A/N: Hey everyone! Well, this new chapter will be in Conan's point of view since I'm more comfortable with it. Hope it's enjoyable and worth the wait. Leave a review!
Disclaimers: I do not own Detective Conan.
Shattered Lens
Chapter Three: Memories
By: Kat-Chan
Sobbing broke sleeps hold on his mind, rousing him swiftly to discover he was being constricted in some kind of smothered hold. A sudden image of a shadowed man, holding him tightly by the throat flashed across his vision enticing him into a fit of thrashing. He became oblivious to the sobs and the warm tears soaking through his hospital gown. Only one thought occupied his fearful mind, one important instinct built into every creature's DNA, he needed to get away from the danger. Even if, unknowingly, he wasn't really in any sort of peril.
When the hold released him, he fell to the bed with a jolting pain. Only then did he realize there was a strange mask over his mouth, things stuck in his arms, and something stuck on his one of his fingers. His reached for the mask first, trying to tear it from his face and succeeded, but a strange woman reached out to him and again a startling image flashed across his vision. He screamed, finding himself tumbling off the bed in the next moment. He suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous…
His stomach convulsed and he began retch, but there wasn't anything to throw up.
Then another strange woman reached out to him then yet another image flitted across his vision and he screamed again. They were trying to injure him was what went through his mind. His only memories were filled with torment and fear; these people were probably the same as those who had attacked him before… He needed to get away, to hide so when he turned his head and discovered he could squeeze under the bed, he attempted to. Someone grabbed him and held him down, though.
He thrashed around to get free, adrenaline pushing back the intense pain of his many injuries. Then he faintly felt something like a sharp pinch on his skin and suddenly he felt very tired. His struggling ended and he hazily watched those new strange people around him. He watched their lips move with no sound, then shake their heads and vanish from his view. He eventually gave into the sudden drowsiness that overcame him and allowed his eyelids to fall.
When he woke up the room was dark and there was a shadow leaning on the end of his bed, moving just a little bit, but definitely moving. His eyes widened and he felt his body begin to tremble and at that moment he was too terrified to move. The shadow moved more, it got bigger, and then he felt it staring at him. What did it want; did it want to hurt him or to kill him? "Conan-kun, you're awake! Are you okay?"
"Conan?" He spoke slowly, testing the name.
"Oh, right… The doctor said you may have lost your memories…" The shadow had been quiet for a while before it finally spoke. He stared for a long time at it, that talking shadow. He realized it was a woman by the voice and…the voice was familiar. He knew her, but she wasn't someone who harmed him, who was she? He stared at her silhouette, searching his memory for, what seemed like, many long moments to find out where he had met her.
There was a new sound and then a roar of static from a television, set close to the ceiling. The newly freed light allowed him to dimly glimpse the woman whose voice he heard, she was slightly turned towards the TV with a remote aimed at it. He recognized her from earlier, the one who reached out to him when he was panicking. Guilt flooded over him upon remembering her expression that time, she wasn't trying to attack him was she? The kind voiced woman was trying to calm him, wasn't she?
"I'm Mouri Ran," She said, turning her gaze on him once muting the TV.
"I'm sorry…" The confused boy whimpered, staring down at the thin sheets draped over him. When he heard the chair she sat in creak, his eyes shot up quick enough to watch as she reached out to him. Conan flinched away when her fingers brushed across his cheek where tears had begun to spill over. She must have noticed the flinch for she drew her hand away causing the guilt that bubbled up grow with more intensity. Something deep inside him wanted to see a smile on her lips instead of that concern.
Therefore, despite the fear protesting the action, he got to his knees and crawled over to the woman named Ran. When he was close enough, he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug ignoring the discomfort it caused him. She, ultimately, wrapped him in her own embrace, which cause him to panic. It took all he had to prevent himself from attempting to struggle free; however, she soon let him go much to his relief. "I'm sorry…" It was her to turn apologize now.
The fear triggered adrenaline that had been pulsing through his veins since he awoke had begun to fade and the pain of his injuries was allowed to surface. His neck and throat begun to throb from the hand shaped bruises that deformed his skin. There were all kinds of aches throughout his tiny body, many he received before he lost his memory. With all of his new memories filled with only his suffering from his brutal, faceless captor, the absence of that violence seemed unreal. Also because he was so use to being hurt, Ran's kindness was new.
"Conan-kun, are you okay?" Ran asked when he released her from his embrace.
"Mmhm," He muttered as he raised his finger tips to the rough gauze wrapped around his forehead. As he performed that action, he realized that his arm was encased in a brace which made him stop the previous action to look at that limb. He felt the rough fabric of gauze on various spot where he knew his worst injuries were. It felt strange to have them bandaged after all the mistreatment his captor had given him. It, too, was something new and something very, very strange to him.
"Conan-kun?" He moved his gaze back to that woman catching sight of the concern that filled her soft blue eyes. Something like a fleeting memory came and went so quickly he didn't remember what is was about, however, one thing dawn on him; it was about her. That teenager girl, Mouri Ran, was someone who he cared about, but that was all he knew. He guessed that had been the reason he hugged her despite the panic it caused him! However, Conan didn't remember anything concerning her besides that so it didn't change anything.
"I'll be okay," He assured the worried young woman before him, but he knew his voice lack the conviction he would have liked. Nonetheless, she smiled at him despite tiny tears that sparkled in the corners of her eyes, crinkled by the extent of her curled lips. This expression, however, had been portrayed to him in malevolent context throughout his lacking memory. He would have been scared had it not been for the tears in her eyes and the genuine kindness that radiated from her. He felt something in the moment, another feeling he hadn't felt for a long time.
He felt safe with this woman and because of that feeling, when she reached out to him, he didn't flinch away. Conan, as he had been told was his name, allowed her to glide her gentle fingertip across his bandages forehead and along his battered face. The tiny child allowed her to ruffle his hair as the end of her felt examination of his wounded face. Her tears were more obvious now as they were streaming down her cheeks, but her face was contoured in a big grin. She didn't speak after that, she just hugged him and he hugged her back and the two of them stayed like that until sleep overtook them both.
