When Allen woke up, he did so with a start, hitting his forehead against the boards that had been leaned over him as he slept. The impact caused the plank he'd hit to go flying and hit the opposite wall. Allen sat with his knees to his chest underneath the other two boards, holding a hand to his aching forehead. "Ah…" He hissed as he waited for the pain to ebb, which it did. Any of the haziness of sleep that he had woken up with was all gone now.

Allen took his hand from his forehead after that and glanced around at the surrounding area. He couldn't see more than just a part of the alley(?), especially the part directly in front of him where the board he'd sent flying used to be. So he carefully pushed the last two boards to the ground and uncomfortably got to his feet. His body was stiff and aching. He wasn't used to sleeping on the ground and he'd had a hard night. All that exercise, mental and emotional exhaustion, and then the hard sleeping arrangements. Let's just say, he was feeling it all now.

Allen was almost limping when he moved towards the edge of the alley. The sun was high overhead and so he could tell that it had been day for a while. He didn't know how to guess what time of day it was, he had spent so much of his life in that mansion with its fog and darkened sky and it was hard to tell anything particular from the sky there except whether it was nighttime or not. Looking at the bright sky above him now and the position of the sun that meant nothing to him, he thought that his ability to tell such things was very messed up.

Shaking himself, Allen focused on the path in front of him towards the street instead of the sky. Allen stuck his head and then his whole body out of the alleyway, emerging out into the now well-lit stone street. Unlike that night when he'd stumbled into the town, the place was busy now or at least it seemed like that to Allen. The streets were far from full, people milled by the entrance to the alley space every maybe ten seconds, but to Allen, it might as well have been a crowd. He'd never seen so many people and, he really realized for the first time in that very moment, he'd never met a single human before. He truly hadn't.

He'd met many monsters, lived with a vampire and a demon, and ran from a witch, but he hadn't seen a single human even from a distance. Now, he was surrounded by them. His own kind? Was he like them? Allen looked down at his hands and winced, quickly looking up from them. They reminded him that he didn't know what he was. He didn't know where he belonged or if he didn't belong anywhere. In a world of monsters...was he the only thing that was a true abomination?

He didn't know, he just didn't know.

Taking a determined step forward, Allen stepped out onto the street but stayed as close to the wall as he could. A small, childlike part of him was nervous about being in his first small crowd. So many people. As he left the alley, the people passing by near him noticed his presence and their reactions fell into two camps. The first camp was the people who didn't care one whit about him and glanced at him uncaringly before looking away in just the same manner. The other, more concerning to him, reaction was worry or even fear. Those people often sped up or even ran down the street away from him, though few chose to break into a run.

Allen wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn't this. Why did they react that way?

Allen wandered further out onto the street and started walking down it in the direction that he thought was opposite to the one he had come the night before. He wasn't interested in going back to the edge of the town anytime soon, even though he knew it was probably overly sensitive to be afraid that something was lurking around there in the daytime. He passed by several people as he walked, but none of them ran like the ones that saw him leave the alley.

Allen's head swiveled from side to side, taking everything in. This was his first time being in any town and it looked very different than it had the previous night. Of course it did, Allen couldn't see well in the dark at all and especially not as well as Kanda and Lavi did. He never truly got a good look at the town until he was in the daylight. The town continued to change slightly as he headed further towards its heart, or where he thought it would be but remained mostly familiar-looking with what he's seen so far. The homes were a lot smaller than he was used to with Kanda and were made alternatingly of light-colored stone or heavy wood.

Still, Allen couldn't focus on his intrigue because of his worry about what he was going to do with himself now. He was doing no less than wandering aimlessly. All he had was a direction and no destination. He hadn't the slightest what he was going to do or if he should stop walking. He didn't have anything.

