[i]The cold twilight on my shoulders. The warmth of a burning city under my naked heel. Thousands of voices are screaming in agony. I can taste blood in my mouth, but it’s not mine. The smell of charred flesh fills my nostrils. I can [b]feel[/b] what is happening all around me; it’s inescapable. A merciless wrath haunts every crevice, herding defenseless souls like a hound from the underworld. Its thirst for death is unquenchable, and the bleating cries of its victims only intensifies its urges. There are two others with me. They say nothing. Feel nothing. Of the two, one disgusts me more than the other, while the other bares the resemblance of someone very familiar to me. I say something to each of them, but as I do, a giant hand grabs my shoulder as if to supply comfort, but I don’t feel comforted. The fingers dig into me like a powerful beast, far more capable than the monster wreaking havoc on this city. I tremble at the weight of its vice grip.[/i] 

[center][b][i]“You will inherit my legacy, a planet of tombs.”[/b][/i][/center]

Ian read the words transcribed from his dream with a furrowed brow. He hunched over the ragged notebook, underlining specific parts like [u]someone very familiar to me[/u] and [u]a powerful beast[/u]. Circled intensely was the quote, whose unknown voice had infiltrated his mind for the past three nights. Beads of cold sweat cooled the back of his neck, breaking him away from his transfixed state. He leaned back against the cushion of his folding chair and let out a frustrated sigh. 

Notes and journal entries, similar to the one he has been working on for the past hour, were scotch-taped, pinned, or glued, along the walls of his studio apartment. They served as remnants of Ian’s shattered memory, unearthed from the hazy recesses of his mind, rarely connecting dots or filling in blanks. He could recall his childhood in Louisiana, how a single mother raised him and his three siblings out of a Volkswagon hatchback before social services came. He remembers, with vivid detail, when he got brutally jumped on his 10th birthday. It was the first time he was called a mutant, and it was also the first time he took a life. 

Ian didn’t need a piece of paper for those kinds of memories, but when it came to figuring out where he was a week ago was a whole different story. An expired driver’s license confirmed his name and New York residence. As much as he tried denying it at first, the lease signature to the shithole of an apartment he was living in was undoubtedly his. No car, dog, wife, or family - just a prepaid cellphone in his possession with only two contacts: the number to his warehouse job in Hell’s Kitchen, and Anthony Mosely, his drug pedaling co-worker, who knew about as much as Ian, if not more, when it came to his sudden employment at Armwell Industries. Anthony was the only person he could talk to, the only real connection in this world that made any sense.

"He has to know something, know someone, anything, that can help me piece this all together." Ian grumbled. The dreams were progressively getting worse, and he feared for his mental health. 

He checked the time on his phone. It was a quarter past 12 on a Saturday night. Ian thought about drifting back to sleep to try and dream up some more memories, but cringed at the thought of seeing those disturbing images again. [i]You will inherit my legacy…[/i] He grabbed his leather jacket off a rickety futon, patting its side pockets for wallet, keys, and cigarettes, then took out his cell phone...

“Hey, Moses!” Ian said with forced enthusiasm. The nickname was a play of words at Anthony’s last name, but mainly served to piss the atheist off more than anything. “Meet me at Swan’s, man. You owe me a scotch.”