Chapter 4

A moan escaped his lips as a black haired teen slowly raised a hand to his head. A lump had formed while he slept in the back of his head, buried under a handful of hair. He touched it with tender curiosity, the pain a surprise as he tried to wrack his head around for what caused it. He risked opening his eyes to see himself half laying in a bush in an unfamiliar forests. He carefully pushed himself from the bush, noticing a few bruises on his arms. He sat back on his heels and poked a green and blue bruise that covered a good part of his left forearm, wondering if the bush had given him the bruise.

"What on earth happened to me?" he asked the woods around him. He looked up, looking for the sun only to notice it was either rising or falling. He couldn't tell what time it was, realized he couldn't even remember what month it was. It felt warm already, and if it was either dawn or dusk, he gave a guess that he was in summer or fall. He looked down at his hands in his lap as he realized there was a lot he was trying to recall but couldn't. His name being a big one, he realized.

He gripped his hands into fists as he let out a sharp snort before saying, "Well, it's not gonna do me any good just sitting around here." He didn't know who he might be talking to, but the sound of his own voice gave him some comfort. He put his hands to the dirt, feeling it wet with dew, and pushed himself up to his feet only for his head to sway away with him. He fell on his side, both hands holding his head as he squeezed his eyes shut. "Bad idea, got it," he mumbled through his teeth.

He breathed in deeply before trying to open his eyes again, guessing if he wanted to get to his feet he would have to try to do it a little slower this time. He let go of his head and looked up to see he had fallen beside a tree. Sitting up, he rested a hand against the bark and got his feet under himself before slowly raising his head upwards.

Once he was standing he gave a look around himself, trying to figure out what he had been doing in the woods. A part of his mind knew he had a home-a structure- and something soft to sleep on, but when he tried to recall where that was, or even what it looked like, a sharp pain hit the lump on the back of his head. He put his hand on the lump, worried it might break through his skull and out of his head with the pain it was giving him as he held tight to the tree. He rested a shoulder against the bark, a part of him knowing something was wrong but he couldn't figure out what.

A moment passed before the pain subsided. It still pounded with his heartbeat, a painful rhythm playing in the back of his head, but it wasn't exploding pain anymore. He opened his eyes again, wondering when he had closed them against the pain, and forced himself to walk through the woods. He had to find other of his kind, there had to be more like him in the world.

Keeping a tree close at hand at all times, he worked his way through the undergrowth in a straight line. He wasn't sure what type of people he was looking for, not sure what they would look like or fully what he looked like himself.

His mouth started to remind him he should try to drink, but he looked around the woods as he walked, trusting his balance more as he kept his hands free of trees, not finding any water. He kept it in his mind to look for water of any kind as he walked.

A roaring sound came from up ahead, making him warry of what might be through the trees. As he got closer he recognized the sound of a car's engine before breaking through enough trees to find himself stumbling out of the woods into a clearing that faced the back of a house. Two men looked up, one with his sleeves rolled up and a tool in his hand and the other stepping out of the driver side door of a car they were working on.

"Hey, can you help me?" he called out, stepping forward through the clearing. His ankle twisted out from under him, sending him falling face first to the short grass as he let out a started yelp. He put his hands palm down, to start pushing himself up, only for the back of his head to explode in pain once more. He squeezed his eyes shut and reached back to hold his head, trying to keep his cries of pain in.

"Get Tommy out here!" a deep voice said as footsteps pounded the ground towards him. The footsteps slowed down before a hand rested on the teen's back as he asked, "Hey kid, are you okay?"

The teen felt tears running out of his eyes and dripping onto the dirt inches away from his face. He wanted to tell them what was wrong but he couldn't. If he moved the pain would get worst, he knew it.

"I'm gonna pick you up, alright?" the man asked, removing his hand.

The teen didn't want to be picked up, he didn't want to move at all, but he couldn't form the words. He felt the man's large hands slowly roll him over before carefully picking him up. He kept his eyes closed as he felt the world swim away without him. He wasn't sure if the man was moving or if he was falling back to the ground, expecting the pain of impact.

"What happened?" a younger male voice asked.

The teen realized he had been laid down on something hard with only a pillow under his head, his hands resting at his side. Carefully he opened his eyes to look up and see three men, the one in the middle pulling a flashlight from his pocket.

"He just stumbled outa the woods," the largest of the three said, the one that had carried him, the teen realized. "Jake and I were tuning up the old Ford."

"Scared the bejesus out of me," the skinniest said, his voice cracking.

"Hey, how you doing?" the one with the flashlight asked as he was the first to look down at the boy.

"Something's wrong," he said, trying to remember what that something was. He closed his eyes as trying to remember hurt the lump on the back of his head.

"Hey, look at me, will you?" the one with the flashlight asked with a calming voice. He turned on the light and said, "I'm gonna look at your eyes, alright? What's your name?"

"Name?" he asked only to be blinded first in the right eye and then the left. He blinked, fresh tears streaming from his eyes in protest of the light, as he admitted, "I don't know."

"Well, you've got a concussion, I can see that," the man said, straightening his back as he turned the flash light off. "Is there anything you can remember? Where you're from? What streets you remember?"

"Do you have a wallet or anything?" the largest man asked.

The teen reached for his pockets, finding it awkward to reach inside them while laying on what he guessed was a wooden bench. He pulled out what he found there only to have a candy wrapper, a single key, and a phone.

"Hey, you've gotta cell," the youngest said.

The teen flicked it open only to see the screen cracked and the plastic holding the phone together was barely holding itself together. He held it so the three could see, getting disappointment from them as well as himself.

"Well, that's a bust," the older man said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Must've broke that when whatever happened to you."

"Well for now, I'm Tommy," the man that had looked into his eyes with the flashlight said. "These are my brothers, Jim," he motioned to the biggest of the three before turning to the skinny man on his other side, "and Jake."

"What's the first name that comes to mind for yourself?" Jake asked as the boy put the items back in his pocket.

The boy slowly pushed himself up so he was sitting as he mumbled, "Billy?"

"Well, Billy it is for now," Jim said with a smile.

"Billy, I wanna take you with me to work today," Tommy said. "I'm a nurse and I wanna get you checked over, okay? Concussions are not something to play around with."

"Okay," Billy said, an indescribable fear at the mention of a hospital. He took a breath, holding a hand towards the lump on the back of his head as it pulsated stronger at the movement.

"Is that where you got hit?" Tommy asked, walking around the bench to stand behind Billy.

"I guess so?" Billy said, unsure as he dropped his hand. He felt Tommy move his hair to get a better look at the bump, being careful not to touch it. He looked passed the two brothers to see they had the bench sitting on the end of the house's porch.

"I'm worried it might be infected, it's bruising but it's also a tad green," Tommy said.

Billy looked back at his arms, remembering those bruises to have green on them as well, only to be surprised at seeing his arms bruise free. "They're gone," he said.

"What's gone?" Jake asked.

"The bruises," Billy said, poking at his arm and finding no pain. "When I woke up I had bruises on my arms as well."

"Sure it wasn't just dirt?" Jim asked.

"Maybe?" Billy flicked his arms over, wondering if the bruises had been on the inside of his forearms but found the same peach colored skin.

"Well, let's get some food in you and then head off to work," Tommy said as he released Billy's hair and walked back around the bench. "Do you like pancakes, Billy?"

Billy dropped his hand to his lap and looked up at the nurse, not sure if he did or not.