As he spent time awake, Allen became aware of his stomach starting to ache. He was hungry, but he wasn't sure he was going to be able to do anything about that anytime soon. Allen had continued walking forward determinedly until he got to a shopping area or so it seemed. He knew that he needed money to buy things from these places or at least something to trade, but he didn't know what that would look like. It was just a complicated mix of instinctual memories and general knowledge gleaned from reading that informed him of this.

Allen hadn't had anything particular in mind when he'd read about shops and their wares. He had an idea about what the homes of humans looked like, which had evidently turned out to be a hit-or-miss thing and he'd imagined shops looking just like the image of the homes he had in his mind with maybe some items out front but otherwise the same. These structures were only ever mentioned in the books he'd read, even in the books that had pictures, or in the dictionary he'd also read.

Just like his mental image of the homes was, he was not entirely correct. The shops were as small as the houses, in fact, they were mostly smaller. They were similar looking in some ways to the houses, but there was enough distance to tell that they were different even for someone who had never seen them. The homes seemed to have an equal chance of being mostly made out of either wood or light stone, with a slight favor towards the stone.

The shops were nearly always made of wood. The same heavy kind that the houses were. Nearly no shops were made out of stone. The biggest hint towards which structures were stores that Allen became aware of was the windows. The windows were holes in the wall that had shutters on either side that could be pulled closed. Many of them were open now, but he knew that absolutely none of them had been the night before. Must be because it was daytime. He caught sight of what might be locks on the shutters from the inside.

The shops had larger windows than the doors and they were pushed open, often with things sitting on the sill for the windows that had a sill. The windows of the shops were large enough for Allen to sit comfortably in them whereas the house windows were no bigger than Allen's chest. He wasn't sure if that was puzzlingly small for windows or a perfectly normal size.

Stopping around the shops, he wasn't sure where to put himself. Should he walk into one of the shops? Should he hang around outside? As Allen was glancing around aimlessly, his eyes caught on something that made him freeze. It was a particular shop that had wooden racks sitting outside it right next to the door on both sides. The racks were filled up with bottles. Long, slim things that were made out of tinted glass that nearly eclipsed the liquid inside.

He lacked the presence of mind at that moment to wonder why it made him freeze the way it did because that wasn't the only reaction he had to the sight. His mind screeched to a halt, similar to how his body went still, and then in a whir of activity, it jump-started again. It felt odd, very odd. He wasn't thinking anything exactly, his mind still felt somewhat blank, but it felt like he was trying to remember something and failing.

It was alcohol.

That was the first thought that showed up again as he caught sight of the bottles. It wasn't followed by another but instead by Allen's legs beginning to move him towards the shop front. He felt himself drawn to it, but he didn't think about it. When he got close enough, Allen stood awkwardly in front of the bottles, within arm's reach. Then he cautiously reached out to touch one, a pale white one of all things and touched the stopper of the bottle with the tips of his fingers. A feather-light touch.

He trailed his fingers down the neck of the bottle to the body, tracing the edge of the label. He looked at the label, its design, and name, but it didn't strike a nerve with him. It didn't feel familiar or like there was a lost memory connected to it. That didn't mean there wasn't, though. After all, he was beginning to get his senses back and he already felt less like lost memories were pulling at his mind.

It was just as he realized he was feeling less pulled somewhere else that someone called out to him. The only person who had. "Hey, boy! What're you doing out there? You tryin' to steal somethin'?" The man demanded, coming out of the shop. Possibly, he was the owner.

"Oh, no!" Allen jerked back from the rack and the bottle in an embarrassed panic and waved his hands wildly in surrender.

The man stopped approaching him a few feet away from him at Allen's obvious panic. He was standing just outside the doorway, with a stern expression and his hands on his hips. He still looked irritated but Allen's reaction seemed to have him mollified enough that the aggression went down. The man raised a challenging eyebrow as he stared quietly at Allen, basically telling him to explain what he was doing.

"W-Well…" Allen took the hint. He hurried to explain. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was doing out here...touching things. I just felt like something was familiar about this place. I wasn't thinking, I'm sorry." Allen's voice was filled with hesitancy as he struggled to explain properly and not sound like a crazy person.

