I woke up under the sun, waves lapping at my shoes. As I opened my eyes, I could see the blue sky and the sun shining over me. I leaned back my head a bit and could see a small white cliff 10 meters behind me. I could hear the cries of seagulls around me. How the fuck did I end up here like that? I don't have a headache, I have all my clothes on and my last memory was of going back to my hometown to see my parents.

Yeah, that must be it, I must have drunk a bit too much wine. Dad already fancied himself knowledgeable on alcohol when I was a kid, it really has gotten worse with time, trying to teach me the nuances of his new hobby. While imposing his habits on other is one of his glaring flaws, this is not an instance of it I ever minded though. Considering my current state maybe I should reconsider my position on the subject.

More surprising I didn't actually have a headache. Weird, since I experienced a blackout, but not the first time.

Fuck, I didn't even have my phone. Looked like I'd have to walk. I hope I didn't drive to the shore, I don't have the keys to bring back the car. I got up, dusted myself a bit and walked on the shore. I saw a familiar bridge in the distance: the Île de Ré bridge. It's been there since I was born. A wave of nostalgia engulfs me as I remember the little excursion on bike we used to do. This 3-kilometer-long bridge was the ultimate challenge to 10 years old me. Climbing up painstakingly half the bridge to go down at insane speeds after it.

Judging by the distance I am quite far from my destination. It will probably take 40-50 minutes to get home but whatever. I see a small bit of road cutting through the cliff to get close to the water. I take it and get on a white gravel path following the coast. I follow it and finally get to a bunker, one of the most notable landmarks around here.

Taken by nostalgia I climb it. The sea wind whipping my face, the smell of salt overpowering me. I missed that. I liked Bordeaux but it's just not the same. I look at the table-like sign in the middle indicating the name and direction of all that can be seen from here. Huh, they repaired it, it's as good as new, but they didn't change what was on it. Weird, that was a very old one.

I get to the first houses and I start noticing something wrong, everything is… different. I wasn't gone for very long, at most two years, but the houses are unrecognizable. Well, a bit, considering where they are, but they look less modern. If the houses were changed you would expect them to become more in tune with today's archetype of beauty, but I get that people settling here often look for the rustic and quaint life. No, what really put my weird-o-meter on alert was that some things just disappeared. Parking spots were left to fields, houses just not there, and infrastructures disappearing. It didn't make sense, why would anyone ever bother to get out wooden barriers and not replace them?

I entered my home town, what I saw completely broke my composure. What the fuck?!

Cracked roads, very old houses, barely worth mentioning pavement. It was as if someone undid every single one of the changes done to the small town over the years. Or that they never happened at all. Please don't let it be what I think. Please don't let it be what I think. Please don't let it be what I think. Please don't let it be what I think. Please don't let it be what I think…

I ran to the town hall, as I thought the small newspaper and tobacco store is still there albeit a bit more "old-timey". When I saw the advertisements, I knew. What kind of assholes would allow sexist ads like that today, and tobacco ones are illegal now, I think.

I stood there like a gaping fish for a while, some old guys passing by gave me a weird look as I stayed like that for a good 10 minutes as I internalized my breakdown.

Okay, calm down, I time-travelled, somehow, the world is weirder than I thought. But HOW? I didn't think that was even possible, I did not even believe for a second that it could happen casually, and leave me unhurt somehow. It's not even like I was conducting dangerous and cutting-edge experiment like in comic-books, I'm a second-year student bordel. The most impressive I ever came in contact with was basic resistance testing equipment.

I take a look at a newspaper, we're the second of April 1988. Fantastic, my parents aren't even married yet. I have no one to call for help: I'm a time-traveler, who is going to believe me? "Hey do you recognize me? You sure wouldn't, I'm your son from the future and I must squat in your small 20m² flat". I'm sure that would go great.

So, what did I do? I literally didn't exist, that meant no papers, which meant no job, which meant no money and lodgment. While in this time period Civil registration probably isn't fully digitized and meant many errors and lost files, I doubt I could bullshit through the absence of so many of them. On top of the basic documents, they also searched through family members files, and there is also the draft that I didn't do. I had no doubt they had safeguards against that kind of thing.

