Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just the plot, maybe.. :)

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Day Seven: 7:59 am

I think he was turning normal... after six days of confusion and mood swings, maybe, finally he was going to be okay.. Maybe that's why he has been sleeping for so long now, I reasoned with myself.

I wondered, again, how he would react when he woke up.. If he woke up..

I stared at the clock, the minute hand seemed languorously slow.. It would be exactly 32 hours as soon as that hand completed another round.. As soon as it was 8:00 am.. I stared around, my neck cracking with protest.. The empty bag of apples lay abandoned near my desk.. Notes and documents on every flat surface available in the room.. I got up to organize everything..

I had found him.. Nearly a week back, terribly injured. If it wasn't for his vice like grip on my wrist when I went to inspect him, I would have thought he would die soon..

Day One: 3:48 am

I was walking back happily from the hospital, looking forward to sleeping my ass off - my night shift had ended early. I was taking my usual shortcut, an alley beside our local mall. It's a pretty large and peaceful town but as usual almost everyone knows everyone. The last crime that took place was a decade back - some jealous lover shot someone's husband.. The only people who have gotten arrested lately are brawlers in the local bars, even that sort of arrest was nearly three months ago. I felt perfectly safe walking down the long deserted alley.

In fact any concerns for my safety and other paranoid thoughts, were far from my mind as I took comfort in the silence and warmth of the night, and the much invited solitude, which were all miles away from the mental-ness that issues back at the hospital. I was just thinking of taking a new storybook from the library for Rose, a child in my care with a majorly broken arm, when I froze.

Three men appeared towards the end of the alley and were fighting like they were in a death match.

I could make out the color of their clothes in the light from the lamp-post. One of them used a crow bar and hit the man in green right across his head making him collapse flat on his face on the sidewalk. Then he, along with the other searched him, found nothing and took off running in the opposite direction.

After my initial shock had worn out, I had hidden behind a pillar jutting out of the wall on my left till the men had left. I came out of my hiding place and approached the man now lying directly beneath the lamp-post.

His green t-shirt was riddled with holes, his right arm looked dislocated, a gash on his forehead was dripping blood on the sidewalk, his jeans were slashed and caked with dirt or dried blood, I couldn't make out.

He kept twitching and looked close to death, when suddenly the light from the lamp-post flickered violently and shot sparks making me take a step back immediately.

I felt.. I don't know.. I don't know why, or what exactly that feeling was, but it turned my heart into a seething mass of liquid nitrogen, which ran through my veins and turned my brain into a panic-stricken mush.

I stared around surprised, my mind working at top speed, from all the adrenaline the fight previously, and now this feeling had brought.

My mind randomly tried thinking of logical explanations because all the lamp-posts and neon signs throughout the street behind me and the alley in front of me, were flickering similarly, shooting off sparks and emitting a sharp, high pitched noise which tried to shred my eardrums into oblivion..

It must have taken merely 10 seconds for all of it to stop as suddenly as it had started.

But then the lamp-post, beneath which he was lying, shone out more brightly than any spotlight at a Broadway theater could and as the light washed over the man, I could see big-there-to-stay-for-days-bruises forming on his arms and face. He had stopped twitching, and weird as I felt it was, I could have sworn his head wound had healed little and was no longer fatal. I was already calling the ambulance, as I kneeled down warily to check him for more damage, ignoring the lights and the sharp sound which was becoming fainter slowly, when my eyes locked with his.

He could barely open his eyes but was staring at me intensely like he was trying to reach out to my soul or whatever it is that lives in the deepest level of all knowing smugness.

"Hello, I have a heavily injured man in the alley between.."

He was trying to say something.. "..No doctors.." I thought this man had a death wish. Or I had completely lost my head. Of course he was being crazy from the blow of the crowbar on his head, but he had looked.. so earnest.. and afraid, that I had almost disconnected the phone.. "Can we have an address ma'am?"

"Yes, we are in the alley between MaxMart and Loony Louy's Joke Shop. Please Hurry!"

I disconnected the phone, my medical training already kicking in as the panic and fear, induced by stupid extra bright street lights and sharp noises, subsided.

I was the only friendly and below thirty G. P. in the town. I was also a surgical consultant. The nurses were nice, the doctors funny. But the two other G. P.s were ancient and so grumpy that you could make them dance in just tutus and tiaras and you still wouldn't be able to even smile, because they polluted the air with grumpiness wherever they went.

