All copyrighted stuff belongs to whoever it belongs too. The story is mine though.

This is my first ever fic and I'm dyslexic so be genuinely constructive when/if you want to give any criticism. Constructive criticism is always a good thing. Looking for a beta, if anyone is interested.

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Mat Lawson is a 40-year-old man with a beautiful wife, two young children and the proud owner of an up and coming tech company. He was reminiscing of past events in his life, wondering what he would change if he could go back in time as his younger self. How would things be different? Would he be the man he is today? Would he change anything or influence the future to suit his needs? The answer would most probably be yes in many areas, he thought "who wouldn't?". He was thinking this when, through the thumping beats of the random electronica through his headphones, he heard a massive crash and squealing tires to his left. He turned in time to see a red and white shape, that looked kind of a lorry, very close and getting closer, there was enough time for him to say "SHI…"

Mat sat up in bed, sweating, heart thumping and finished off what he was saying to the lorry "IITTT!" He looked around the room he was in, confused and completely disoriented. He heard thumping footsteps as his mum and dad burst through the door, worried looks plastered on their faces. Light bathed the room, it looked strangely like what he remembered like it was when he was a kid Liverpool F.C. bedsheets and everything. Mat looked at his parents and realised they were a lot younger, he almost didn't recognise them. Panic started to set in, he started hyperventilating, it looked like he was about to have an asthma attack, so his mum rushed to get the inhaler, she passed it to him, and he took it in pure reflex. His mind trying to figure out what was happening. It must be a dream. "Surely this isn't real" he thought. He had a massive burst of information in his brain that gave him a migraine, he couldn't help but scream. The world started to get blurry, a ringing in his ears and flashes in front of his eyes overwhelmed all senses as memories and more information was pushed into his mind. The world started to darken, and he felt himself falling to into the blissful abys of unconsciousness.

The constant beeping was getting annoying and Mat swore at it to go away. He felt terrible, like he'd been on the sesh for a week and just woke up after not enough sleep. He rolled around and something pulled his skin on the forehead and left arm. Hissing in frustration and pain he thought to pull off the thing on his arm first, but that only caused more pain. He shot up and opened his eyes, the blinding light of white and fluorescent lights bombarded his vision "Jesus Christ!" Mat hissed with the pain. He heard a gasp next to him.

"Matthew! Are you Okay?"

Squinting he slowly turned his head, his hand in front of his face to block as much light out as possible. His vision was returning too slowly for comfort, but thankfully, it was returning; he saw a shape of a person with a light brown halo and a weird yellow coloured body. His vision started returning to clarity, it showed a woman with bushy brown hair and, and he now realised a mustard coloured woolly jumper. Facial features became clearer after around 30 seconds and he saw, once again a younger version of his mum. He stared at her in what seemed was an eternity, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. She lightly stroked his arm "Matthew?" she said with clear concern.

"Mum?" Mat said, in a too high voice and clear confusion. His mum smiled and tears formed in her eyes. "W wh what's going on? Where am I?" Mat asked.

Lowering his arm, Mat looked around and realised at the same time his mum said, "You're in hospital, love, you screamed and passed out, so we called 999, but you're okay now though, you're safe". She smiled at him in a reassuring way as his head snapped to look at her. He looked at her properly now, staring at her face, he smiled a worried smile back, trying to get his brain to figure out what is happening here. The internal discussion with himself about possibilities, dreams, alternate realities, practical jokes…alien abductions… were shooting though his head. He focussed on his mum as his brain was arguing with its self. The smile faded away as he realised that he needed to get more information about the current situation. Mat's mum took his hand to hers and he felt comforted by that. He looked around the room, trying to get more knowledge about this current predicament. He could visibly see the flicker in the florescent light bulbs overhead, they hurt. He turned to the infernal beeping sound and realised he was hooked up to a heart monitor and an Electroencephalography (EEG for short). They looked like they were from an old 90's T.V. show like E.R. or something. Mat's brain clicked and he looked around some more and everything did look old yet… new.

