living room that is set up as an examination room. The house itself is decorated with an eye for the expensive, with everything organized precisely. The doctor closes the door to the exam room and takes his mask off, reveiling a normal face that has just begun to show signs of aging. He introduces himself as Doctor Rosewood and offers a towel to dry off with and a cup of water. The man takes them both gratefully, glad to not be soaked through with rainwater. He takes off his coat, or at least the coat he had taken from the man in the woods, and hands it to the doctor who hangs it in the corner on a hook. He makes a comment on how heavy the jacket is and asks what the material is. The man shrugs, the best he can with the arm injury, and responds with an "I don't know". The doctor begins examining the back of the mans head, where he indicated it was bleeding. As he examins the injury, the man asks about the gas masks, hoping it woun't be offensive but too curious to stay silent about it. Rosewood laughs dryly, he explains it's part of the local religeon. He's says he's not appart of it but if you're the only person in town not wearing a mask, you tend to stick out. The examination continues in relative silence. The doctor examins his head wound and shines a light in his eye, saying it's probable he has a concussion. He carefully takes the bandages off from around his eye and comments that it looks like something tried to claw the eye out. Without the bandages the light is painful and the vision that still remains is blurry. Rosewood rewraps it and turns his attention to the last injury, his arm. Without the jacket on it's clear how much blood has seeped into his shirt. The doctor cuts the fabric away and cleans out the wound, asking if he's sure he has no memory of how this happened. The man shakes his head and Rosewood adds that it looks almost like a gunshot wound. The man starts to get nervous but still insists he has no memory. Now that he can see the man's whole face though, he starts to get uneasy. Something about the way the doctor looks at him, like he suspects, or knows he's lying, gives him a bad feeling. After finishing cleaning out the wound, Rosewood stands up, saying he needs to grab his medical kit since the arm wound will need stitches. He opens a cabinet above the sink and pulls out a bottle. He takes two pills out and hands them to the man, saying they're for the pain. He then steps out of the room, closing the door behind him.
The man thinks this is strange, since the room they're in clearly has medical supplies in it, why would the stitches be somewhere else. The whole situation seems strange the more he thinks about it. He looks down at the pills in his hand, the doctor had said they were painkillers but the shape and color look more like sedatives. He pauses, why would he know the differences between sedatives and painkillers, is this a memory? He stands up and drops the pills down the sink, whatever they were he is not going to take them. He starts to look around the room, opening drawers and cabinets. Most of it seems to be medical supplies, however, one drawer is full of papers and writings, even something that looks like schematics. Under it all he finds a small book bound in leather. (sowwy everything past here hasnt been rewritten whoops) He’s starting to get freaked out again and decides to just book it. He leaves the room and tries to find a way out of the house. He passes a window and below he can see the doctor talking to another townsperson. He looks really upset and when Edward tries to listen through the glass he swears that he can hear the man talking about him. He looks for any way he can to get out and finds a window on the back side of the house overlooking the roof of the lower floor. He finds another gas mask hanging in one of the rooms and grabs it before climbing out the window and down to the ground, which sucks bc he was just shot in the arm and undisclosed amount of time ago. He puts the gas mask on hoping it will help him blend in in the town. As he’s running away from the house though the doctor spots him and chases after him along with some other towns people. Edward runs through the town which it’s pretty lively considering it’s very late at night. Eventually he loses the doctor in the crowd ducks back into the woods. He pulled off the gas mask so he can see better and stuffs it into the jacket pocket. He keeps running for what feels like ages until his feet hit something that looks like a dirt road. Without many good options he picks a direction and follows the road. After a little while a truck pulls up and the man inside asks him what the hell he’s doing so far out at this time of night. Edward panics and says he was on a hike. The guy in the truck clearly doesn’t buy it and starts to drive away. Edward jumps in front of the truck to stop the guy and starts spinning a story about being ditched in the woods by his wife who found out he was cheating on her. The driver starts laughing but seemingly believes him. He makes some probably nasty jokes about Edwards supposed wife and then tells him he can drive him into the next town since he’s heading that way anyways. They talk about whatever, just awkward small talk stuff. Edwards freaking out the whole time bc he still has zero memory of anything and is just lying out of his ass. The guy asks about his eye and he tries his best to brush it off as a work accident. Eventually they reach the town and the driver drops him off on Main Street. Edward finds the only place open, a bar, and stumbles in looking so fucking terrible at this point. He sits at a table in the corner and pulls out everything he has in his pocket. He has the business card, the gas mask, the gun he woke up holding, a note that looks like it has a place and time scribbled on it, a note book with any pages with writing ripped out, a pen, some cash, a lighter and some cigarettes. He lights one of the cigarettes and just sits and thinks for a moment. He decides the best option is to find the PI that he has the business card of. Options are either the PI is the guy he killed, the PI is actually him, or he’s a completely separate guy but also maybe he can help bc he’s an investigator. Edward asks the bartender where a hotel is around here and gets pointed towards a place a couple of doors down. Edward heads towards there and as he does passes a 24 hour drug store. He stops in and grabs some bandages and stuff and then heads to the hotel. He books a room and is handed the key. He goes up to his room and does a more thorough job cleaning his wounds. The wound on his eye looks older, maybe a week or two out. It looks like something tried to claw his eye out. After that he does his best to clean his clothes up and then goes to sleep. He wakes up in the mid-morning and lays there a while trying to remember something past the night before but can’t. He can also tell that his memory from the night is already getting weird and fuzzy so he writes out everything he can remember in the notebook. After that he gets up, tries to clean up as much as he can and goes to find some breakfast. He’s starving and literally cannot remember the last time he ate. He finds a diner and gets food and coffee. He tries to casually ask the waiter where he is without it coming across as weird but it totally comes across as weird. He then asks how far away the place is listed on the business card. She says it’s not too far if you take the train and gives him directions to the train station. He heads there after eating and books a ticket on the next train. He has an uneventful train ride, idk maybe stuff happens. When he gets to the city he takes a taxi to the address and finds the office of Edward Lawson. He goes inside and the whole place is completely trashed. There are papers everywhere, the furniture is all turned over and some of it is broken, just total mess. He steps out again and heard someone behind him calling for him, calling him Edward. He turns around and sees and older lady stepping out from a door on the other side of the road. He looks at the sign above the door and it says it’s a mortuary. She walks over to him and starts asking him where he’s been and that he looks terrible. He tries to be cool and pretend like he knows what she’s talking about but she looks at him so strangely and then burst out laughing, saying it must have been a hell of a couple days. She then asks if he’s drunk because the only time she’s seen him without a scowl was when he was drunk. He tries to course correct and act gruffer and stuff. She eventually stops laughing and then asks what his brother was up to. He asks her to elaborate and she says she saw a man and two other weirdos going through his office and taking boxes out. When she asked them about it the main guy said he was Edwards brother and showed her some paperwork to try and prove it. Said he was sending some case files to him while he was away. She didn’t buy it but didn’t want to intervene just in case he was telling the truth. Edward asks why she described the other people as weirdos and she said they were both wearing gas masks. He starts kinda freaking out and shows her the office. She swears and apologizes for not stopping them. Edward feels like all the hope he had to figure this out was ripped away. The lady says at least they didn’t get your safe. He looks at her quizzically and she says the safe you made me store in my place because you’re paranoid. She goes to show him but he realizes there’s a lock on it, because it’s a safe. He asks her if she knows the combination and she laughs. She looks at him weirdly again and asks if he’s feeling okay for real. He shrugs her off and heads back to the office to see if he could find anything that got left behind.