The man, instead of getting angry again or looking at him like he was crazy, sighed. It was the sigh of someone who didn't need to be dealing with him right now, but the man was quickly proving himself to not be the type that enjoyed fighting or getting into arguments, which Allen felt grateful for. He also, after taking a minute to really look at Allen as prompted by the boy's claim, gained a small look of recognition on his face. It wasn't like his features changed completely, but he did seem to know what Allen was talking about, making the smaller of the two stiffen in either confused apprehension.

"Yeah. Now that you mention it, I do know you." The man said, leaning casually against the door frame. "You were here a while back with your master, weren't you?"

"I was...what?" Allen asked after a few seconds of confused silence. "I was what?" He asked, again.

The man didn't seem bothered by his confusion and replied. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're that kid that was with him...but it was a while ago now. Several months, at least. How is that bastard, by the way?"

"My...master?" Allen asked, his features the picture of pure confusion.

"Yeah, of course, your master. Who else?" The man gave him a look of irritation.

"I came here...with my master...a few months ago…" Allen knew on some level that he should be asking more coherent questions than that if he wanted more coherent answers, but he really wasn't in the right state of mind for that.

Thankfully, instead of getting angrier at him, the man's face gained some small amount of concern. "What's wrong with you, Kid? Are you alright?"

It was that concern and those more manageable questions, Allen finally found himself able to answer in some meaningful way. "I...What's wrong with me is that I don't remember that." Allen breathed out, staring wide-eyed at the man.

"Oh, is that all?" The man breathed out, somewhat relieved. "That's not surprising. I barely remembered you, myself. You were here months ago for a short visit and I'm sure that all liquor shops look about the same. You did say this place seems familiar, so you actually did remember a little." He tried to point out, helpfully.

While his reply did soothe something in Allen just a little, his discomfort hadn't abated. Because…

Did he look like someone else?

And if he did, was it just that? Did he just look like another existing person and that was all or was it something potentially worse? As in, was he using their body? Was he made out of part of them, the person that this man had met? How much of them was he using? Their face? Their head? Their whole body? Or as whole as a body like his could be.

Taking a shallow breath, Allen took a chance on giving the man more information. He appeared nice enough and Allen really didn't have any better. "It's not just that." Allen started. "I don't remember anything, not just being here." Allen briefly gestured at the shop front.

"What?" The big man asked, looking both alarmed and confused now. "What do you mean?"

"Just that," Allen answered, quickly. "I...I've lost my memory. And I...I don't really know where I came from or where I should go." He hoped it would achieve something, he had to try.

The man stared at him for a while, his dark eyes narrowed. He stared at Allen as if trying to see if he was telling the truth or if he was just confused. After some time of inspecting the boy, the man seemed to come to a conclusion. "You must have had quite the injury, young man." He said, obviously deciding that Allen was telling the truth. "Have you not been to your home since losing your memories?"

"No, I haven't," Allen answered the second question, skipping over the uncomfortable first one. "I suppose I have one?" He didn't know if the man knew, but any little bit would help.

"Yeah, you do." The man answered. "To my knowledge, you're the apprentice of one Mr. Cross, a man with quite the reputation in town. He's known as quite the ladies' man, as well as a first-class monster hunter...and quite the drunkard. He usually bothers the pubs in this town and the neighboring ones, on occasion, or got you to do it. He'd run up bills until he got paid for a job or settled them another way. When you visited me, though, you came together."

This was so much more than Allen had expected to get and he couldn't keep the excited smile from his face, even if he wasn't sure if he had his answer to what he was going to do with himself. He pushed forward. "Do you know where he is? This master of mine? My home?"

"Sure I do." The man agreed, a small smile on his features. "He lives on the edge of town, away from the rest of us. Small place, but better reinforced." Allen wordlessly pointed in the direction he had come from, towards the town's edge that he had run towards in terror the night before, in silent question.