The room he was in was a discoloured white with wooden panelling in the middle. The door was a dark brown varnished colour, the same as the panelling. Painted wooden furniture, the same colour as the walls and a spare chair that was a terrible greeny-yellow colour with dark brown wooden arms and legs were the only decoration in the room. He turned back to his mum and realised that she looked exactly like she did from the old photos we used to laugh at when we found them doing housework, in the forgotten places at the old home. Realising that this was exactly what a hospital in England looked like in the 90's the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place but the absurdity of this being true was astronomical. Mat stared at his mum and the only words he could think of saying was "What the actual fuck?"

She scowled and growled yet it still came out as an amused growl "Matthew! Watch your language! Where did you hear that kind of thing? If you say your uncle Geoffrey I will be having words."

Mat laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation which made mum scowl harden. He thought "this cannot possibly be real, I mean, I was literally thinking about this and then kablam! Lorry! And here I am! And my mum told me to watch my language like I was an 8-year-old". Something else clicked in Mat's head and he looked at his hands, then his body, patting himself down like an airport security guard. He jumped up on the bed, pulling the wires out that were connected to the machines and setting alarms off in the process. Blood flowed out of the new hole in his arm that was connected to a drip he didn't notice that was behind him on the wall. He didn't feel this however, as he was looking down at a not tall enough, scrawnier adolescent body, which he could move like it was his own. He poked his belly, feeling the pressure under the hospital gown. It WAS his own body! Mat laughed and poked himself again. Mum shouted and grabbed his arm putting her hand over the gash caused by the needle being ripped out. He watched her do this with a weird serenity as the situation was getting clearer to him.

There was almost 20 seconds of his mum berating him for being daft. Then two nurses and a doctor rushed in to see Mat stood on the bed and blood pouring down his arm. Mat turned to the newcomers. His mum in a clear panic shouted them to help. With a clear look of concern on their faces, the nurses burst into action collecting bandages and other medical equipment to stop the flow of blood. He didn't listen to what was being said, he just felt arms guiding him back onto his back and he watched them stop the bleeding, cleaned and wrapped a bandage around his arm. He watched them do this with a serenity that he didn't know existed. He felt a tapping on his leg and Mat turned to see the doctor smiling at him "How are you Matthew?"

Mat replied, "I'm fine thanks, how are you?" he knew it was not the most intelligible things to say but what else could he say? "My consciousness has been sent back 30 odd years after being splattered by a lorry?" He thought that the people in the white jackets would come for him if did.

The doctor replied with an amused grin "I'm fine too thank you for asking, now can you remember anything from yesterday?"

Mat wracked his brain for something to say so he didn't say anything and shook his head.

The doctor man smiled again and said it was okay. "My name is Dr Marshall and I will be looking after you. You had us scared for the past few hours, everyone was worried". He glanced at mum then looked back at Mat.

Mat's mum asked "Dr Marshall is Matthew going to be okay? He's been here for a day and jumps up screaming!"

Dr Marshall walked round the bed and takes mums hand "Sandra, I'm sure he will be fine now he is awake, we are going to keep him here and do some tests to make sure everything is working fine, and we will take it from there okay?" Mat's mum wearily smiled and nodded at that.

The nice doctor and the nurses did some tests on Mat for the next half an hour, nothing intrusive, just flashed torches in his eyes, poked and prodded his extremities to make sure he could feel properly. It all made sense. Then they came to the part where they asked him about what he could remember about recent events, and what has been occurring in Mat's life in the past few months. Mat had trouble remembering some things. Then from somewhere, his mind brought up certain areas of knowledge about current events, even though he had no idea when he was or how old he was. Mat answered hesitantly, he was still sure that the walls were going to fall down and there was a whole camera crew and audience were behind them and laugh at this practical joke.

After a few minutes of answering these questions as minimally as he could Dr Marshall smiled a beaming smile at Mat and said that he appears to be in tip top shape. So, this was the routine for the next few days, he asked his mum for some reading material, which surprised her because he was not much of a reader back in the day. What surprised her even more what the content of the reading. Mat asked for newspapers, history books and other bits and bobs so that Mat could figure out when and how old he was. Turns out he had his 'incident' on his birthday, 2nd December. That made him now 8 years old and it was now 4th December 1996. He also remembered so much more that he used to be able too. His mind was getting clearer, like a fog was lifted that I didn't know he had. His vision was sharper, hearing better and reflexes were less sluggish that he was used too. Mat put this down to him being in a 'fresher' body. Not damaged by alcohol and other substances over the years. He could breathe easier too which was new. He was used to have the lingering effects of asthma on his chest. That was gone now though. Mat also demanded that no fluorescent lights were on in the room at all, they really hurt his head for some reason.