He was lying on his face still staring at me.. with unmistakable anger I realized with a jolt. I rummaged through my bag and found a new pack of dry antiseptic tissue. I wanted to help with first aid, but since the first time I examined him, I could tell he had many wounds new and old, many of which looked re-opened. I could tell by the way winced, when he breathed that some of his ribs were injured badly.

He was a well built man, really large, and I was sure I couldn't move him without a little help from someone without causing him further injury, so I just kept myself busy with head wound, cleaning his face as the blood dripped down his nose and chin. I could see that it was not as bad as I had thought the first time I had laid my eyes on him, even the bleeding was stopping as I tended it. But with the rest of his injuries, I had a hard time believing he would survive the night.

I looked into his eyes again, and again there was that anger. My other hand was resting on the sidewalk behind his head, near his right hand as I cleaned some blood running down his cheek. My fingers must have brushed his, because suddenly he found my wrist and gripped it hard, right at the moment I had looked into his eyes, and he nearly growled out ".. No Doctors.. I said..!"

How he could manage to even think of words to form sentences, I cannot imagine. I just stared at him wide-eyed, wincing a little from his grip on my wrist, while I could hear the sirens grow louder and soon flashing lights stopped nearby. I could see in his eyes that he knew he was going to live, and the strength of his grip told me he would not let go of hope..

##

Well, it turned out he wouldn't let go of my wrist either..

It's nearly 10 am.. I am reading my compilation of his reports sitting by his bed, it's his seventh day here. He has been sleeping nearly nonstop since night five.. I stretched and an X-Ray slipped out of his reports folder..

I have seen it so many times over the last few days.. it's been engraved into my brains too.. What is IT? WHAT? A part of my mind screamed hysterically.. Well just another case of impossible engravings on bones of a living person, another part supplied sarcastically.

He has OUT-of-the-World symbols INGRAVED on his Entire Fucking RIBCAGE. I mean HOW is that possible? HOW. Maybe extensive surgery.. but STILL! Who gets that done?

I slowly unbuttoned the brown leather band-accessory on my left wrist. I had started wearing it to cover the bruises.. I turned my hand around.. it was still an angry dark blue bordering on black.. a print of his hand..

Day one: 4:23 am

Three orderlies gently turned him around and one of them carefully strapped a neck brace on him the others started checking his vitals and attaching IVs. Slowly they placed him on a stretcher and carried him to the ambulance tagging me along. They had been, for the first thirty seconds, trying to make him release my wrist from his grip without any result except a lot of groaning. I had snapped at them to forget my wrist and hurry him to the hospital. We traveled in the ambulance for not even a minute when we reached. The hospital was just two blocks away from the Mart.

My hand was still in his grip as I ran along with the gurney, trying hard not to fall down. I could hear him groan and mutter. It sounded like a whole string of amazing curse words in every possible permutation and combination.

"Dr. Keeper, you should stay outsid- "

"I know alright," I panted as we entered the E.R. "but he's not letting go of my wrist!"

Dr. Clay, our E. D. made a move to remove his hand, "Look! We have already tried to make him let go, just take him to surgery before he dies!" I yelled, the events of the evening finally getting on my nerves. Or more likely, it was the pain from the pincer-handed-groaning-bleeding-curse-machine's grip on my wrist which was stopping blood flow to my brain and hence making me go loopy.

Anyway, I promised the doctor I would not be a hindrance, and pointed out he was most probably going to let go as soon as the anesthesia started working, so I'd be out of his hair, sooner than later. It was a thing with doctors, they couldn't work with unfamiliar people. I was just a consultant when it came to surgery, so I never made trips to ORs.

He let me stay, behind a screen with my hand sticking through the curtains to the operating table where he lay. As soon as green-t-shirt had been prep'd and anesthetized, one of the new nurses, Cindy or Wendy, who had nothing better to do came and started trying to pry his fingers off me. The result? He held on harder. I was sure he was trying to make me amputate at least a few of my fingers by morning for calling the doctors in, by cutting off the blood supply to my hand. I shooed the nurse away.

That's when I caught a glimpse of him through the curtains, lying on the operating table, a big red gash, which looked really deep running horizontally just below his ribs and disappearing into his back. His chest... was chiseled So were his arms and face. He looked like a bloody Greek statue! But a Greek statue marred with small cuts and bruises on every inch of his skin. His skin which was now cleaned up, had ashened from all the pain and drugs his system was tolerating, making him actually look more like a statue than anything.. an old destroyed statue.. bloodied with war.. God, What was wrong with me.. this wasn't the best time for morbid comparisons..

