A/N: just FYI, don't expect regular updates. I try, I swear, and I actually have a plan for this one but, well, organised is just a thing that I'm not. Reviews make me motivated!
Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers, but they're mandatory so- I don't own, so please don't sue?
EDIT: Yes I did go through this and change every misspelt Kieran to Kieren. Sorry about that.
Kieren sat on the edge of his hospital bed, running his thumb over the frayed edge of the blankets. That was one thing he wouldn't miss about the treatment centre when he got out, those beds were as hard as rock. It'd probably get lost in a blizzard of things he would miss though- How secluded it was, being away from all the tormenters of his past life, being able to run away from everything that came before. He shook himself out of his daze- he wouldn't have to leave for a few weeks yet. He would cross those bridges when he came to them.
A nurse in the pale blue NHS tunic popped her head around the door.
"Kieren, dear, the support group started a few minutes ago. Did you forget?" She asked with a practiced smile. He stood up, a good six foot of lanky teenage awkwardness, frozen at eighteen. He didn't answer her- he didn't want to lie and say he'd forgotten, but he didn't want to admit that he hated the support group either. Kicking at the doorframe as he went, Kieren followed her down the clinical white hallway. Ken, the "support group coordinater", as he was optimistically titled, looked up as Kieren walked into the small support room. It contained about twenty chairs, arranged in a circle, each seating a PDS sufferer.
"Ah, Kieren. Forget, did you?" Ken asked. Kieren just nodded mutely, and slumped into the only empty chair, in between an old woman whose eyes were closed, and a nervous looking girl with brown hair that tumbled over her shoulders in a waterfall of curls. Her fingers twitched with the paranoid jumpiness of the newly treated. She glanced over at him a little anxiously, and started to pick at her nails. After watching her hands for a few seconds, he rested his hand on top of hers, stopping her.
"Stop. They won't grow back anymore." He said, removing his hand quickly, and she gave an almost-smile in return, meeting his eyes again for a second. She wasn't wearing contacts, and her eyes had the strange colourless irises that all zombies shared. He realised he didn't know what the other patients were doing. They seemed to be talking amongst themselves but he didn't know what about.
"What are we supposed to be doing, do you know?" He asked the girl.
"Not sure, I haven't been paying much attention" She replied with an unexpected half smile, her voice soft and musical.
"Oh." Kieren said. He wasn't talkative at the best of times, and this girl wasn't exactly making conversation easy. "Um, I'm Kieren" He ventured.
"Eve." Responded the girl, turning in her seat slightly to talk better. "Have you been here long?"
"A good few months. I'm going home in a few weeks." He sighed.
"You don't seem too happy about it" The girl turned her strangely perceptive gaze from his face back to her hands, twisting them nervously.
"No. I don't really want to have to face it all again, you know?" Kieren stopped talking abruptly, feeling that he'd let too much on, especially to a girl he hardly knew. "You?"
"A couple of days, I think? I can't remember…" her voice trailed off wistfully. Kieren could sympathise- he'd hated those first days, the headaches, and the memories trickling in slower than a melting ice cube, some of them good, most of them bad. But it wasn't the memories that were the worst, it was the gaps, and the fuzziness. He smiled encouragingly at her.
"You'll remember. It'll come back" he reassured, and Eve smiled back in relief. They looked at each other for a second too long, before Kieren blinked and turned away awkwardly, seeing the ghost of a smirk flit across Eve's face from the corner of his eye. Ken had walked over, to check their progress.
"Ah, Eve, I see you've met Kieran! Bit shy, but he'll help you settle in, won't you?" Kieren nodded once, noting how Eve had jumped at Ken's loud voice and forward manner. "So, what have you found out? What do you want to be when you go out and become functioning members of society?"
"We… we hadn't got round to it." Admitted Kieren, seeing that Eve wasn't going to answer Ken. Her eyes had glazed over, looking closed off.
"Well, there's only ten minutes left! Better hop to it, son." Ken left with a boisterous laugh and a little too rough slap on the shoulder. There were a few seconds of silence.
"So… What Ken asked?" offered Kieren, and Eve replied with an awkward glance at her shoes.
"Oh, I don't… I don't remember what I wanted to be." confessed Eve, looking almost ashamed of herself. "Do… Do you?" Kieren grinned.
"Oh, yeah. I was going to be an artist. I liked to paint, see, and I got into art school and everything. My… my friend Rick always used to say I would make it big, but I never believed him. Haven't done any of that in a while though. You got nothing at all?" Kieren was determined to get her to remember something.
"I liked music and… singing? I think I sang, sometimes. And I remember playing a piano. They're the clearest memories, for me, sheet music and instruments and singing. I think I wanted to do that?" Eve sounded unsure and tired, but it was a start.
~~Awkward time break yo~~
Kieren liked to walk outside the treatment centre. Where he grew up, he was surrounded by rolling hills, endless skies, sprawling country lanes. They weren't allowed out of the immediate grounds, in case one of them went wacko and reverted to eating brains and whatnot, but he'd make do. The grounds weren't exactly small, either- they stretched for acres away from the back of the centre, but you always reached the ugly wire fence after around twenty minutes. There were the perks, though- trees sturdy enough to climb and sit within the limbs and a shallow stream that housed impossibly small fish. It was two days after he'd met Eve that he decided to go for a walk, following along the stream. He hadn't seen her, but that wasn't surprising. The treatment centre was huge, but the gardens quiet, most patients preferring the safe and surreal white walls to the endless empty sky.
It was a warm day, but Kieren kept his jumper on, pulling the sleeves low over his hands as he picked his way along the stream bank, through the undergrowth. There was no path, but Kieren didn't mind, it just meant that he could make this walk last as long as possible. Nudging a fern with his foot, he disturbed a frog, smiling as it jumped away in alarm. He leant against the trunk of a tall apple tree, too early in the year to see fruit.
Kieren looked up as he heard a humming coming from down the stream. It was a sad song in a minor key, and the humming wavered and broke off occasionally, but it was there. He pushed off the tree with his foot, and picked his way as quietly as he could towards the noise. Through the trees, he saw a thin, pale girl in black jeans and a loose t-shirt, which had slipped off her shoulder to reveal bruises running all the way down her arms, her brown hair gathered into a loose, rushed plait, curls falling out in a disarray.
"Hi Kieren" said the girl, and Kieren jumped.
"Eve?" he asked, and she turned and nodded. "How did you know who I was?"
"Lucky guess." She whispered, raking her fingers through the long grass without looking at him. He sat down next to her, legs stretched out.
"Are you… are you crying?" He queried, seeing tear tracks in her makeup. Underneath, the skin was bruised, but she had covered it up perfectly with a practised hand. A hand that was a little too practised for his liking. She laughed, a laugh with no humour in it.
"Oh, Kieren. I'm remembering."