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Author's Chapter Notes:
Did you guys miss Nick in that last chapter? This one's ALL Nick -- hope that takes care of you. So I'll be the first to admit that this story is a bit weird -- even I thought so as I was writing it. It turned out even stranger than I thought it would be! Please read and review, I would love some feedback.

He wondered if this was what it was like to be dead. The young man walked down the middle of the long street, which stretched out forever and ever into the distance, without an end in sight. He felt lightheaded and confused, his mind blank like a marker board that had been wiped clean. Where was he? There were no cars, no people. To each side of him rose cookie-cutter houses, as if he were trapped in some Levittown, though he didn't understand why he knew what a Levittown was when he couldn't even remember his own name. But wait, that wasn't true. Closing his eyes, the man stopped in the middle of the road – after all, no cars seemed to be approaching – and searched his mind.

"My name is... Nick," he tested it. It sounded right. Did he have a last name? "Nick..." Nothing. He reached a little farther. All his memories were vague impressions, like a word on the tip of his tongue that he couldn't quite remember. Voices and images blurred together, indistinguishable, and with a sigh, he gave up.

Amnesia, was it? Why did he have amnesia, had something happen to him? Nick knew that people didn’t lose their memories for no good reason; they got amnesia from some sort of physical or mental trauma. Had he gotten a concussion? Nick put his hands to his head, running his fingers through his hair, which was long but not too long, and tested for bumps. No, his head felt perfectly fine, except for the fact that it was completely blank. Had something happened to him emotionally? Had he done something so horrible that his mind was no blocking out the memories?

Afraid he’d committed a crime, Nick looked at his hands, almost expecting to see blood there. On his left wrist was a tattoo of a skull and crossbones, with the words “Old Habits Die Hard” below it. His fingernails were trimmed short, and there were calluses across his fingertips but none on his palms. Strange. But there was no blood, either, and for that he was grateful.

Tilting his head back, Nick blinked against tears of frustration. “Okay, so I have amnesia, and I don’t know why. I have no clue how I got here or even where I am, and…” he looked around, “there’s no one to ask for help.”

That was another puzzle. Why were there no cars, no people, but all these houses? Nick ran through the list of plausible reasons: Maybe he was in a new housing development, so these houses were still up for sale? He left the road and walked across the neatly manicured lawn of a boxy, two-story house. The unit had large windows, and –

“Curtains?” Nick noticed, confused. “Does someone live here?”

The unit was outfitted with a set of dark, heavy curtains that were tied back in place. Through the sheer inner-drapes he could see a heavily furnished living room – couches, a coffee table, a piano set into the corner. He went to the front door and knocked, but there was no answer, so he tried the doorbell. No reply. Either no one was home, or this was a display model.

Curious, Nick tried across the street and found the same thing, a decorated front room and no answer at the door. His curiosity turned to confusion as he went down the street, checking the front windows of each. Every house he found fitted with drapes or blinds, and they couldn’t all be display models: there were too many of them. /So this neighborhood isn’t under development,/ Nick decided. /People actually live here./

Where had all the occupants gone? Nick couldn’t tell what time it was, but he doubted that every person in a neighborhood could be gone at the same time. /Maybe there was an evacuation?/ he thought. As Nick considered it, the idea sounded more and more reasonable. If the neighborhood had been evacuated, then that would explain why everyone was gone, why there were no cars.

But what had caused the mass exodus? Had there been a dangerous gas leak or a terrorist threat? If so, then this wasn’t the safest place to be. The weather seemed so mild that Nick ruled out the possibility of a natural disaster. Maybe an epidemic? Had some debilitating illness swept through the area and forced everyone to evacuate? Or perhaps some sort of freak accident had occurred and meant the area had to be evacuated… Was that it? Had he been a victim in some accident and gotten amnesia? It seemed the most likely explanation.

At that moment, Nick’s stomach made itself known with a loud rumble, and he clutched his hands to his gut. When was the last time he’d eaten? His stomach growled again. Well, if the area was evacuated, Nick decided that it couldn't hurt to find an open house and eat some food before it spoiled. He hoped that in the emergency evacuation, at least one household had forgotten to lock its doors...

Nick approached the door of number 1437, another boxy two-story and tried the front door. Locked. So he moved on to the next house and, as before, made his way down the street, testing the doors of each unit. Then he crossed the street and tried the doors on the opposite side. The street seemed ridiculously long, and Nick didn’t know how long he tried to find an unlocked door, but eventually his stomach got the better of his conscience.

He pushed through some hedges and walked around to the side of the house. /I can't believe I'm breaking and entering/, he groaned. But there was no one here, no one anywhere, so what did it matter? Nick looked around for something with which he could break the window and spotted an ornamental lawn gnome set on the grass.

He picked up the gnome and stared at its brown, wrinkled face. "Man, you're an ugly guy..." Nick commented.

The little face contorted and suddenly the gnome spoke, "You're not so pretty there yourself, bub."

