Chapter I: Condition

The rain fell down.

His gray eyes were lost in the mist. It was impossible to tell the difference between the cold raindrops and his tears. His body was numb. As cold as he was, the feeling of loss and despair were greater.

His head was bent slightly to a side, as if it would make him comprehend. Why? Why does some have to die?

I don't want to disappear.

A familiar, gloved hand rested on his shoulder. It was trying to fix the broken soul of a seven year-old child. Finally, the boy placed carefully the lily he had been holding, over his father's gravestone.

Daddy…

"Watch where you're going!"

Adrien Kensington snapped his eyes open. He realized he was still in the cab when he felt the odor of curry and cheap leather. He wiped his face and yawned loudly. The driver didn't seem to notice Adrien's quick nap. How would he? He was too busy yelling at other drivers.

He could tell they were close. The fancy houses started to sweep across the window. It wasn't quite autumn, but the summer had ended. It was that time of the year where you could still enjoy the greenness in the parks and the temperature was perfect, not too warm, and not too cold.

Finally, there they were. The Eastern-European-looking driver apparently had run out of words. He didn't even bother with informing the price of the ride. Adrien looked at the meter and forced a smile on his jet-lagged face.

"Keep the change," Adrien said, getting out of the taxi. The man at least helped him with the bags.

Before he knew it, Adrien was standing in front of old number twenty-four; also known as the house where he grew up. The white, freshly painted house looked as decadent as ever. Large windows stared down at him as a mother who doesn't recognize his child. He rang the bell and waited for someone to open the door. Adrien used to have a key, but he lost it one night he got embarrassingly drunk.

The heavy door whined as it opened. "Mr. Adrien," greeted Gerald as he held the door. "What a lovely surprise. We weren't expecting, you until four, sir." That was his way of saying 'You're too bloody early!'

"Gerald, it's so nice to see you," replied Adrien, mocking the kind butler's tone. "I did say I would be arriving at three."

The old man thought twice before contradicting the son of his boss, but his love for proving people wrong was too strong. "Pardon me, sir, but I'm quite sure you said at four."

"My mistake, then." Adrien shuddered the conversation off and walked inside the house. Who cares about the bloody time anyway? Adrien knew he had given the wrong hour. He just liked to mess around with the old man's mind.

Gerald proved he had still a little bit of strength left on his tired bones when he carried Adrien's luggage from the entrance to the hall. He closed the door behind him and spoke to Adrien once more. "Would you be sleeping in the guest room or in your old bedroom?" inquired the butler in a tone that could be almost confused with genuine interest.

"As a matter of fact I haven't decided yet," Adrian answered taking his hat off and ruffling his dark blond hair. "Now, where's my mother? I'd like to give her a big, wet, sloppy kiss." His voice was filled with sarcasm.

"Well, she's in France…with Victor," said Gerald as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I did say she wouldn't be here."

Victor was Adrien's mother new husband. They had met only once during the wedding which had been a couple of months before. Adrien had found him insufferable. Now, apparently, they had extended their honeymoon.

"You never said my mother wasn't going to be here," whined Adrien, losing his patience. "The whole point of me coming here was for us to meet! We do this every bloody summer! How could she forget?"

"Oh, dear goodness, didn't I tell you that?" The old man sneered. "My mistake, then." He also enjoyed toying with Adrien's mind.

Adrien couldn't be surprised. His mother wasn't known for keeping her word. Ever since Adrien's father died his mother became distant and cold. She sent her son off to a boarding school and never worried about him again.

Suddenly, Adrien started to feel a little dizzy. His strength abandoned his body, slowly. The light coming through the large windows seemed to dim. He could see the butler's mouth moving, but he couldn't understand anything that came out of it.

Adrien heard a loud thud and a migraine crawled up his brain before he fell to the floor, unconscious.

A glass of water was resting on a silver tray. It took him a couple of minutes to remember where he was. The sheets felt soft under his body. His shoes had been taken off. He felt as if he had been swimming for several hours. Every part of his body felt tired and his mind was numb.

Once he felt strong enough, he reached for the glass of water that had been placed carefully on his nightstand. Even though he knew it was his room, he didn't find it familiar. The entire thing had been redecorated and the toys that once belong to a child had been removed. The furniture had been replaced with antique, sober furnishing and the walls had been painted rich blue.

Ghastly.

Once again, his mother jumped into his thoughts. All of it, including him feeling sick, was her doing.

Lazily, he got out of bed and walked into the white bathroom that made an interesting contrast with the dark room. Adrien tried to look at his reflection in the mirror, but the image made the lad feel even worse. The tan he had worked so hard on to get in Italy was gone. He had dark circles around his gray eyes, that seemed paler than usual, and his broken nose seemed bigger than ever.

After he changed his clothes for something more comfortable and less presentable, he took his laptop out of his Louis Vuitton bag, left his room and headed downstairs. He was extra careful while walking down the stairs. After all, he had a stairs and his clumsiness to thank for his now deformed nose.

The living room was completely different at night. During the day, it was tasteful and opulent. In the dark hours, its furniture seemed to come to life. The shadows that were cast all over the pale walls seemed to haunt him.

"Thank goodness, sir!" Adrien jumped when he heard Gerald's voice behind his back. "You're awake!"

"Yes, I'm wake," He said, hugging his laptop against his chest. He was still weak.