My eyes roamed over his body as I wondered how he had managed to sustain such injuries when something caught my eye. His left shoulder had a burn.. or more like a recently healed burn, all pink and shiny, it was in the shape of a hand..

Suddenly, I was itching to touch it..

He was stitched, mended, some of his bones, which were dislocated were set right, others which were broken were casted, all his cuts were bandaged. He had two bullets in his calf, they were removed and dressed. I stood throughout the whole process behind the curtain. Someone had brought in a chair, but I kept standing I don't know why, praying that he made it through. I had never seen anyone with as many injuries as his, even when I was interning in the big city.

A few admins had come in, and asked what had happened.. I had explained, minus the flashy lights, ear-splitting sounds and extra bright lamp-lights. If an electrical fault had taken place, I'd read it in the papers tomorrow..

He still had not let my wrist go.. It was 4:23 am when the ambulance had arrived, now it was 8:30 am and he was being moved to a separate private ward with full security. Dr. Clay showed me his X-Ray. God. I am still speechless. What in the world are those symbols? And above all, HOW the hell did he manage to get them etched on each and every bone of his Ribcage? His ribs and sternum, both looked undamaged in every way.., but those symbols.. I was still mulling in my own thoughts when I felt his grip relaxing, I looked up as we entered the ward and saw a frown cross his face and he tightened his grip painfully hard. I winced loudly, I could already see angry bruises developing a few minutes into the operation, but now my wrist hurt even when I flick a finger.

The doctors were astonished, because he hadn't let go even after the anesthesia but they refrained from using force, because it would injured him further and he only held on tighter every time someone tried to even touch his fingers. They had stopped coming at him, after someone randomly remembered the fact that sometimes emotional trauma caused things like this, and they would only harm the patient if they tried to go against him.

So there I was laid back on an office chair near his bed with my arm sticking out in front of me. All the muscles of my left arm had seized up from keeping my arm in odd positions since the past three hours. There were all sorts of patient-monitor-machines attached to him, but he dint need life-support systems..

I could hear a lot of voices outside the door. I turned my head back to find a few nurses fighting to look through the glass in the door.. I adjusted in my seat, and stared at the machines that monitored the man.. soon, I fell asleep listening to the steady rhythm of his heart beat that filled the room..

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Everyone had started calling him JD initially, as in John Doe, and later JK, when he said he was John Kirk. I knew better than that. I called him Wrist-Grabbing-Nightmare-Inducing-Psycho-Alien, let's see, WGNIPA. Yucks.

I looked at the sandwiches Jake had brought in a while ago.. My head throbbed harder, I was getting really tired of this headache..

He had no wallet, no prints or identity. Just a tattoo on his chest in the shape of a sun with a five-sided star inside it. And a burn in the shape of an extremely large human hand on his left shoulder. It's so strange. Every time I see it I want to touch it..

But I won't.. EVER again.

Day one: 3:20 pm

I woke up so groggy, every part of my body hurting, my neck so stiff.. I stretched.. Wait! I stretched! He had let go of my hand! I brought my hands down.. and looked at my right wrist, the watch showed 3:20 pm.. I looked at my left wrist - swollen and purple. Wow. I needed to pee.

When I returned to the room, I saw a nurse checking the I. V. She was fidgeting and extremely nervous. I guessed she had seen the freak's X-Rays. By the time he was shifted to the room last night, I think the news about his X-Ray had spread throughout the hospital. On my way from the loo, I think I had heard snippets about "aliens" from just about everyone. Just Awesome. Now the I-will-not-let-go-of-your-wrist-till-you-pee-in-your-pants-menace was an alien. God, I needed a double cheese pizza.

As soon as she saw me, the nurse only stood long enough to inform me that I was required by the H.O.D. immediately in his office and rushed out.

Inside the elevator to the fourth floor, where the administrative dragons controlled and oiled the huge machinery called the Wadesville Town Hospital, I felt all eyes on me.. these were friendly people. Well, at least till yesterday they were.

Today they were looking at me like I was brains and they were zombies. I sighed in relief when few of them got out at the third floor. I even wished them a cheery good day! So much for making me feel uncomfortable.

Now everyone left in the elevator was smiling nervously at me. I tried chatting with a resident gyno, Dr. Fox, who always had some story or the other of this one funny patient we shared Anne Luther. Dr. Fox seemed almost relieved when we reached my floor, she had done nothing but given a broken smile, each time I had said a sentence. I looked back at her really oddly to find the elevator doors shutting and zombies looking at Dr. Fox like she had turned into brains too.