"Oh, crap!" Nick yelped as the now living ornament sunk its teeth into his hands. He flung the gnome away, and it waddled into the bushes. Incredulous, he looked at the gnash marks where sharp, little teeth had torn away the skin and then back at the hedges. "You're kidding me..."

Nick couldn’t recall its source, but he felt the sudden urge to mutter, “I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore...” Blood welled up from the score across his palm, and he made a tight fist against the pain. He thought back to his spontaneous exclamation: “Kansas? …Am I from Kansas?”

And was it normal for lawn ornaments to come to life and sink their teeth into your hand? Nick didn’t think so, but he considered it as he searched the ground for a nice, safe, non-bitey stone. He smashed the window in and reached in to flip the latch that locked it. /I’m going to have to write an apology note to the people that live here,/ Nick told himself, brushing broken glass shards off the windowsill and hoisting himself through the frame with his uninjured hand.

Nick landed in a well-furnished den. The flower-print couches looked comfortable though a bit stuffy, and little knit doilies covered every visible surface. He grabbed one of the doilies, and pressed it to his bleeding palm. Maybe he could find a bandage kit somewhere, but first – the kitchen. Nick made his way down a winding hall, checking doorways until he found the kitchen at the back of the house. It was spacious with an island in the center and a checkered tile floor. He went to the sink to wash the blood off his hand, but when he turned on the tap, nothing happened.

/Are the utilities turned off?/ Nick wondered. It was bright enough in the kitchen that he hadn’t needed to turn on the lights, but now he went over to the switch and flipped it. The lights came on. /So just the water is shut off then./ “Oh, well, I can eat with my left hand then,” Nick decided. It would be awkward, but at least he’d have food.

Opening the fridge, Nick found… nothing. The fridge was completely empty. He checked the pantry; still nothing. He then opened every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen, but everything had been cleared out. There wasn’t even any silverware to eat with. “What the hell?” Had they taken everything with them? “But why?”

Though he’d ruled it out earlier, Nick started to wonder again whether he’d found a model display home. He found the stairs and went upstairs into the bedrooms, checking closets and drawers – all empty. There were beds made and desks and in one room a treadmill, but whenever he tried to open something, it was empty. Nick checked the bathroom, hoping that the residents had left something behind in there that he could use to treat the cut on his hand. Opening the door, he found someone already in there.

“Oh, sorry!” Nick exclaimed, shutting the door quickly. “Wait… there’s somebody here?” He knocked and opened the door again slowly, peeking into the bathroom. It was decorated in frills and trim and more doilies like the living room. Staring back at Nick was a young man with a slightly unkempt look about him, who wore an unmarked t-shirt and jeans and was clutching something in his hand.

“Where did everybody go?” Nick asked, while the man mouthed back soundlessly. Nick realized that this was his reflection – completely unfamiliar to him – and he was looking in a mirror.

He stepped into the bathroom and walked up to the sink counter. Tossing the doily he held aside, Nick pressed his hands up against the mirror and leaned in to examine his face. In spite of his scraggly appearance, something told him that he would be considered handsome by others if he ever came into contact with people again. His hair was light blonde and tousled, cut close against the sides of his head and longer on top. His eyes were a vivid blue, his face attractive, his jaw strong. Nick had no idea when the last time he’d shaved was, but he could tell from the light stubble dusting his chin that it hadn’t been more than a day or so ago.

Turning to the side, Nick found that he had more tattoos high up on both his arms near the shoulders. He rolled the shirtsleeves of his tee up and examined them. On his right arm was a sun with a strange symbol in the center and some sort of ornamental tribal band beneath it; on his left was a shark with more strange characters written beneath it and stars, ocean waves, and a fish tattooed in the background.

“So this is me,” Nick said. He felt unsettled at not being able to recognize the face that looked back at him from the mirror. After a few more minutes of examination, Nick pulled himself away from the mirror – leaving behind a smear of blood that had to be wiped away with the doily – and hunted the bathroom for a first aid kit.

He found nothing and in frustration left number 1437, going across the street to 1440, where he broke in another window and climbed inside. There he discovered the exact same situation: the house was completely furnished but empty of any personal effects. This time, though, the furniture seemed quite lived in, compared to that of the last house. Nick didn’t think that a housing development would use old furnishings for a display home. But why had they taken everything with them? If there had been an evacuation, people wouldn’t have had time to completely pack up their homes, even if they’d left the furniture.

The water didn’t work here either, though the lights did. In fact, the lights seemed to be the only thing that functioned normally. Spotting an old rotary phone by the window, Nick went over, lifted the handset from the receiver, and put it to his ear. It was dead. He toggled the receiver button, trying to bring up a dial tone, but nothing happened. Nick checked to make sure that the phone line was plugged in, following it all the way along the wall to its source. He disconnected the line from the jack and then plugged it back in.