"I'll cook you some dinner, sir," informed the butler, turning on the lights of the living room. "You must be hungry."

"Famished," corrected Adrien. He sat on the cream colored sofa and opened his laptop on a wooden coffee table.

"Anita always said that food was the best remedy for your condition." The old man finally left the room and headed towards the kitchen.

Anita had been Adrien's nanny. After his father's death, Adrien spent more time with her than with his mother. The lad would often joke saying that she was his real mum.

Adrien laughed.

Condition, if that's how you call it.

If having random memory loss and passing out is a condition, then yes, Adrien had a condition. A condition nobody had been able to explain. He had seen many specialists and the best they could come up with was that they were related to moments of high stress.

He had finally learned to accept that nobody was going to heal him. Adrien knew he would spend the rest of his life having what he called 'Selective Alzheimer'. Selective because he only forgot about certain and very brief moments of time. The blond would be in a certain place and in the next moment he would be somewhere completely different without knowing what happened in between. Or he would just faint and wake up somewhere else.

After dinner and after Gerald went to sleep, Adrien sat on the Italian silk sofa and smoke a cigarette. A glass of white wine rested next to a vase filled with white roses. He exhaled the smoke with pleasure while resting his head backwards. On the coffee table, the white screen of the laptop displayed an email from a man called Mohinder Suresh. It was the last one of several. The first ones went straight to junk mail. Adrien didn't even bothered with reading them, but after a while, he started to get curious. That night, he decided to finally read it.

The content couldn't have been more intriguing. Mohinder Suresh was, apparently, a scientist dedicated to the study of human evolution, or something like that. To be honest, Adrien didn't understand very well the scientific lingo. What he did understand, though, was that this man new that something was off with Adrien. He referred to it as being 'special' and having an 'ability'. Adrien couldn't make anything of it so he decided to call someone who would.

The bell echoed all over the house when it rang. Adrien put the cigarette out on a crystal ashtray, dragged his body out of the sofa and headed towards the main entrance.

"You're making me wait and awful long time," complained a female voice from behind the door.

Adrien smiled when he recognized Miranda's voice. He opened the door and revealed his best friend that was standing behind it. She was wearing a black leather jacket and her wild, black hair hanged behind her back.

"Well, hello there," she greeted, stretching to kiss his cheek. He was much taller than she was. Adrien felt much better with Miranda being there. She had been his only friend when he entered the boarding school many years ago. She knew all about his 'condition'.

"I feel like I haven't seen you in ages." He crossed his free arm across her back. The other one was holding the door.

"It's only been two weeks," she said, entering to the lavish house. She took a look around and stared at the painting of the South American aborigines that was hanging over the fireplace. "Your mother might be a bitch, but I like her taste."

"Some call it eclectic," he remembered, following Miranda. "I call it a mess."

Miranda threw herself on a leather couch and crossed her legs. "So, what is it so important that had to drag me out of bed and couldn't wait until tomorrow?"

Adrien sat on the sofa that was angular to the couch where his friend was sitting. He turned the laptop that was in the middle towards her. She squinted briefly and read the e-mail. Adrien lit another cigarette and they both fell in silence. The blond got more and more nervous while Miranda read. How long does it take to read an e-mail?

"How curious," she murmured.

Adrien waited for something else, but it never came. "That's it? How curious?" He was losing his patience. "It's a bit more than curious, don't you think?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, it is more than curious," she apologized. "It just took me by surprise."

"What do you think?" he asked. "Do you think it's for real?"

Miranda seemed too consider her answer for a moment. "I don't know. Maybe…"

There was a brief silence. The smoke from Adrien's cigarette rose to the ceiling. "This is stupid." He faced the laptop towards him, clumsily. "I'll just delete the bloody thing."

"Don't!" Miranda pleaded, a bit too dramatically. "What if he can cure you?"

"You think I'm sick?" A serious tone took over Adrien's voice.

Once again, Miranda thought very well what she was about to say. Adrien was sensitive and if she didn't word correctly her thoughts she could set him off. "Adrien, my dear, since the day I met you, you've been worried about when you're going to faint next. You stress over the things you don't remember. You miss important things, like my birthday. You don't remember most of what happened…"

"I do remember some of it," Adrien defended himself.

"Yes, but not all of it." Miranda reached Adrien's hand and held it. "Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life? Don't you want to find out if there is at least a chance to heal you?"

"So, what do you want me to do?" Adrien shook Miranda's hand and stood up from the sofa. "It's not like I can just fly to New York and meet with the man!"

"Why not?" Miranda also stood up from the couch. "You don't have anything to lose, Adrien! The semester doesn't start until two weeks. You're mother isn't here and is not like she's going to miss you, and you obviously have the money!"

Suddenly, a plan that might have sound like madness at the beginning started to make sense. Miranda had a point; he didn't have anything to lose. He could go for a few days meet the man and –

"Wait," Adrien said, calming down. "What if the lad turns out to be a lunatic?"

"You'd still have a nice holiday in New York!" Miranda made it sound so simple.

He did love that city, though. It was insane. Could he really do it? Run away from it all and meet with a perfect stranger that might have an answer to his 'illness'. He considered it for a couple of minutes.

Something inside of him told him to go.

"Fine," he finally agreed. "But I'm charging the ticket to my mum's credit card."