He woke up covered in mud and lying in a ditch. "What was that all about?" he said rubbing his stiff neck.
The man looked around trying to figure out where he was, where was the nearest frob root and most unsettling of all why he was face down in a ditch. He tried think back to the last thing he remembered...
"Wait a minute I can't remember anything"
He shook his head trying to regain his wits. Nothing. "What could be so wrong with a man that he can't even remember his own name" He got up off the ground taking a second to brush some of the drier mud from his clothes and face. He took a close look at the ground to see if anything had fallen from his gear. Finding nothing of interest he started walking down the road to the east, lost in thoughts.
Two hours later he came to bridge crossing over a small brook. Two feet passed the other side of the bridge before he came out of his scattered thoughts and realized he was walking away from water. Coming to his senses he ran back to the brook, dropped to his Knees and start gorging himself in the water. When he had drank his fill he began to wash the remaining mud from his arms and face.
"Where am I going to go ?"
"I don't have a home that I know of so that's not holding me to this country"
"I'm too young for a wife, but I wonder if I have a girl some where that's worried about me"
He decided he should check through all of his clothes and gear to make sure he hadn't missed anything that might tell him who he was. First he removed all of his gear which consisted of a pack, a sword, and a chain mail shirt that was a strange very dark blue with a white dragon-looking symbol on the back and had an open front. He then checked through all of his pockets finding only 3 gold and 7 silver coins he moved on to his pack.
The pack was full of many different things one would be expected to take if they were traveling. There were only two things that didn't seem to belong, a book with writings he couldn't understand and a silver necklace with the same dragon-like emblem hanging from it. He leafed through the book trying to make sense of the words and symbols. The first few pages contained many different maps, none of which looked familiar to him.
Finally he reached the end and was about to close the book before he realized there was a slight bulge on the other side of the final page. He turned the final page and a very thin folded piece of leather fell out. He unfolded it and once again was looking at the dragon-like image.
His curiosity was running wild at the thought of what this symbol could mean.
"What is it for? " he thought " Why is it in here too? "
He carefully folded up and replaced the leather into the protection of the book. He kept forming different connections in his mind about what it all meant. He once again lost himself in thought as he replaced the contents of the pack. As he folded up a blanket, he began to wonder who he was. Then he thought of the necklace and book he found. Would these help him to find out who he was, but he couldn't even read the book.
Then it hit him...
"What if this stuff isn't even mine" he whispered in a voice so quiet even he could not hear it.
At that moment he knew who he was. He now knew why he had been laying face down in the mud when he awoke. Worst of all he knew why he had no memory of who he was. He looked around at the clothing and gear spread out over the bank. This could be something only he could have done. With as much of his voice he could muster in the greatest show of disgust ever spewed for from his lips he uttered.
"I am a thief."
Just to say it was enough to take him to his knees. The foul words still on his tongue caused him reach into the brook for water to rinse his mouth of the taste of those words. When he spit out the water he noticed for the first time that even the clothes he carried could not be his, he was much too large of build for the clothing to fit him. His stomach wrenched tighter the closer his hand got to the shirt that was laying a foot away. A sharp pang rose in his side as he held the shirt up in front of himself.
"They should have killed me instead of leaving me in that ditch."
What he held in front of him proved just how much of an evil person he was. He let the shirt drop to the ground and grabbed the pack off the ground before continuing to gather the remaining items from the ground. As he worked he couldn't shake the feeling that he had never before been called evil by anyone.
"How can that be, was I so experienced at my cruel deeds that I was never caught?" He yelled in a flash of anger as he lost control of his emotions. "Is that why I was never called a thief, because no one ever knew what I was?"
