Hunter

Chapter One

October 2020

I open my eyes and gasp trying to get as much air into my lungs as I can manage. I'm still buried from the neck down with only my head and part of my right arm visible. I use it to dig the rest of me out. I'm tired as it is. Muscles hurting, my chest in pain. The dizziness from not having enough air is slowly going away. Once my chest and both arms are out I pull myself out of the still soft soil. I lay down on my back in exhaustion watching the sky above me.

It's night time. I don't know long I've been digging or how long I was buried. The light from the moon illuminates the forest around me. I close my eyes and allow the sound of silence to surround me.

"Get up." The voice says clearer this time. My eyes shoot open and I sit up. I'm definitely going crazy.

"Who are you?" I find myself asking out loud. Who am I?

"Xerxes. You need to get up. We need to find Mel."

"Who's Mel?" I ask. It's quiet for a second before it speaks again.

"Our mate."

Looking around me I spot two graves. One being the one I just crawled out of. On its tombstone is what I know is my name. Alexander Black. How am I still alive I should be dead?

"Our mate saved us."

"What's a mate? And why are you in my head."

"You aren't human Xander." He says irritated. Like my lack of knowledge is getting on his nerves.

"I'm pretty sure most humans don't have voices in their heads. At least the sane ones. So you're either right or I'm crazy." I joke.

"I don't have time for this. You're lucky I'm too weak to take over and drag you to Alexandria myself."

"What's in Alexandria?" I ask standing up.

"Our whole world is." He says with a bit of sadness I almost feel bad for him.

I glance at the second grave and read the name wondering if it might spark any memory. But the name Richard Cornelius Wilson doesn't ring any bells.

There's a cabin to my left that looks empty. I walk towards it and try to open the doors. They're locked. I shouldn't be breaking into someone else's home but I do. I turn on the lights once I'm inside and glance around the place. There are several pictures of a father and daughter who I'm sure I'm not related too. But why was I buried in their back yard.

I find a room and shower changing into the clothes I find. I spend the night deciding to leave the next morning.

Like the creep I seem to be I grab clothes and food and the cash I found in a safe making my way to the nearest town. I also take what I assume is the most recent picture of the daughter. She's sitting curled up in a chair a book in hand. The sun from the window making her skin glow. She looked at the moment it was being taken showing the most beautiful brown eyes I've ever seen. But I've been alive for a few hours so there isn't much to compare her to. She is beautiful that I know.

Xerxes keeps saying to get to an airport and get a flight to Alexandria. I don't plan on going to Egypt. I don't know how I know that that's in Egypt. I'm going to start a new life. I had died and I didn't think showing up alive would warrant being welcomed with open arms by whoever he wanted me to find. So I shut out the voice I now thought was just a side effect of coming back from the dead and got on a bus and went on my way.

I had spent weeks on the road going through state after state until finally I decided to get off the bus in a little town in Minnesota. The sign said it was called Rosemore. It was a quiet place with forestry on one side and a lake on the other. I found myself drawn to a little diner that read Esmeralda's in cursive. I walked into the diner and sat at a booth.