His name is, Unknown

A long trip to work today and I know it is going to be a tedious one. I have to sit on this filthy archaic train for an hour and a half. Wife�s car broke down and she has my car. Some big appointment, she said. Pfft. She�s a cleaning lady! Who is she going to have an appointment with, a mop? Geez. I should have stolen my son�s I-pod and listened to some music to alleviate this boredom. But I didn�t, and now as a consequence I will probably have to listen to the always frustrating rant of the homeless guy who looks like a demi-god who hasn�t bathed in over a century. Anything, please God. Anything to take me away from this train ride.
��������Oh wait, this looks like something to entertain. Well-dressed man in a suit entering the train running. Business man. Early thirties. Nice suit. Bolting. A police officer is on his heels. The man running is brought to the ground with a stun-gun; his body jerks like one convulsing with a seizure. He manages to reach into his pants, grab a book and slide it under the seat. The man looks up at me, trying to catch my eye, but I pretend I don�t see him. Cop takes him away. He goes without protest, as if he has accomplished what he set out to do and that being captured by the cop is now meaningless.
Well, that is certainly more entertaining than I had expected. But I am curious. What is that book? It might explain something about the man. I pick it up; nobody seems to notice. I tried opening the front, but it seems as though the pages were locked shut. I try many pages. Half way through it opens. The quality of the handwriting is poor, with many spelling errors and cross-outs. I begin to read.

�There he sits, crouching. His soul has pinned him against the wall. The weight of his actions this night are far too great for his conscience to allow him to stand. In a Melbourne train. He is out far too late to assume that he has a happy family, a well cooked meal and a warm bed to run home to. The train is his home. A kid of this age should not be on a train so dirty, so filthy as this one. He should be in a bed asleep, after skipping his Year Ten homework to play his favourite X-Box game for five hours straight. But he isn�t. He is sitting on a filthy train, thinking, agonising over something of which he has no control, for which he is innocent.
��������A clear substance flows out of his eyes. He is no stranger to it. It flows like a landslide down his brown face. This is his only food tonight. This is his only food most nights. It feels like acid rain, tearing and ripping down his face. These tears illuminate the black circles around his eyes. He believes the tears created them. They have been there as long as he can remember.
��������Red spots of another substance cover his body. He knows of this substance more than the tears; it is what produce the tears. It is through his white spiky hair. It is splattered over his green baggy plastic pants. It is all over the wheels of his red and black roller-blades. It is across his dark chest and the tight black straps that cover it. But most of all, it is smeared over his white, and now, red bloody bat.
��������He has seen too much. Grief, anxiety, pain, loss are painted on his face. He doesn�t know how to lock them out. They are always there, and they are his only company. Although his eyes are full of pain, they are innocent and pure, just as his mind is. His mind is vacant, like a child who has seen his parents murdered. He shouldn�t go through what he goes through. His memories have been taken; he has no childhood, no family, and no memory of home. A thief has come in the middle of the night and stolen them, and has left him with amnesia. He has one memory, which sticks to him. It sucks the life out of him. And it constantly plays in his mind.
��������He wakes up. His vision is blurry. His eyes begin to adjust. His mind adjusts from some kind of dream, from some other world. He is on an unknown train. Unknown white faces surround him, sitting near, walking by. Speaking an unknown language. He is lying on the floor of the train. Back then the train was much cleaner than now.
��������He cannot see his parents, but, then, he doesn�t know what they look like. He feels a strange sense of awkwardness, that kind of child-like, no-protection awkwardness. He gets up realising he cannot see his parents. He begins to cry out, Mother? Father? In his language. But he cannot see them because he has no idea what they look like. He just understands he is in an unknown place without his parents.
��������Nobody around him helps him; they are all keeping their distance, but they are all staring at him. He wakes up in the very same clothing that he wears now. And a plastic bag. It contains a postcard, a book, and a pair of contact lenses with instructions. He places the contacts in each eye. They are green over his dark brown eyes.
��������People walk past blatantly staring at his freakish appearance. They are staring at his back. He realises this and turns his back towards the window of the train. On his back there is a mark, a tattoo. He recognises the language of the tattoo, but not what it means. He is confused. And does not know what to do.
��������He looks at the postcard, hoping it will bring some sense to the confusion. It is a picture of a pyramid. Carved into the bricks on the side of the pyramid is the same mark as on his back. This confuses him more. He knows that the card is from Egypt. He realises he is from Egypt, because he feels a strong connection to the picture. He knows he is not in Egypt though.
��������He falls to the ground and weeps bitterly, continually thinking, try and remember. Who is he? Who are his parents? Where are they? Where is this place? What does the phrase on the tattoo mean? Too many thoughts for this poor child. He keeps trying to remember. What does the Egyptian phrase mean and why it is on his back and on the pyramid?
�������� He tightens his grasp on the book, hoping it will hold answers for him. The book is old and brown leather-skinned. And just as he is about to open it, a suited man runs past him and takes it. He can do nothing and he feels entirely helpless. He puts his head to the floor of the train and weeps bitterly.
��������He cannot find his parents. He doesn�t know where he is. And he thinks if he goes to look for them, they may come back for him and not find him there. So he won�t go and look for them, in case they come back and he isn�t here. And this thought keeps him here since he can remember.
��������And nothing changes. He continues to wear everything he woke up in. He keeps the postcard in the zipped right pocket of his pants. His contacts are kept in, he hasn�t taken them out. He carries everything he has in case his parents come back. He has everything but the book. He searches for it. But he only stays in trains or train stations, in case they come back; he would not dare search anywhere else. But even though he has been living on trains and in train stations for two years, he never feels at home. He doesn�t give up his search, but he is filled with hopelessness of ever finding them.