I'm guessing if I joined the military they would eventually look past the lack of documents and become a French citizen, but I REALLY didn't want to. That's just not a lifestyle that I want to take part in.

What to do then? I don't have much choice really.

I've been in La Rochelle for a month now. And while I loved this city, my sight of it is now a bit soured now that I'm homeless. It's not all that bad though. I've made some friends, I've not yet had any scuffles. As for hunger, it can be difficult, but may Coluche and his Restaurants du Coeur be blessed, I could nourish myself regularly.

I'm disheveled, and while I've been getting by on diverse odd jobs, I tried to stay away from anything criminal. I didn't want to get in trouble. I've some connections still, the necessary stuff, when you don't have a home to hole in at night you needed information where to go, where not to go. You can't afford to do the trial and error thing yourself. You're not the only homeless in town, far from it, use that. In misery there is companionship and you can at least respect each other.

I was sitting under an archway. A small blanket over me. The night was still a bit cold. I was really getting used to living on the streets. The worst is without a single doubt the boredom. I literally have nothing to do all day except talk to people. That's why I try doing it as long as possible. I'm not really talkative, so them talking to me is okay too. That's why I was next to Jacques.

Jacques was a nice guy, 40 years old, standard cheap clothes and had a passion for the history of building infrastructures. Odd hobby considering his status but who am I to judge.

"It's frankly aberrant that we still use lead canalizations. Don't you think? Lead is proven to be greatly toxic, so how is it that we're still transporting drinkable water in them? I know it's cheap, but I'm sure the hospital bill won't be, the brain damage too!"

"Yeah I guess so." I said. I already heard him talk about that 10 or so times, so I simply listened.

"That's like asbestos, we've known for a while it's ridiculously toxic, but nobody cares!" He really was passionate wasn't he.

"You're the voice of reason man."

"Damn right I am!" Too bad he only ever talked about that, or cats, he liked cats. He was not the most complex guy in town. "But it ain't that helpful sometimes. You've heard about Antoine?"

"Yeah, that was pretty fucked up" Antoine was one of the many destitute in town. A real nice guy and a know-it-all. Literally. No joke, I don't know how he gathered that much information but at least he wasn't hoarding it. You wanted to get in touch with someone? He knows where to find the guy. You searched a safe place? He knew where to find one and at what price. But it seemed like he put his nose in the wrong people's stuff, and he paid for it.

Pretty sordid affair. You usually keep your hands off information brokers, everybody likes them and it's often better to simply pay their silence than getting into somebody else bad side. What was especially unnerving was how brutal the murder was. Our city was quite peaceful and the most you saw were petty crimes, not murder with a side of torture.

For that matter the city was far more dangerous than I ever remembered it to be. I knew from my parent's tales that there were some problems at the time, but the amount of weird rumors going around was starting to get a bit worrying.

The first group you had to worry about were the skinheads. That's was not something I didn't expect. The alt-right was on the rise and Jean Marie LePen was starting to worry everyone by gaining political clout. For now, he was still a laughingstock for his opponents, but in time we would realize how much beyond the line the joke would get. But it wasn't there yet, and the neo-Nazis did what they did best: being assholes.

After that, you had the anarcho-communists. I honestly couldn't wrap my head around them. I could understand that they rejected the URSS variant of communism after what happened, but still… I guess it was endearing that they were optimist enough to think that the entirety of humankind would respect a universal honor system. But they were heavily militant and they came off as hypocrites when they pushed the idea that human nature was inherently good when they were beating up people they disagreed with. But also kicked nazi ass so it balanced itself out.

Those guys were originally there but were kinda subdued. Now all I hear about is how these guys were stirring up big trouble and getting into rather impressive fights. Add to that the weird rumors about serial killings, disappearances and the angel of the docks and you got a town inconsistent with it's history.