"No, not there." The man said, getting it. He jerked a thumb down the street in the direction Allen had been traveling. "The outskirts on the other side of town. Keep going straight in that direction until the houses start thinning out. There'll be one that's a few yards past the others. No other ones are that far apart from each other, that'll be his place. Knock on the door and let him know you're back. The man's a bastard, but he's probably been wondering about you. If you encounter any trouble, you can come back here and I can try to help you with it." The man offered.

"Really?" Allen asked in surprise, this felt too good to be true. The man nodded. "Thank you. Can I ask your name?"

"Name's Marie." The big man nodded. "Now you best get started. Your master's probably mad his apprentice disappeared on 'im for however long you've been gone. Oh! Here." Marie reached forward and lifted the pale bottle Allen had been touching from the rack and handed it to him. Allen hesitantly took it as Marie winked. "A peace offering for your master so he won't be too angry with you. It's on the house. Let me know how it goes."

Allen's grin widened even further when he understood what the man was saying. "Thank you very much, Marie! I'll be sure to let you know what happens! Thank you, again." He thanked him sincerely, excitement bubbling up inside him. After a few more goodbyes, Allen left Marie's shop and headed down the street as he'd indicated. Allen was still hungry and now thirsty, but he found it easier to bear now that he had a direction to go towards that was more than a direction. Hope. He might have something.

Allen trekked through the town and it honestly dragged on longer than he thought it would. Allen kind of thought the town would be smaller than it apparently was, but he couldn't say why he had that idea. He guessed that it was because of what he'd read in his monster books. Aspects of human society were never talked about directly, but instead referenced or implied. It worked well to give him vague ideas of how something worked or what the nature of something was, but that was it. Humans sounded so small, so weak, so afraid in those references that it may have warped what he considered to be the size of their towns or groupings, but in hindsight it made sense. If humans were so on the defensive from monsters in their everyday lives, then they would probably want to be in bigger groups for safety.

It didn't really matter how far he would have to go to traverse the whole town, he would keep at it until he got to his destination. He was determined to get there. So he walked and walked and walked and just as he was beginning to get worried (the sun was starting to go down again), the homes started to thin out, just as Marie had said they would. Most houses were clustered together and the majority of them were concentrated towards the center, but as he got to the edge, they started to become less in number and the space between them was greater.

Exhausted and hungry by this point, Allen was relieved beyond measure to see that final house a little ways off that was farther than any of the others. That must be the right one. He hoped that would be the one. Allen moved faster after seeing it but restrained himself from breaking into a run. It wasn't more than a few minutes before he was coming up on the front door of the house. All of the windows were closed and no one was outside, so he could only hope that this master was home.

As Allen reached up to knock on the door, he found himself stopping and staring at the door as worry once again rose inside him. His hand hovered there, several inches away from the heavy wood of the door, unable to force itself to finish the action right that moment. He thought the wood was a different type than most of the town used, but he didn't know anything about it. Allen found himself momentarily distracted by this thought, mostly because he was trying to distract himself from what he was about to do.

This was a moment where things could finally go right for him or even more wrong. What was this master going to be like? Marie said that his name was Cross and that he was a bastard, but Marie was nice and he had sent Allen to Cross anyway, so he couldn't be that bad. But then, Marie didn't know the whole story. Allen didn't know the whole story, but he knew enough to know that Allen may not get the best welcome home. After all, Allen may not even be the person the man thinks he is and if he is, then that may be because he was using the body of a dead boy.

How could he be welcome?

Allen sucked in a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then knocked quickly on the door before he could stop himself. Allen stood in front of the door for a minute, waiting. Then two. Then three. Right when Allen was wondering if he should knock again or if anyone was even home, he heard the loud thumping of heavy feet approaching the door. He stiffened as he heard the steps come up to the door and stop in front of it for a time before the sound of the door being unlocked from the inside rang out. After the sound of unlocking stopped, the door swung open.