To my followers, I am sorry I have been MIA. I have plenty written, but we moved recently and I just haven't gotten back into the swing of things.
Anyways, here is my first SNK story. Really this is my second, but I haven't finished or posted the other one I wrote and don't know if I will. Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters displayed here.
The bright light flooded his senses so powerfully he felt a barely there sting in his nose and sudden taste of panic that vanished once he shut his eyes. He opened his eyes again, fluttering them between seeing and unseeing as he tried to adjust from the assault the light insisted against him. When he could finally make out the barely white walls surrounding him, his head offered a dull throb that brought his hand to touch his forehead. Instead he felt only gauze. He dropped his hand and felt the crisp, starched sheets rough against his palm and looked down at the bed he lay shrouded in. He looked down beneath the bed at the tile floor and up at the silent heart monitor that peaked green points on black quickly as his pulse picked up. He turned to see the corridor outside the window in front of him as men and women in white coats stalked outside, glancing in at him and walking away. The door was shut. He was alone.
"H-Hello?" He called to the people that ignored him. "Hello!?"
One man dressed in blue stopped and turned to look at him. He looked surprised that he was there and hurried away. "Wait! Come back!" The boy cried, panic building, his monitor beginning to beep fiercely. He threw the sheets away from him and stared at his arm when it caught in a sharp pain. Tubes extended from the flesh just at the crook of his elbow and just barely covered by a strip of medical tape. "Please! Come back!"
The door swung open and a man in a white coat walked in with the man from before following after him. "Good morning, how are you feeling?"
"Who are you? W-Where am I?" The boy demanded, his eyes widening as the heart monitor peaked speed. "Who am I!?" He screamed forcing the man in blue to step back and the man in white flinched. The man in the bed began to grasp for breath as the white walls began to shrink around him. His eyes began to burn worse than his first glimpse at the florescent lights. "I can't breathe," he gasped. His chest shocked with agony. The dull throbbing in his brain expanded to flat pain.
"Sir, I'm going to need you to take a deep breath. This is a hospital. My name is Dr. Brown. Can you do me a favor?" He asked, taking a step to stand beside the boy in bed. "Just try and take a deep breath?"
The boy gasped. He swallowed and tried to inhale. The hyperventilating slowed, but he tried to grasp another substantial breath. Slowly he could feel his lungs expand with each inhale. When the heart monitor fell silent the doctor smiled widely. "Thank you," Dr. Brown said. "You were in an accident. Can you tell me your name?"
As the panic subsided to suspicion and discomfort, the boy took a deep breath to stabilize as opposed to calm or satisfy the blond stranger. He glanced down at his arms, realizing his right arm was wrapped tightly in gauze and a contraption around his elbow with metal rods and plastic. He swallowed and looked back at the other men, his eyes releasing moisture from their earlier pressure. He rubbed them with his hand connected to the arm pierced with tubes. He glanced at the men and down at his hand glistening with tears, but no more fell. His eyes were dry as he shook his head. "I can't remember."
"What do you remember?" The blond man asked gently as the other man began to move around the room. The boy in the bed looked up at him as he checked the bag half full of liquid. He saw him watching and smiled before retreating behind the doctor. "What do you remember? The doctor asked again. The boy looked at him and back down at his hands.
"I don't remember anything." The boy muttered. He bit his lip and felt an ache in his chest nothing like the fear he had felt before. This he could not describe, but he looked back out the window, but saw only the white and blue clothed men and women from before. He looked around the room. There was a couch uninhabited. He looked around hopefully like someone who had lost something, but knew that whatever it was should be in the room with him. He bit his lip and turned back to the doctor who nodded to the man in blue. The man walked over to the end of the bed and picked up a clip board and stood.
"Is it alright if I feel your head?" He asked smiling.
The boy nodded and sat still as the doctor's large hands engulfed his head with broad, searching fingers. Panic jolted around his heart like an electric shock. The shock was sourced by the thought that the man's hands were large enough to crush his skull. No one would know he was there or who he was even him. He swallowed the thought and clenched panic like a lump in his chest. It dissipated as the man pulled back and spoke to the other man. He took a breath that expanded his lungs, but shook as it brushed over his chapped lips. He licked them and jumped when the man turned back and held up one large finger. "Can you do me another favor and follow my finger with your eyes?"
The boy nodded and did as he was told. The doctor smiled and dug into his coat. "One more thing, tilt your head at me. I'm going to shine a light in your eyes. Try not to flinch." Again the boy nodded. He blinked a few times as the light came in and out of his line of vision, but the doctor continued to smile. He pocketed the small torch and turned back to the man in blue. "No concussion. Temporary Amnesia."
"Excuse me?" The boy asked, his brows furrowing. He looked around the room again and bit his lip. "Where am I?"
"In the hospital; this is Saint Maria General Medical Center. Does that name mean anything to you?"
"Nothing."
"Well, you were brought here after a car accident." The doctor said gently. The man in blue moved, bringing the boy's attention back to him. He placed the board back at the end of the bed. "We'll need to ask you to stay here until we can find your family. May we have your permission to contact the authorities and find someone who knows you?"
"Who am I?" The boy asked softly, bringing his gaze to stare at the tube in his arm.
