I blink. There's a sudden heaviness and pain in my legs. The sun disappeared! What? I feel the cold acid of anxiety rising up from gut to heart, etching a corridor of uncertainty into the all too temporary barricade of confidence I just erected a few moments ago.

The sun hasn't disappeared, it's still light. Looking down at my feet, I see that my shadow is pointing eastward. I rotate my head up and left. You haven't abandoned me! The searing circle of glowing cinder reminds me with a prickly poignant pain in my eyes, that, no, stars don't just vanish one moment to the next. Of course not.

About six hours must have passed, despite the definitive feeling of temporal continuity. The feeling of certainty that overcomes me as I contemplate that last command I heard - apparently hours ago - would seem to tell me that I indeed remembered.

Now, ironically and paradoxically, I remember remembering. The feeling, but not the memory. At least I know that I know something, I suppose. Hardly a consolation, considering the conditions around me; and inside. Nonetheless, maybe it's something that'll make sense of how I got to this damned place. What it is.

Another blanket of anxiety tries to lay claim to my chest. Just an echo, an unsettling reminder. Nothing new, but nothing I could ever get used to, just learn to expect. Not sure how someone like me, of all people, survived whatever happened and keeps on doing so. Common wisdom would dictate that I'd be among the first to succumb to reality.

So it is, then, that this isn't something ever expected. It's strange, different, seemingly unreal. How could one survive on rules they had worked out for a different kind of world? A consistent one. Again, I have to remind myself not to indulge too much, though it may be the thing that ultimately saved - and keeps saving - me. Regardless of how saved I am right now, I do inhabit physical reality and need to shift consciousness outward again.

I align my gaze with the rest of my body's orientation. Then, looking at my feet I start charting a way off the carrier's body. Step to edge of wreckage. Face forward. Jump towards the patch of dirt that wrestled control over the ground from the grass surrounding it, thanks to the powers of a kingmaker granted by the sun obstructing properties of the crashed vehicle. Stop digressing, idiot!

I carry out my plan, and, almost to my disappointment, safely land inside the dirt's kingdom. Now facing eastward, I realize that the observer is gone. I peer northward to the front of the vehicle, trying to spot the other observer. Gone, too. Although I don't think observers will ever stop making me uneasy, there's at least something to be said about knowing that at least some - hopefully benign and hopefully alive - presence is nearby. The world has become pretty much dead, except for the occasional monster. Most of them not as peaceful as the red ones.

I'm tired, thirsty and completely demoralized, but I need to keep going. Used to be that my morale was stuck above even the clouds that held my dreams. The world shift seems to have also brought something invisible, all encompassing with it, that twists one's mind and perception. Again I straighten my thoughts and start moving eastward.

Grasslands overgrown with all sorts of colorful flowers greet me on this next leg of my journey. The occasional grove disrupts the harmony of almost literal nothingness. Out of habit I pull my compass from out of my coat's pocket. It's just a toy I found at the start of my quest, but it does consistently point to one direction, which I presume is north. Still heading perfectly east. No sign of water. No sign of civilization, past or otherwise.

Judging by shadow's current domain, one or two hours must've passed during me trudging along. Evening is gonna approach soon, so I need to find shelter. Just as I knew as a child, monsters don't really show themselves until nightfall. There's just nothing around me except meadows and trees, not even a creek or river, any body of water. No choice but to keep walking to nowhere. Well, eastwhere, if you don't want to be pessimistic about it.

The compound I first regained consciousness in post-calamity, alas, had few supplies. It was deserted, but not dilapidated. People seemed to have left recently and not very much in a hurry. There was a toy store on the premises; picked up my compass there. And an 'information spot' - as the sign proudly claimed - with a map of the surrounding province.

For the first few hours after waking up, I was quite confused why nobody was around. Why was I in a room, sitting in a chair next to a desk with a laptop on it? I knew I was doing something, but I don't remember what. Besides, the laptop was turned off and the battery seemed dead. I remember being incredibly hungry and thirsty, so I peered around me to try and find either.

Nothing. Anywhere. In plain sight or in any cupboards, no fridge. I went on to looking for the bathroom to at least drink some tap water, but the tap was dry. A tap that won't work sure was a rare sight in modern civilization, at least in an apparently well-kept building.

The reality of my loss of memory had started to settle in. Calm waves of thought began being replaced by the hissing, hostile barrage of questions eradicating any sense of valid perspective and certainty. Akin to the walls surrounding a safe haven being razed by heavy artillery, followed by the invading army storming everything that formerly felt safe. My heart and mind were being punctured, ripped and desecrated by dread and sorrow.

I felt sick and sat down for a minute. This was all a bit too much, but I really needed to drink and eat. And so I balled up both my hands into fists, stretched my arms down to either side of me and punched myself off of the bed I had found respite on. Inertia made it easy to stand up straight. Orientating myself towards the only other door besides the bathroom in here, I headed out.

I stumbled around for a bit before relatively quickly finding a way outside. Maybe I should've kept on looking for food and water inside, but I decided otherwise. Here it was that I found the toy store; opened and apparently abandoned. Nobody had answered my call and it was eerily quite. Curiously eery, since I usually enjoy silence and lack of human presence. It felt off and unsafe this time. Regardless, there was nothing for me to do at the toy store, not yet at least, so I ventured out.

Now beneath a steely gray sky, I had found myself wandering along a narrow, tiled path next to a gravel road that might as well have been a small river reflecting and distorting the firmaments gapless, bulbous cloud cover into the broken stones it's made up of. It was just big enough for one car to drive along. After fifty or so meters I had spotted a sign, directing me either to the 'information spot', the toy store I just came from or the exit. Nothing that would allow me to deduce the function of my locality. I decided to head towards the information spot. Maybe I'd be able to find someone - or at least something - there that would give me an idea of what's going on.

Instead of clarity, I had found more mystery there. No people, no sounds, no activity. I could see a counter with some leaflets and pens atop it, and the upper half of an office chair peering above it. I guess this was where they'd spot you with information, were it not vacant. To me it had served the opposite purpose, increasing my need for information. What had happened here?

Across the counter, I had spotted a map. Presumably of the surrounding area, though the locations you could see on it were labeled with glyphs I had never seen. The highly unusual situation I had found myself in, prompted me to inspect the map for directions to a place that would presumably host a lot of people. I guess I had hoped that would make it more likely to find other people that could help me out. Situated near the eastern edge of the map were drawings of gray and black blocks, together with a cluster of several symbols presumably described via the legend in its right margin. An assortment of the unknown glyphs hovered over the location's center, bigger than most of the other collections of glyphs I could make out.

"Eastward it is!", I sighed out loud to myself. I couldn't just leave, though. Maybe I'd still find someone there. If not, I'd at least need to look for supplies for the journey. I'd need to thoroughly search that place first. And so I did.

Part II