Chapter One

His Amnesia

Soft green eyes slowly fluttered open and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling above him. Okay, that was lie. That ceiling was very familiar, for he'd been to the hospital plenty of times before. But he'd never been in this specific room.

He heard the sound of a heart monitor in the corner, making the mechanical 'blip' every second or so. He could hear other machines around him too, some having stranger sounds than others.

It was then that he realized that one of the sounds was coming from a tank by the bed, which had a hose leading to a plastic mask over his nose and mouth. An oxygen mask. Why…? He asked himself silently, tugging at the apparatus.

He was able to get it around his neck as he sat up slowly. Every muscle protested against his movement, especially the ones in his abdomen area, but he ignored the pain. All that mattered to him at the moment was finding out why he was in the hospital, for he seemed to have no recollection of the events beforehand.

As the redhead sat up, the room lurched violently and he put his head in his hands, shaking it slightly. The room never did quite settle totally, but it was just enough so that he could look around.

He was in one of the ICU rooms, one of the big, white, almost spacious rooms with a window on both sides; one looking out to the world outside and one to the waiting-type area. Right now, the shades were drawn on both, making the room very dark, though that fact helped with his increasing headache and dizziness. Maybe you should lie down again, a voice in the back of his mind told him, but he ignored that also. Though he let out a small whimper of distress as more soreness and pain coursed through his body. Anyone who had heard said noise would've probably automatically felt bad for you young child.

The boy then began to take various needles and wires out off and/or out of him so he could get up. More muscle protests, more voice naggings, and more mechanical noises (also of protest), but all went ignored. He didn't care what he was doing; all he wanted to do was find out what in the world was going on. But he found it hard to concentrate, what with all the beeping and monotonous tones drowning out any other noise in his room. Why must they be so obnoxious…?

Suddenly, doctors and nurses came rushing into the room and tried to push him back onto the mattress, but he fought against them. He thrashed his arms and body about so he could escape their grip, but this just made them try harder. The boy began to whine and yell at them for going against him, for he claimed that all he wanted to do was "get up and look around."

But the doctors wouldn't hear it. They kept forcing him down, but he wouldn't have it. He was now yelling and screaming at them to let go. "Lemme go! Stop it! That hurts!" he shouted at them. He was able to yank one arm free, but "accidently" sent it flying at one of the doctors holding him down. It caught the man square in the nose, making it start to bleed.

At the sudden motion, a large pain erupted in his side. He cried out, and then looked down to find a patch of red starting to overtake the right side of his hospital nightgown. "He's destroyed his stitches!" one nurse yelled frantically. "It shouldn't be seeping through that bandage!"

But the last bit of the woman's sentence was slurred to the boy, for unconsciousness had started to claim him again. And to make matters worse, one nurse had decided it would be best to inject something strange in to the boy. He looked down at the crook of his elbow where the needle was inserted into his arm and watched her pull it out slowly. Instantly, the room did a huge one-eighty. His limbs went limp and he was pushed back into the mattress of the bed, then pain slowly ebbing away (for now, at least). But he fought to stay conscious, wanting to get some answers.

Just as his last bit of conscious thought was draining from him, another boy bounded into the room, looking panicked and fretful. "What's happening to him?" the redhead could see the other boy's lips form words, but could barely hear them.

This boy struck the ailing boy as odd. He was relatively short with cropped blonde hair and a pale complexion. He wore strange clothes also: all black, tight pants, chains hanging from his belt loops, and a sweatshirt with skulls and cross-bones on it. What peculiar fashion sense, the green eyed boy would've thought if he was still capable of coherence.

Another thing that the redhead would've found weird was the obvious chocolate bar wrapper sticking out from his front pants pocket. The silver foil was torn open as if someone had done it with shaking hands, and only about half was eaten, as if the eater hadn't had much of an appetite. In truth, it wasn't that odd of a sight; a young boy with a chocolate bar. But it was odd that said boy wouldn't finish the treat, given who he was. And of course, if the redhead could remember who the boy was, he would note it and quickly brush off the topic, maybe even let the unconscious claim him, since it was trying oh-so hard to do so. But unfortunately, he was having a smidge of trouble with his memory at the moment and the question was nagging at him quite a bit. Of course, he hadn't much time to contemplate it, since only a few seconds had passed since the boy entered the room.

So the new blonde boy ran to the bedside and took up the other boy's hand, hugging it close to his own chest. He was mouthing one word and one word only: "Matt. Matt. Matt!"

Matt? Matt? Is that my name? Is that who I am? Am I this Matt person that this boy seems so concerned with? The redhead thought as he drifted away. Why can't I remember? I knew only minutes ago. Now it's gone. Is something wrong with me….?

Soft green eyes slowly fluttered closed as unconsciousness claimed the poor boy. Though he was quite happy to be sleeping now, actually, for that meant he could finally escape the mysterious pains and aches, whose cause was yet another thing that seemed to elude him in this now big empty space he called his mind.