After four more days of Mat reading, visited by family and friends, and wandering around his little room, he came to the conclusion that this was too elaborate to be an elaborate joke. The worst yet best thing about all this was that many of Mat's family were alive and well. Grandma, Grandad, loads of aunts and uncles that he completely forgot about, he felt guilty about that, were all alive. He tried not to cry at seeing them all again but couldn't help it. Luckily, they just thought that he was still recovering from whatever happened and was happy to see them, which was in fact true. Definitely not a joke, and if it was it was the cruellest joke ever.

Mat took some strolls around the hospital (with an older person obviously) he thought this was ironic because he was technically older than his dad and about 10 years younger than his grandad. During one of these outings he noticed how fast his reflexes were when a patient came barrelling through a door and Mat ducked and rolled out of the way to avoid being trampled. He looked at his nana in shock as the patient, only a couple of years older than him was sprinting at top speed down the corridor. She saw this happen and asked Mat if he was okay. Mat just nodded with a little laugh and that was that, nothing else happened that day.

As Mat's dad tucked him in bed after having some family time watching the video he was supposed to get for his birthday, Toy Story, his dad gave him a questioning look. "Is something wrong dad?"

His dad, or Mike to everyone else, had observed that Mat was quieter, was able to form his speech better and laughed at all the innuendoes meant for adults in the film. Mat's changes appeared to be for the better though, even with the weird understanding of innuendos at his age. He seemed to have a hunger for knowledge, he read 10 books while in hospital and said he wanted to read for an hour in bed because it will help him sleep. "There's nothing wrong with reading" Mike thought. But he also seemed too old for his age. His eyes looked more mature. Mike didn't know why he thought that. But Mat's speech was also more articulate, he said words he shouldn't know at 8 years old. It seemed like someone threw a dictionary as Mat's head and all the words imprinted themselves on his mind. Mat even knew more about history, science and technology. The best example happened the second day after Mat woke up. They were talking about when the UK was going to cede Hong Kong to China, he had no idea how the topic came up. Mat then started talking about why it had to happen, the legalities behind it all and an in-depth lecture about the First and Second Opium War's. Everyone was gobsmacked and did not even ask him once until he had finished where he got all that information from. Mat just shrugged and said he read it once. See, the main problem is that Mat was usually a doer, not a thinker, but after the 'event' he had changed and there was a noticeable increase in his intelligence. He noticed this after a couple of conversations with him. Not that Mike was complaining. He liked the change, but he felt that something about his son was missing but he couldn't put his finger on what.

Mike smiled and stroked Mat's head "are you okay son?"

"'Course I am, why dad?" Mat smiled but looked a bit confused

"You seem to be acting different" when Mat's reaction was to flinch, Mike responded with "Not that it's bad thing! Its just you know more, and seem… well… just a bit different, I can't explain it"

Mat looked into his dad's eyes, and couldn't help but feel sorry for him, he knew he was a different person, but he was still his son. So, he told a lie and hoped to whatever sent him here that his dad would listen. "I dreamt things after I had the headache, I remember what I have read more clearly now, I don't know what's happened to me. But somehow, I feel that there's been a fog lifted from my head, like there was a wall blocking me from using my brain as much as I should be. Now it's not there anymore. It feels good though" Mat smiled "I feel free". The best lies are the ones that have the truth in them.

Mike couldn't help but tear up at that, but he had to keep a strong façade for his son. Mike nodded and said, "as long as you're okay that's all that matters to me son".

Mat gave his dad the first genuine smile since he came home "I'll be fine dad, you'll see. Can you trust me?"

Mike looked down at his son and ruffled his hair "of course I do mate, now, I'll be back in an hour to make sure you're not reading". Not even five minutes had passed, and Mat was out like a light.