Nick returned to the phone and tried it again, but there was still nothing. He gave up and set the phone back on its mount. Nick supposed that it didn’t matter whether or not the phone worked because he didn’t know whom he would call or even what their phone number was. Looking around the room for other things he could test, Nick saw a television set and tried to turn it on. He pressed the button and the TV switched on with a slight electric crackle, but the screen remained blank and there was no more sound. Nick banged his uninjured hand against the side of the television. No flicker, no reaction, nothing.

“So,” Nick said to himself. “There are lights but no water or working appliances.”

He continued down the street, trying every house he could find, and in every house he found the same situation. When the residents got back, they were going to find a string of broken windows, but at least they didn’t have to worry about theft because they hadn’t left anything behind for a petty burglar to steal.

Nick realized then that he’d forgotten to leave an apology note in any of the houses, and he’d just broken a lot of windows. It was getting late, so he stopped to rest in number 1455 and to write a letter to the people of the neighborhood. Hoisting himself through the window he broke, Nick landed on top of a desk that had been set below the window. He fumbled around in the dark, knocking things off of the tabletop and stumbling along the walls until he located a light switch. Flipping it on, he found himself in a study. A handsome desk, the one he’d landed on coming in through the window, was paired with a leather chair, and a La-Z Boy was set near the opposite wall by a tall bookcase, which stood in the corner. Beside the recliner was an end table with a newspaper and a few books that had been taken down from the shelf.

Nick straightened up the things he’d knocked onto the floor – a quartz clock, a cube-shaped paperweight, and some blank leaves of paper – and took a seat at the desk where a stationary set was laid out. “Hm… looks like I broke the clock,” he noticed. It was stopped at 11:43 and none of the hands were moving. “Well, I’ll have to apologize for that, too.”

Nick peeled the doily off of his hand, which had slightly crusted over with blood, and gingerly clutched a pen. “Dear people of this neighborhood,” he wrote. “I’m sorry to break into your homes, but I was left behind, and I needed something to eat.”

/Except they took all their food with them,/ Nick thought grimly.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t steal anything from your homes, and I made sure to lock all the doors behind me. Sorry about all the smashed windows, and I’ll try to pay you back later. I’m also sorry about breaking your clock, but I knocked it off the desk when I came in through the window. Sincerely, Nick –”

He paused, not knowing what to put down for his last name. Below his printed name, Nick found that he was able to write his signature, which came out in an illegible scrawl. He tried to decipher the words: the “Nick” part was easy enough, but all he could make out for his last name was that it started with the letter “C.” He also didn’t know what to put down for the date. Nick glanced around the room for a calendar and couldn’t find one, but he did notice the newspaper sitting on the end table by the La-Z Boy and rose from the leather chair to fetch it.

When he picked up the newspaper, though, he discovered something odd: The newspaper was completely blank: no name, date, headlines, or articles, just a folded-together stack of unprinted newspaper sheets. Nick unfolded the bundle to check inside, accidentally dropping some of the blank pages on the floor. He bent down to retrieve them and clumsily bumped into the end table, knocking the stack of books onto the floor. One of the books fell open, revealing empty pages, just like the newspaper.

“More blank pages? Is this a diary?” Nick wondered. He reached for another book and opened it to find that it, too, was blank. Standing, Nick started pulling texts from the bookshelf. “Empty… Empty… Empty,” he tossed them onto the floor behind him. “What the hell is this?”

No words, no dates… He looked back at the broken clock on the desk. No time… Nothing was making any sense anymore. All of the explanations Nick had worked through earlier were falling through the cracks. These houses weren’t models. Lawn ornaments came to life, newspapers and books were blank. There was no food, and every cabinet and drawer he opened was empty. Did people really even live in these homes? Had anyone ever been here before Nick? Now none of his explanations were making sense anymore.

He looked at the pile of empty books on the floor. Those more than anything, more than the stopped clock, more than the lawn gnome even – okay, maybe as much as the lawn gnome – scared him witless. With his memory blank, Nick wasn’t certain about anything, but he knew that something about this situation was not right. From some strange place, the thought came to him:

/Is this it, then? Am I dead?/

Nick didn't like this train of thought: how had he died? And if he were dead, did that make this Heaven? It couldn't be. In spite of his current memory failure, Nick knew that Heaven would feel different, as surely as he knew that the rows and rows of identical houses bordering the street he walked reminded him of a Levittown. So... if this wasn't Heaven, did that mean he was in the other place?

Nick's stomach growled loudly, and he put his hand to his gut. Was one supposed to feel hungry in Hell? He wasn't sure. He also wasn't sure what he had done in particular to deserve to go to Hell, but that in itself was no promise that he hadn't done anything wrong.

"This is ridiculous. I can't be in Hell. Where's the fire and brimstone? Where's Satan? ...Where's the party?" he tried to joke. Hunger pangs struck again, and he clutched his stomach. "That's it," Nick reasoned. "I'm hungry, so I can't possibly be dead because then things like eating wouldn't matter. And if I'm not dead, I can't be in Hell." The thought made him feel a little better, except... "Then where the hell am I?"