Week 339 – Searching

The blare of an alarm ripped right through his skull.

Groggy White lifted his head from … the hardwood floors of his living room.

What was he doing passed out on the floor?

A raging headache, and nausea swirling in his stomach answered that question.

He had passed out drunk and was now hungover. And the alarm telling him someone was approaching his remote cabin had been set off.

Perfect.

Staggering to his feet, White looked around his messy living room searching for his weapon. It had to be around here somewhere and he knew better than to lose it to the chaos that was his home.

Why had he been stupid enough to get drunk? He knew better, actually he didn’t drink at all except for one night of the year.

The anniversary of the day he died.

Three years ago today his life had ended. Just because he had been revived didn’t mean that he wasn’t still dead, just in a different way.

Finally locating his weapon under a pile of empty pizza boxes, he hurried to the table where his tablet lay, and brought up the security feeds. Being a dead man sucked partly because the people who wanted him dead could never find out that he had survived the blast that was supposed to end his life.

Being dead was living under a never-ending death sentence.

Now someone had found him and right when he was hungover and not operating at one hundred percent.

It wasn’t until he studied the footage that he realised that whoever was coming knew the code to his gate. The vehicle was unfamiliar though, didn’t belong to one of the handful of people who knew he was alive.

Trouble.

White tracked the vehicle as it drove down the driveway, stopping outside his cabin. The person who got out was shrouded in black jeans and a black hoodie with the hood pulled up covering their face. Body was too small to belong to anyone who should be here, so he kept the house quiet and crept towards the front door, ready to grab the intruder as soon as they stepped foot inside, assuming they had the code for the front door as well.

He was right. Footsteps echoed on the porch, the beep of the locks disengaging had him balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to spring like an angry lion pouncing on its prey.

The figure stepped into the hall and closed the door behind them and White didn’t hesitate. He sprung at the person, grabbed them and slammed them up against the wall hard enough to cause them to cry out in pain.

It wasn’t until he heard the sound that he went still.

Completely still.

His past colliding with his presence in the most horrific of ways.

In denial he spun the person around, shoved the hood of their face and stared into the silvery grey eyes he had thought he would never see again. While relief hit him hard the other person didn’t have those same warm and fuzzy feelings.

They stared in shock for several long moments before their eyes rolled back in their head and they collapsed.