The train leaves the stop point. He looks back, out the window. And sees a policeman, brutalised, bloody and beaten, without a recognisable face. He is filled with guilt but not knowing what he has done; like a dream where he has committed a terrible act, and after waking up, still feels the stain of sin upon him.
��������His head bows. He sits, his body resting against a seat in the entrance nook of the train. The light above him is short circuiting. Shuttering on and off. In between, in the darkness, he feels at home. A place where he can be, where no one can see and look and laugh. In between, in the light, he feels everything he has ever done, he feels as if he is too evil for the light to shine for him. He feels he doesn�t deserve the light. In the light his eyes reveal fear. In the darkness his eyes glow with hate.
��������Two more stops and he is going to get out. At the second last stop before his, some liquored up gangsters get on. They come on, loud and tough, full of bravado they think they have. They see him from a distance. All have their game faces on, arrogant faces, cold hard glares and the clich�d �what you looking at?� attitude. There are seven of them. Dressed as if they are about to roll onto Southside Compton LA, except they are white, with distinctive Australian accents.
��������He knows they have weapons, and he is afraid of that. He pretends to ignore them. His heart is beating too fast, he is cold hard scared, afraid to swallow in case his throat chokes. His stop goes by. He is afraid to stand, or even move. He knows they are concealing weapons, most likely flip knives, chains, and a possible baton or steel pipe. They start to feel them getting closer, and closer, and closer. The tension within is unbearable.
���������Oy! Freak,� the one in front yells.
��������He is so scared now that he begins to pass out, his eyes are going blurry, and he feels a thick cloud swirl around inside his head. The front man looks at his friends and they all begin to laugh and mock him. He is on his stomach in the middle of the passage way. One of the trash gangsters offers a suggestion.
���������Let�s give this freak the train surfing treatment, and see how he does.� The gang all laugh, high on excitement. They look bloodthirsty, as if almost tasting his future pain. They move in ready to grab him.
��������But then the gang step back in shock. It begins to happen to him again. Except he doesn�t know it, he is switched off. He begins to twitch as if in an epilepsy tornado, as if his body is malfunctioning. One violent spasm throws his body onto his back, face up. His face is contorting, his mouth is shut but there are sounds coming from him, unknown, the sounds of the multitudes, of many languages. The gangsters stagger back, stepping on each other, glued filthy to the train floor. They have no idea what to do, and now they are afraid. Another violent body tremble and he flies onto his knees, shoulders and head hunched. The tattoo is visible to them. They are questioning whether it is really worth it, regretting their bravado speech in fearful silence.
��������The tattoo focuses their attention. It becomes even more distinctive as a darker red outline starts to appear. His body shakes violently and the mark is lighting up. It turns to smoke, ascending in spirals, twirling around and hovering above his head, like a creature about to consume its victim. Hands protrude from the smoke. The circles around his eyes begin to spin. He is trying to fight, but its strength is too great. The rising smoke hands seize him, and are absorbed into him. His eyes turn inward, leaving only a spiky circle to beam green light from.
��������Then he stands in a confidence not before seen, instant and fully assured of himself. His green and black eyes fasten into the eyes of the leader. In his hand is the white bat. The hand that holds the bat begins to twitch in anxious expectation.
�������� They are awestruck and barely able to move; like a bad dream, trying to flee but unable, willing but not moving. Finally, one of the younger gang members says what others are thinking.
���������C�mon, let�s get the hell out of here.�
��������The leader then spoke, saying something he knew he didn�t want to hear.
���������We can�t. J-Bar wants him,� he says in fear. He signals everyone to charge.��������They begin to move in but are again stopped in their tracks. By one more confident. He begins to speak, his voice is strong. And he speaks without a particle of doubt in His being. He speaks with faith and assurance.
���������You!� he points to the leader and laughs. The laugh sounds like a whole nation of men laughing in darkness. Then he speaks out a prophecy. �The pain of a death god resonates through a memory hidden in a white wooden instrument. It cries out in pain. Wailing. Waiting for peace to be granted to its grief stricken grain. But yet, it hungers still, it thirsts still. And its only fill is on the very thing that your spirit has a fear of�. ��������His hand holding the bat shakes violently. �Come.�
��������The leader shouts again, �Get him!� Such an uncertainty in his voice. It cracks. They run. But are stopped.
��������His body just moves. He is like a robot, programmed for violence. He blades slowly their way. A great smile is upon his face. Teeth showing. He begins to laugh. A sharp husky laugh. His eyes glowing in anticipation. Now he wants more. His blades fast, faster and faster. They move in a block, in the corridor. They all move at the same time.
��������But with a speed not seen before, carnage follows. In less than three seconds he dismantles seven bodies. He doesn�t look at the bodies, He is looking at parts. Broken arm, crushed throat, snapped neck, dislocated shoulder, torn Achilles. An evil smile is on his face, along with the blood of these boys, as he stands over them. Complete carnage. Mangled bodies spread out all over the train. Hanging over rails, pinned against walls, lying across the tops of seats, half hanging out broken windows. Blood dominates the air He breathes. He inhales. He searches the bodies, taking money. Not much, but enough for now. He puts it in his pocket.
��������Sirens sound. Train stops and he gets out. He knows he will soon pass away, so he rushes. Bat in hand, now red. He wants to reach the surface; he has tried so often, he wants to be up top. Where everybody else goes. Tries to run up the stairs in his roller blades. To get out and up to the top. Gate locked. Anger and frustration. He has failed again. He unleashes a great scream. It is about to leave him, he knows.
��������The marks return to normal. And he returns to himself, the other has left. He still feels the weight of the other�s action. He is leaning back against the wall, blood all over him. A loud wail comes from deep within. The spirit of pity descends upon him. Tears flow out of his soul and out of his eyes. He doesn�t even need to see what the other has done; he can feel the weight of the crimes committed, like a chain tied around his mind. This other, this evil being that climbs from the depths of the lowest hell is getting closer and closer to infiltrating his whole being. The being knows this. And so does he. But he cannot do anything about it. The two will start to mesh. And he will never find his parents. The wail from his soul echoes through the station.�

What! The writer finish�s there! He introduces a complex character and that was it. Just a character. Damn it!� well I suppose for a brief time it has entertained me. I look at the book. It is ancient. Leather. There are some engravings on the front. Two spiky spirals and a mark or phrase from some middle-eastern country, I guess. It must be the key to this book. What was in the rest of the book? I want to know more about this boy and what happened to him, but I need the key.
��������Over the top of the book I see a very odd looking kid staring at me. The abruptness of his appearance gave me quite a fright. There is something weird about this boy. I could not see him well, due to the morning sun beaming into my eyes. It looks like he has been crying, but there is a strange smile on his face.

Reviews

[Silent screams]

The story so far is intriguing, it almost sets up a good stroyline for a comic book hero.

You build antisipation and describe the scences very well, very smoothly told.

[Amor-de-angel]

Leaves me asking for more. Your descriptions are very well done and you build up the tension in your writing.

[Damien Dsoul]

Damn! How come I never once thought about writing a story so simple, and complicated at the same time as this one is. The whole plot moves with calm easiness - loved the humour, too - almost like something that ought to be turned into a sceenplay.

[TUM]

i read it the other night..
its strange but really sweet.
its not like normal life.. like its not things you see and hear about everyday.
the cool thing is you don't expect the things that are going to happen.
i LOVE your stuff!
and i like how there is a whole new world within the book he finds.. its awesome!!!
love ya bro!