"That's what we hope to find out." Dr. Brown said smiling softly. "This is Nurse Huber. If you need anything, press this button," Dr. Brown reached to the side of the bed and pulled out a panel of buttons, one of which had the shape of a person. "He'll come attend to you." Dr. Brown nodded to the man in blue behind him. Nurse Huber smiled. The boy offered a small caricature of one back and glanced back to see the doctor flash his badge from the other side of his lapel and saw his name, Reiner Braun, typed up and flushed. "Get comfortable, alright? Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
"Nurse Hoover will bring you some food. If you need me, let him know and he'll come find me." Dr. Braun smiled one last time and nodded to the nurse before leaving, closing the door with a snap behind him. The boy looked back at the nurse who stood, shifting from foot to foot before looking down at the floor.
"What can I get for you to eat?" The nurse asked quietly.
"Um, chicken?"
"I'll see what we have." The nurse said, turning and leaving. The door closed with the same click. The boy stared at the door for a long time before looking around the room for something he knew wasn't there.
"Marco!" The word was cried after a boy with black hair shot into the room with the door swinging and nearly hitting the wall beside its frame. The boy in the bed's head shot up from being bent to allow him to read a book. The boy with black hair was followed by a boy with shoulder length blond hair and girl with shoulder length black hair. They hurried to his bed. He stared at them and glanced back at the nurse who winced when the boy with black hair was beside his bed smiling unabashedly at him. "We are so glad to find you! We were worried sick when you didn't show up to the party. Are you alright? The nurse said you broke your elbow."
"Eren-." The blond boy said, gripping his shoulder. "He also said he has amnesia."
"When?"
"Just after you bolted here." The blond boy said, pushing Eren away from the side of the boy's bed. He watched the black haired girl take the Eren boy away and talk to him. The blond boy remained and smiled at him. "Hi, I'm Armin. Do you remember me?"
The boy in the bed shook his head and glanced at the horror he saw on the Eren boy's face. He looked back at the blond one, Armin. "He called me Marco. Is that my name?"
"Yes," Armin said, smiling brightly. "Marco Bodt."
The boy in the bed smiled and looked around the room. The door had shut, blocking his view of the nurse. He wondered briefly if he still stood beyond it and looked back at the blond boy. "Armin?"
"Yes," the blond boy said as the Eren boy and the black haired girl stood closer behind him. "This is Eren, and this is Mikasa. We're your friends. You and I live together."
Marco looked at the two standing. Mikasa offered a small smile, lifting her chin up from behind a red scarf wrapped around her neck. Eren smiled widely at him. "There's someone missing." Marco said softly, looking around the room again. The three smiles all disappeared and they all looked at each other. "Or maybe something. I just feel like I've lost something."
Armin looked like he had been betrayed with a slap in the face from his closest friend. He looked back at Eren and Mikasa who looked at each other. Mikasa's expression did not exist on her face. Only anger could be found on Eren's face. Marco felt his face heat up. "I didn't mean to. It must have been important for you all to react like this." He bit his lip looked down. "When I remember what it is, I promise to try and find it."
"No, i-it's not that," Armin said quickly. A sigh escaped his lips and he turned back to Mikasa and Eren. The anger that had absorbed Eren's features vanished. He frowned and turned away.
"His name was Jean," Mikasa said quietly before turning to Eren. They both walked away, leaving Armin alone. Marco's brows furrowed at the name. He shook his head.
"We don't expect you to remember him," Armin said. Marco saw his eyes glisten in the harsh, artificial light and wondered if he was going to cry or if his eyes were just so blue. "His name was Jean and he-." Armin took a deep breath that shook loudly. Marco stares at him even as their gaze broke and Arin stared at his clenched hands resting in his lap. Marco pushed up and reached forward one of the hands and held it. Armin looked up and a tear fell down his face. "He loved you more than any of us… combined maybe."
"Then why isn't he here?" Marco asked, but bit his lip after the words left his lips. The pain he felt each time he sat in his room alone and looked around the room spread throughout his chest. He gasped and pressed his other hand against the pain as is sustained longer and stronger than the other times. He felt the burning pressure around each eye as he looked at the blond boy he had just met. Seeing his pain rose up one matched from what he could tell. He wondered briefly before squeezing Armin's hand if his pain was greater and wondered why.
"You were in a car accident," Armin gasped. Tears began to fall faster in more numbers. Marco felt the same run down his face. He could feel each curve as the tears trickled and he briefly wondered what he looked like. He could remember freckles, but that was all. "J-Jean was driving it."
Marco stiffened, his hands losing their grip. The words filled his head like the rush of a sedative. His muscled went limp and he felt his head turn without being conscious that he was looking away from Armin. "Marco, I'm sorry you found out like this. I-I shouldn't have told you!" Armin said, as he stepped back. With the words, Marco felt the sobs that shook his body in shuddering bursts. The pain in his chest sharped with each gasp. The tears flowed freely like the release of rain from clouds just before the storm.
"I-I don't know why I'm crying," Marco forced through the sharp pangs of breath. "Why am I crying?!" He screamed before breaking into sobs. He jerked his lengs up and hugged them. He felt arms and weight on his shuddering form and heard Armin whispering. His voice was shaking just as much as Marco's form, and sounded as though it were miles away. His mind stopped functioning, unable to properly comprehend the pain his body that gripped him like a vice nor the uncontrollable sadness and agony that stripped his mind of any function. "Why?!"
The Boy in the Bed - End