Now I wasn't involved in that kind of thing, and I wasn't sitting next to it for long enough to guess the unwritten rules and the thought process of the crime scene. Jacques was the one that taught it to me. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, so I guess he liked being the savviest guy for once and stayed with me to explain me the ropes. After that he kind of stayed.

"Hey, wait a second" he said with a worried tone, "Aren't those guys coming toward us?"

He was right, a posse of 4 guys was approaching us. Judging from their clothes and how some of them walked, I guess they're not living in the streets and probably came from the bar. That means they were most likely going to be an annoyance and nothing too serious. Still, with everything happening in town staying on edge was a good idea

The leader of the pack, a fairly built guy, approached us. "Hey, get out of here you bitch, you're dirtying my sight". Rude. "You're just fucking leeches on this city, why don't you leave it and die where you won't trouble anybody huh?" The guy started kicking Jacques a bit, the trio behind laughing to the insult.

Now I'm usually pretty chill and try to avoid conflict but I have a low tolerance for aggressive morons. And this guy was being a stereotypical bully, and a lame one at that.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" I said, disdain obvious in my voice.

"Nah, not really. Sometimes you just need to take out the trash. We can't get rid of all of you, so it'll have to one at a time".

"Look, I don't know why you're thinking of us that way, but we aren't stirring up trouble. Trust me, I'd love to be out of the streets, but we don't have anywhere else to go." I tried to reason

"You're talking a lot of shit for someone within punching distance."

"Good, I have the same range" I replied as I got up.

The goons were starting to get riled up, if I pushed a bit more their alcoholic minds would immediately switch to attack mode.

Jacques, bless his soul, got up and tried to be the voice of reason. "Come on guys there's no need to fight alright? We're going to leave, right Arthur?" he said hesitantly.

All he got for an answer was his face in the ground. "Shut the fuck up you worthless bum."

OK, that was it. I punched Generic Moron n°321 in the face. People often underestimate how devastating a simple punch can be if you're not prepared for it. He wasn't. HE dropped like a sack of potatoes. I hit his jaw, so I guessed he would wake up in a minute. I had to quickly take care of the goons. Luckily dad really liked to give me fighting tips, and if there's one thing I remembered about fighting against a group, it's that intimidation is best weapon.

I looked at them and cracked my knuckles "So, who's next?" Cheesy, but effective. If they swarmed me, I wouldn't be able to win, but I showed I could at least bring someone down with me, and nobody wanted to be the victim.

So, they simply took the moron and fled.

Whew. That was awesome. That feeling of righteousness coupled with that of domination was intoxicating. I felt at the top of the world. Better move though, I saw a shadow through a window up in a building, they'd have called the police by now. I may have felt like a badass, but not a handcuff-proof badass.

I knelt next to Jacques. "Hey man, you okay?"

"Uuuugh, I guess" he groaned.

"You got hurt?"

"I think I lost a tooth"

"Let me look, huh, not much difference"

"Asshole" he laughed.

"I know" I smiled

"Still, thank for that, I owe you one. Where did you learn to punch like that?"

"My dad taught me, would you believe me if I said I never really punched someone before?"

"Ha! You're a big guy, not surprising people would avoid messing with you!"

We joked around a bit. Overall not a bad night. No good guy was seriously hurt, justice was served, it was exciting, and my self-esteem was through the roof.

It could have been a good night.

I saw Jacques' pupils widen as he saw something behind me, and before I could fully turn, he went around me to act like a shield. I suddenly felt his body ram into me, a piece of wood pierced my flesh just under my ribs as we fell to the ground.

I got out from under him and saw my friend gasping on the ground, blood seeping through his jacket and slowly flowing from his mouth. The thing I felt when he hit me was transpiercing his torso, probably through a lung.

An arrow.

[A.N.]
So here it is. My first story. I already have the second chapter written so i will post it in a few days I think. Do not expect me to post new chapters regularly though.
I lurked enough to know SI's can be really difficult and have the tendency to turn out really bad, but I hope I am introspective enough to avoid the typical deathtraps of the genre.
Of course, do not hesitate, if you see typos or inconsistencies point them out, I can only improve.
I sincerely hope you like it.