Chapter 1 - Echoes
#1 of Flat Line
*beep*...*beep*...*beep*...*beep*...
He sat in the darkness alone, only the faint echo of a beeping noise to accompany him. Sitting, he stared into the distance, mindlessly trying to see whatever he could. As he looked, he noticed he could clearly see his hands...arms...feet...legs...his whole body, yet he couldn't see so much as the floor he was sitting on. He was comfortably warm, yet as he watched the vast blackness, was quick to realize he was nude.
'I'm weak...'
He found he was unable to move his limbs without a great deal of effort. Startled, he looked back as energetically as he could as he heard a smacking sound echo away from him and fade into the darkness.
'A...tail?'
A long tail, skin gently reflecting some otherwise non-existent light from somewhere in the distance, was wagging gently behind him, which had just slapped the seemingly invisible floor.
'Hmm...'
Weak thoughts slowly pouring into his mind, which not 2 minutes ago was almost completely void of consciousness, he realized that the wagging tail was attached to his lower back.
'I have...a tail...'
More thoughts and curiosity stirring from his new realization, he began to examine what little he was able to see: himself. Weakly lifting his right arm, he stretched it out,
examining it thoroughly.
'Black...and my hands...have claws...'
As he continued to look at his body, like a small child with a new toy, he noticed that almost his whole body was black, with the exceptions of parts of his chest and the underside of his newly discovered tail, which were adorned with imperial purple, leathery skin. If he had been able to see his own face and head, he'd have seen a black, fanged muzzle, attached to the strong, masculine cheek and jaw line of a young, anthropomorphic dragon. He continued to explore his body, touching the parts of his face that he could not see. Sitting at the front of his face, he felt along his own piercing white and purple eyes. In the middle of his forehead, just above his eyes, and again on both sides of his forehead, he felt along 3 points extending outward and back, forming sharp points that aim backward. Under where the points protrude from his skull, 2 long, pointed ears perked as they listened to the silence around him. And flowing from behind his ears and the 3 points and then down his neck and stopping at the top of his back, a fluffy, purple mane of hair. As he slid his fingers along his cheeks and muzzle, he continued to notice they were not soft like the rest of his body; they were hard, as if shelled in a thick bone structure then lightly covered in the now familiar leather skin.
'My face is armored. And I...have horns.'
Gaining more energy by the moment, and his mind now racing in comparison to minutes ago, he again sat and stared into the darkness, now curiously looking to see if it was truly empty.
_'Where am I? How come I can't see anything? ...Well...at least I don't feel sickly weak
anymore. And what is that beeping? I can barely hear it, but still...'_
Shaking slightly from the long period of little to no movement until now, he gained balance with his hands and then stood; his clawed toes and feet planting on the still invisible floor. As he stood, he did his best to clear his thoughts as he yawned wide, bearing his fangs and lightly scratching his slender stomach with his claws. He blinked thoughtfully as a new sensation came over him. He had to urinate...but was not completely sure of what that was.
'What...is this feeling? It's uncomfortable...'
Then, as he was beginning to get used to, thoughts and memories again slowly poured into his mind.
'Wait...I remember. How could I forget something like that...?'
Chuckling to himself about what he thought was a silly thing to forget, not realizing that he had only just discovered he was even alive and did not yet even know his own name or who or where he was, he reached down and gently rubbed his smooth, flat crotch area. Only just faintly remembering what to do, his subconscious gave him some help by opening the small, almost unnoticeable slit under his stomach. Inside the slit, outside once he had gently tugged them out, were a bulky set of pink, unarmored testicles, and flopping out onto them a large, pink penis which all hung comfortably between his powerful thighs.
Looking at his newfound equipment for just a moment and rubbing them for another, as most young males do, he looked around the "ground" in search of where to relieve himself.
'Hmm...there's nothing here. Oh well, guess I'll just go.'
Sighing after relieving the pressure in his abdomen, leaving his manhood hanging to experience the feel of the air around it, and watching, puzzled, as the urine did not seem to land on the "floor" he stood on.
'It just...fell into the darkness. Isn't that weird...?'
With that out of the way, he again looked around.
"Hello!" His voice echoed into the blackness.
'How am I supposed to get out of here if I don't know where I am? Or...maybe I'm already out and I'm trying to get in? Ugh...I don't even know that much.'
After walking several steps, his ears quickly perked up as he faintly heard a noise he was sure he did not make.
"I...him...up..."
'I know I just heard a voice, but I could barely hear what it said.'
"Hello?! Can you hear me?! Who are you?! Where are you?!"
Nothing but an echo of his words in return. His ears slouched down against the back of his head in depression...he stared off into the endless void yet again, alone.
"FUCK! I wish I knew where that came from. Maybe it will come back...I dunno...I'll just keep..."
"He's strong...patient...it'll...ok"
Ending his thought mid-sentence, and ears again perking upward, and with a panicked yet excited grin on his face, he yelled to the unknown voice.
"Won't you answer me?! Where are you?!"
'That voice was different...it was more feminine than the first one. Wait...it's a man and a woman. I heard more that time but I don't know what they're talking about. They sound so close now, but they won't answer me.'
"I don't know where I am! Can you help me?!"
Accepting that they obviously either can't hear him or don't care, he dropped to his knees to rest and think about the situation.
'Maybe if I listen close, I can get some sort of hint or something that will help...I don't know what else to do.'
"We just have to wait."
'The woman again...'
"I guess you're right. But I want him to wake up."
'...The man...'
"I told you, he's strong. Just be patient, Honey, it'll be ok."
The voices were followed by a soft slam and then silence.
'Who will be ok...? I don't understand what they're talking about.'
He listened intently for a while more, hoping to hear something more useful, but heard nothing more than the soft beeping he heard when he came into consciousness.
*beep*...*beep*...*beep*...*beep*...