[i]Gasp.[/i] The oxygen in the air flooded the lungs of the being that breathed. In went into the air, and out. It was a rapid pattern of motion that came naturally to the boy who stood there, silent. His eyes were fixated on something afar as if he was staring towards the distance. He blinked, forcing his eyelashes to flutter profusely in a rapid motion like the rising and falling of his chest. His normal functionalities had begun to work. He was breathing, he was blinking, and he was finally beginning to move. The shock of whatever had happened before this moment was fading. The boy decided it was best to study his surroundings at first, in-order to understand whatever move he was to make next. Trees. Pine trees of different shades and heights surrounded him. There was an airy thickness that haunted the young man's skin; giving him chills from his neck to his toes. He was returning to reality, slowly but gradually. Why it was taking him longer than others was a mystery in itself, if-not frustrating for him in general. What had even happened? Why was he standing in the middle of a forest that smelled like burning flesh and metal? Had he contracted a sudden case of amnesia? He didn't understand what was going on, and had no recollection of memory long term or short term. What was going on?

He looked to his left. More trees. He looked to his right. Trees, but the faint sight of an orange flare in the distance ahead of the wood. He turned his head to see what was behind him. His eyes immediately fixated on a very dark patch of blood on the oak tree behind him. It seeped through the bark and into the grass below it. As his pupils followed the blood trail, they focused on yet another surprising sight. There laid a body, battered and twisted in unnatural positions. With a closer look, the face of the body had been severely singed and melted off leaving nothing but strains of tendons and cracked bone. The spine of the body was broken in three different spots, cutting through the skin as an unhealthy amount of blood oozed through the long lacerations. The corpse's left arm was bent outward instead of inward. The man grasped at his mouth, keeping himself from suddenly belching onto the grotesque pile of human matter in front of him. He had to figure out who this was before finding out who he was first. Maybe if he were to understand who he was standing next to and why, he'd be able to figure out who he was afterwards. 

The young man knelt down on top of the wet grass near the corpse. There was no smell of rot, at least not yet. This gave the boy an immediate hint that this accident, or perhaps murder, was fresh and recent. His hand rummaged through the pockets of the corpse's dark green flannel. 

"This is a really nice flannel though... shit. I'm so sorry about what happened to you," he stopped to consider the situation once more, and then rhetorically asked, "what the fuck is going on?" In order to answer this question, he forced himself to rummage in the corpse's pockets. His fingers grasped around the shreddings of a wallet. The boy pulled it out and opened it, peeking at the credit cards and coins. He opened the next flap, suddenly finding a wad of over three-hundred in currency. The young man's eyes widened as the smell of money entered his nose. There was so much of it. What was he supposed to do with it? Should he take it? Or leave it? What was the right thing to do? Or, better yet, what did he want to do? 

He decided to pocket the money. Why he took it he couldn't quite place, but he had a feeling he could use it to buy something extremely important to him. Something extremely expensive. Something extremely illegal. With a closer look at the body, the boy picked up the faintest smell of marijuana. Where this was coming from, he didn't know. It was strong though; giving the young man a very strong sense of yearning and commitment. Where were these strange emotions coming from? He looked at the wallet he found inside the man's pocket once more. With this second check, he came across an I.D. of some sort. 

"Gregory Mechkta." The boy said out loud. The name sounded familiar, and it gave him that strange feeling one gets when you say your own name. He put this feeling off to the side. After all, how could the corpse next to him have the exact same name as him? It wasn't impossible, but it was highly unlikely. For now, he needed to figure where he was and why. He scratched at the dark green flannel that stuck to his back. He was sweating for no damn reason. The air around him wasn't hot nor cold, it felt off and nonexistent. He almost felt like his presence was intimidating enough for the air around him to retract in fear. This was another feeling that the boy questioned. Why did the air feel weird? Why couldn't he remember what he was doing there? Why could he feel every red blood cell pump through his veins? Why were there so many unanswered questions? His anxiety levels began to rise as his breath heavily escalated to a quickened pace. 

He felt an anxiety attack coming quick and fast. 

"No- stop, stop. Stop. Stop. No. Stop... stop." He repeated again and again. His body was tensing, and he was beginning to shake. He was growing aggravated at the mere fact that he couldn't control his own emotions; and with a quick stomp on the floor he froze. He froze directly in place and closed his eyes. Feelings of fear and stress began to melt away as euphoria kicked in. His senses heightened, and everything around him slowed down. Colors intensified. The air grew warm and sticky. He could feel every part of his body tingle, giving him full sense of his surroundings. And with a gasp of air, he laughed lightly and stumbled; hitting the floor with a loud thud. The thud echoed across the floor, and just as he touched the ground a wave of red and purple dust seeped into the air like a mysterious cloud. These colorful particles dazzled and morphed from green to orange to blue to brown and all the way back to red and purple again and again. As the dust fell upon the grass and the plants that surrounded him, they began to thicken and grow at a quickened pace. Blooms of lilies, daisies, and even flowers unknown to this soil sprouted and hugged the skin of the young man.

 Venus flytraps crawled out from the dirt and wrapped around the trees and bushes in the nearest vicinity. They grew bigger and bigger, hissing and oozing an extremely misgiving oil onto the thickening grass. This oil gleamed like any other oil, with rainbow-like attributes that glistened in the sunlight. Whatever this oil touched began to sizzle and burn, giving off a very thick smoke. The sound of crickets deafened the noise of vines tightening and growing. Their chirps were eerie and chilling, giving one a sense of uncleanliness and terror. As the foliage condensed around the amnesiac boy's body, covering him as if they were becoming his protective shield, his body began to glow. The petals of the blossoms were morphing from color to color in an unbelievable pace. Some of these colors were ones undetectable to the human eye as they expanded across rays of ultraviolet and infrared light. The colors and lights were bright enough to attract anyone near his green cocoon as the plants stiffened around his limbs and torso. He was experiencing the greatest high of his life as the oils and powder from the vegetation around him began to bleed into his skin through his pores. For a second, the breeze around him stopped. The crickets were silenced. And for a brief moment, his eyes opened suddenly. From his eyes came a bright flash of color as the filth and tar inside his lungs and body in-general drained out into the vines and into the ground, killing the grass as a ring of death and decay formed around him and his thriving plants. He was being purified. He was being renewed. He was becoming immortal.