Clearing my head, I walked down the corridor, straightening my jacket and shirt, which were both covered with little splotches of blood here and there. I wondered why the police hadn't tried to contact me for my witness statement. My phone was still my jean's pocket, there were no missed calls or texts. And why did the H.O.D. suddenly want to see me, it wasn't even my shift. I knocked and opened the door of the office wondering if I had broken some brand new code of conduct I didn't even know about.

"Ah! Dr. Keeper! Finally. Your wrist has been attended to I suppose?" Dr. Greene asked jovially as he beckoned me to enter and sit. He sat behind a large black oak-wood table, his office was large and modern. "Um.. Good morning, Sir. No, the nurse sent me up directly as soon as I woke up. I will get it taken care of later."

"Be sure to" he smiled sweetly, as if I was going to forget the pain that kept shooting up my arm every few seconds. Felt like Mister Alien had managed to give me more than just bruises. Maybe I'll need that amputation soon.

"He let go of your wrist as the anesthesia wore off and he fell asleep " he said with concern, looking at me as if trying to read my reactions. "Oh.. " I said vaguely, as if the matter was of no importance. I was really getting edgy, if he didn't tell me soon why he had asked for me, I would burst out with some of the curses I had picked up from the Wrist-Grabber. "Did you have some new instructions for me, Dr. Greene?" I said a little firmly, wishing this meeting was over already. Not that I whined very often, or at all, but I felt whiny enough from all the death-match watching, bone-breaking-wrist-grabbing, praying all night, sleeping in a chair. Even my ears hurt as I suddenly remembered the terrible high pitch sound that accompanied the flickering lights.

I looked expectantly at Dr. Greene. He was not as ancient as the other two G. P.s and certainly not grumpy at all, but since he managed the administration, I excluded him from my 'Doctors' at Wadesville Hospital List.

"Well dear.. it seems like you have really injured your wrist trying to keep this strange man from harm." Well, I wanted to scream out that was really a big piece of news for me. I had some really unresolved issues with authority figures I suppose, I was always scared they'd always bring me bad news.

He continued, "I have also noticed that you have not taken any leave since you joined five years back.. Your holidays have piled up.." Now I was definitely hyperventilating, mentally though.

I racked my brains going over the past few days trying to find what I had done wrong, cause it sounded like he was definitely suspending me. I stared. " You should take some time-off Dr. Keeper. Really. Holidays keep you sane. But anyway.." he ranted on " you will take the day off today and tomorrow and return on Saturday at sharp 7:00 am and remain with this man for at least 15 hours henceforth, daily. These are your new duties till I change them again. And I will need an updated report on him every evening" I was still staring.. "He will need to be under-observation 24x7, Dr. Ruth will take charge for the remaining 9 hours.."

WHAT the F!

Firstly he was putting me on such a big case, but taking me off for the first two most crucial days of the patient's life and he was pairing a senior resident up with an intern! I was outraged and it must have shown on my face when he said, "Now don't go thinking that I am an evil bossy devil.. I just want my best all-rounder on this case, and you do know that Dr. Ruth just short of worships you?" He continued on as I felt.. Awestruck? I shook myself mentally, he ranted on.

"He will listen to every instruction you give and learn from the best.." I was seriously dreaming now because he had called me the best twice in a row now. Not that he didn't praise when it was deserved, but he was really reserved with it.

"But Sir, I can easily come in the evening and definitely tomorrow morning. I don't want to miss out on the first day.."

"No.. you need your rest. That's final.. I will have the others look into it.. they will update you on everything as soon as you come back." and he kept talking after that, but I tuned him out and I took a chance to study the man.. Why was he being so.. STRANGE.. And insisting on stranger things.. He was definitely under some kind of pressure and almost rambling now. I jolted back to the conversation when I heard the word 'alien' Oh No! Not Again!

".. Everybody thinks he is an alien, and he has these weird carvings, we sent them to a specialist you know.. They don't know the language.. What is happening.. But he chose you.. he held on to you.. yes, it's perfect that you should take care of him.. you are not affected.. no other doctor wants to go near him.. yes you are perfect.." Now he was really starting to freak me out.

"But Sir!' I said as loudly as I could without screaming, realizing why the poor man was so distraught.

