King Ranter: Chapter 1 - The End of One, the Beginning of Two

Thomas woke up to a bright white light, but he couldn't actually see it; he couldn't see anything. He couldn't even hear himself think. Not only that, he couldn't hear anything either. All of his senses were gone. He didn't know what was going on, but all he could do was panic.

Within minutes, his sight started to look blurry. He could see the room around him, but not clearly. He could also hear someone else in the room. Thomas tried to speak, but he couldn't form any words. All that came out were grunts. Then he realized; he could hear! He started feeling around the room. He still couldn't feel anything. His eyesight started to get clearer. He could see his legs flailing. He was lying on the ground flailing the entire time. He struggled to sit up. His senses were coming back. He managed to sit up and stop flailing. He looked around and saw the red and gold tiles on the floor, and the golden walls that arced up to the ceiling. He looked around for the other person, and he saw a blurry figure sitting on the ground a few metres away from him. Thomas strained his eyes. The man was wearing a black shirt with long sleeves and pants to match. Thomas kept looking and he could make out a white circle with a white horizontal line through it. By now, he could see fine. He looked at the man's face; it looked exactly like his own!

Thomas stumbled back. The only difference between himself and this stranger was the hair; his was black, but his own was brown. He looked down at his own clothes. The suit he was wearing was very similar to this stranger's. The only difference was the circle design was replaced with three lines protruding from each other in different directions, and the suit itself was dark green.

Thomas looked up at the stranger. 'Who is this guy,' he thought. 'I've never seen him before, but he looks exactly like me!'

The man stood up, almost in a daze, and shook his head quickly. Then he looked around the room, and then at Thomas. "Hey, you OK?" He said.

"What? Yeah, I-I'm OK. I was kind of dizzy for a few minutes."

"Me too. I'll call up Zinc to get us out of here. That was one hell of a split."

"Hold on a minute," Thomas interrupted, "Who are you?"

"Excuse me?"

"I don't know where I am. I must have amnesia or something, you're going to have to fill me in."

The man looked at him strangely. "Hmmm. I see what's happened here." Thomas eyed him suspiciously, still sitting on the floor. "Alright, then. I'm Ranter, you're Thomas, and we used to be the same person. Before you get the urge to interrupt me, let me tell you that most of the things I'm about to tell you might be really confusing, and it will probably be almost useless to bother, but I'm telling you anyway out of good will." Thomas sat on the floor and waited. He didn't want to say anything. "On second thought, maybe we should wait. There's gonna be some weird shit happening that I won't be able to explain if you don't already understand the basics. I'll just call Zinc - he's a friend of ours - to warp us back." Ranter looked at his watch and touched the screen a few times. Thomas watched in confusion, not knowing what he could possibly be doing. "Zinc, you wanna get us outta here? We're exhausted, and Thomas needs a memory jolt."

"I thought this would happen," said a voice coming from the watch, "Alright, I'm bringing you guys in now."

A bright green light shone from Ranter's and Thomas' watch. He hadn't even noticed he was wearing one. Suddenly, he saw a flash of green light all around him, and when it went away he was in a different room. It looked like some sort of laboratory, everything was a different shade of dark blue. There was a giant computer monitor that almost took up the entire wall of the room, with only enough room for a desk to put a keyboard on with a few other things that seemed to be part of the computer. On the other side of the room was a huge glass cylinder that looked like it could hold a few stacks of elephants. In front of the computer, there was a person in a black lab coat that went down to his knees. He was facing the computer. He turned around to look at Ranter and Thomas and he crosses his arms. "Welcome back," he said. He looked over at Thomas, "I'm Zinc, in case you forgot. Don't worry, I've got a machine that can get your memories back. You'll be good as new in no time."

Ranter looked at Thomas, then at Zinc. "Well, let's see it then," he said.

Zinc led them into another room. This room had two more cylinders with a small computer at it's base. "Step inside, please," he said to Thomas. Ranter was already getting up to get into one of them. Thomas hesitantly stepped up onto the other platform and the cylinder opened wide. He stepped inside, and it closed behind him. Thomas was nervous, but for some reason he trusted this stranger standing outside of the cylinder.

"Alright, I'm going to put you out now," said Zinc calmly, "You're going to dream about your past a little, and when you wake up, you'll have everything that you missed while you were one with Ranter."

"I'm ready," said Ranter. Then he looked over at Thomas confidently, "Don't worry. This might be a bit scary at first, but everything is fine."

Zinc pushed a few buttons on the computer and suddenly a clear, green liquid started pouring from the top of the cylinder, filling it up very quickly. Within seconds, it was already up to Thomas' and Ranter's waist. Thomas panicked, but he looked over at Ranter and saw he was completely calm. That calmed him down a bit himself. Thomas held his breath when the strange green water went above his head. Zinc spoke into a micrphone, "Thomas, you have to breath otherwise the formula won't put you out."

Thomas was terrified, but willing to believe anything, he took a deep breath of the green liquid. It felt completely normal, almost like he was breathing air. Soon, though, he felt sleepy, and as his vision blurred, and as he began to float in the center of the cylinder, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

To be continued.