He snapped out of it and looked at me, I gave him a skeptical look and said, "Sir he was fighting with two men, when I first saw him, they beat him up real bad, if he was an alien he would have zapped them" I tried fighting the smile that was tugging at my lips, he was still staring at me.

I suddenly felt relieved, nearly light headed that he hadn't dished out a suspension or anything, in fact all he was worried about was that he had an alien in his hospital and all the politics and media it was going to attract. That's why there was no police interference either.. he was keeping it under the wraps..

"Has anyone sent his blood samples to be examined, Sir?" I inquired politely when he didn't say anything.

"He has the same blood as humans.. He needed a few bags, he had.. um.. lost a lot?" He said unsurely, "Though we don't know how.. the wounds he had were pretty shallow.. but.." he said. Shallow? His wounds were anything but shallow..

"I don't remember anyone talking about blood loss while they were fixing him up.." I thought out aloud interrupting him.

"Yes, after he fell asleep his blood count nearly halved.. but it miraculously stabilised after what, three bags and one hour.. and by stabilised, I mean, it went back to normal" he said with a visible shiver.

I raised an eyebrow.. Halved? And then stabilised? One hour? God. What was this human? Or better yet, Was he human? I knew that the blood count could drop in a matter of twenty-four hours, but it needed months to return to normal..

"Fine, Sir, I will immediately send for the DNA tests, the routine scans, and complete blood and tissue profiles.." He eyed my wrist with raised eyebrows, "Yes sir, I will get that taken care of and go home too." I stood up, "Today." He chided good-naturedly, as he waved me off. "Today!" I smiled at him and closed the door behind me.

I took the stairs down to the second floor where he was kept. I stopped at the reception and paged a few people who came to collect blood and tissue samples as I waited in his room. I even told them to get a sweat sample. I drew a routine up for the daily tests and made appointments for his scans during the evening. I assigned them to a very excited Dr. Ruth. I made it very clear, if anything was to happen to the reports or the patient, not only his career, but his life would be on the line. Oh, I was good at threatening people. He pretty much stopped smiling in my presence after that.

I stood there. Hovering over Mister Alien-Super-Human. He still had machines attached to him as he slept.. he looked very peaceful.. Sharp nose.. full lips, and not a line of pain or anger on his face.. his hair nearly brown it was such a deep shade of blonde.. his forehead in bandages.. his eyelids fluttered.. I wondered what he was dreaming of..

My eyes caught the now nearly dark pink burn on his left shoulder, and again I was seized with an urgent desire to touch it.. I had seen a few of the nurses fingering it earlier.. I wondered why I felt so strongly, but I had already aligned my right hand with the print.. I know my hands and feet are really tiny compared to most people, but this print looked like it belonged to a giant.. I gently let my hand rest over the print and - there was a blinding flash of light, which felt as if it had originated from behind my eyes, I could hear that high pitched sound again as it tried to puncture my brains out by poking sharp needles into my ears. My heart was turning as cold as ice when I felt my hand get very hot or very cold, I couldn't figure which, but it was thrown off his shoulder with force and landed at my side with a jerk. The light stopped and so did the sound and there was a knock on the door..

I was staring at my hand when the nurse entered the room, I could feel every vein pumping blood into my hand, my fingers and out back. The nurse had come to wrap my left wrist up in crepe. She applied salve and sprays. It was nothing after all.. but it had bruised badly.. I looked up at Mister Alien.. I remembered that there had been Many bruises on his body.. but now only a dozen black ones remained.. and did my hand really jerk off by itself or what exactly had happened?! Did I imagine it..? My brain was at the end of its utility as I stared at the slow methodical movements of the nurse as she bandaged my wrist.. it calmed me somehow.. I sighed heavily. This patient was going to raise a lot of hell.

When I reached home it was nearly 7 pm. I was dropped off by the hospital car. Apparently, it would pick me up and drop me off daily. You think I was being treated like royalty suddenly? I think it was a milder form of quarantine, to stop me from taking the public bus so that I dint spread "alien" diseases.

And I was to surprisingly receive all his reports by tomorrow evening itself. They didn't want to have alien samples around in their labs for long either.

I had a half of a large pizza, lots of mango juice and went to sleep for the next 18 hours, but I kept waking up every three hours with the same feeling I had when I had touched his burn, complete with the light and sound effects. God, I had a terrible headache when I woke up..

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Author's Note: Updates on 6th, 15th and 30th of every month.. this story will be one long journey.. I hope you liked it so far.. :) :)