Rex doesn't remember how he got to Hong Kong. He doesn't even think that it's odd that he's here until he realizes he's mostly speaking Spanish, not Chinese.
On particularly maddening days, he will stretch his memory as far back as it will go, until his head pounds and he is breathless from concentrating, but the first thing he can recall is a damp alley in Hong Kong. There's nothing else.
No images of Mexico or America, nothing.
Just...an alley.
That part, at least, he remembers well.
.
.
.
.
(6 months ago)
It's dark and damp in the alley, with only faint red lights above to see by.
There's a broken bike, crumpled like paper by his feet. A soft rattly noise overhead is made by a kitty balloon tangled in telephone wires.
An air conditioner on the wall has stopped spinning and he stares at it, numbly, without knowing why.
It's raining – or it was, the puddles around him evidence enough – but he doesn't move. He doesn't know where he'd go.
He doesn't know where he is.
It feels like he has just popped into existence, then and there, with no prior experiences with living. But no, that's not right...
He doesn't know nothing, exactly, and he thinks that if he had just appeared from nowhere he wouldn't know up from down.
He knows up from down. He knows that he is cold, shivering in his worn t-shirt. He knows that if he stays cold for too long, bad things will happen – he will get sick.
He knows he is alone and he is scared. He knows, knows like it is carved into his bones, that he isn't supposed to be alone. There are people supposed to be with him, or looking for him at least.
It takes a long, shivering moment for him to find the word he wants. For a second he thinks he is crazy, that there is no such word at all – then it comes to him, shooting through his core.
Parents.
He's supposed to have parents.
But he has nothing on him except dirty, mud-stained clothes and shoes with holes in them. Nothing in his pockets except misery and confusion.
There is nothing and no one to tell him what to do, where to go.
So cold, alone, and bewildered, he stands in the alley and waits.
Ten minutes later, he realizes his name is Rex.
Twenty minutes later, Rex starts to cry.
That first night he sleeps in an old, smelly abandoned building.
He has no watch, no way of telling how long he spent blinking cluelessly in the alley, but sometime after the shivers became constant and his teeth began to chatter is when he left.
The sky didn't change. It was dark when he 'began' (he thinks he likes that better than 'popped into existence' – has a certain poetry to it) and it's dark when he finds a crumbling, boarded up building that looks a bit warmer than outside.
So maybe it's been an hour. Maybe it's been a day – he has no idea. How do you tell such things?
His first night he picks his way through broken bricks and old floors and a couple of rats and he sleeps curled up in the cleanest, warmest corner he can find, head against his knees and arms clutched close.
It takes a long time to get to any actual sleeping though. Mostly, he thinks.
He wonders if he's supposed to be somewhere warmer right now. He wonders if there's a home – and oddly enough he can picture such a thing, clean and bright and filled with warmth – that's waiting for him to return to it.
But if so, no one told him. He thinks he has to have a mother and father, is starting to realize that people don't magically appear in alleys, but he is confused.
Wouldn't he know if he has parents? Wouldn't he recall their faces and names and jobs and hobbies?
He cannot have begun, as he likes to put it, this very night. That is pure fiction. Yet there is nothing in his head. He is as empty as...as what? As empty as his belly is of food, he suddenly decides, a bit pleased with himself.
He doesn't remember ever living before, being hungry before.
What were you supposed to do when you were hungry? He wonders.
Sitting there, still shivering slightly, Rex wracks his brain and thinks and thinks, but all that comes to him is the same word as before:
Parents. Parents gave you food. Too bad he's fresh out of those.
Another idea trickled down the back of his mind, and he almost laughs at it's simplicity.
Money. Money could get you food just as well as parents, even though he isn't sure where he learned that.
Sadly, he thinks as he glances down at his empty pockets, he has no money, either. He has absolutely nothing.
Surely there are supposed to be people who could help him with these things? He thinks. Surely he won't stay lost forever.
There are also things such as ID's and wallets, something tells him, but again, he doesn't have them. But...but. There are adults, police, who are meant to help him if he gets lost.
He isn't sure how he knows that either. Although, that sounds like a good plan, finding police, but he doesn't know how to.
The information feels jumbled up in his head, mixing around like one of those lottery wheels where you stirred around paper numbers; all the information is there, but it's random what comes out and when.
Slowly, a few things slide back into his brain.
911. Something whispers in his head.
Yes! Right! There are numbers you can call when you're in trouble – but he slumped down, defeated. He has no phone. There are people you can ask, people who answer the number probably – but where are they, he wonders?
He thinks someone is meant to explain how to do these things to him, how to live and survive, because otherwise how do other people do it?
He doesn't know. He just doesn't know . A sigh gusts from him. He is sure the night hasn't past and already he is so tired of not knowing.
That's his last thought before exhaustion takes over and he drifts into troubled, bewildering unconsciousness.
Day is just as perplexing and terrifying as night, only there's more light. He stumbles on cracked sidewalks and travels the City (he doesn't remember if he knew that word the First Night, but it comes now easy enough, though no name follows 'The City'), following crowds and lit signs and voices.
It's unnerving, the way he's ignored(1). People avoid looking at him at all costs – and even when they are caught in his gaze, they give him a fake smile that looks painful and dash away quickly.
He feels like a ghost.
He's not acknowledged, except to be avoided, he's not bumped into, least not often, and he knows he can reach out and touch someone but they glare at him if he does. It's more horrifying than being an almost-ghost, so he doesn't. Not after the first time.
They don't wish to help him. They can't help him, he realizes eventually, because nobody is making sounds that he understands.
Half-an-hour goes by (there's a clock outside a shop that he watches) and he wonders if they are insane or he is, to talk in a way no one else does.
Eventually, though, he bumps into a woman that looks different from the rest, and what she says is perfectly clear to him.
She tells him that she is in a rush, can't help him, and do his parents always let him talk to strangers?
He's just happy he's not crazy.
It's a different language he realizes, with a little laugh to himself. He's not sure why he couldn't summon the word before. It's certainly not hard now.
That evening he sits on a bench, holding a piece of food he'd stolen from the trash, and listens as people stride by. Listening helps – he's beginning to realize that he doesn't fit in in this city, but doesn't yet comprehend why.
They are Chinese. Or Asian or something – but they're definitely speaking something like Chinese. The word fits comfortably on his tongue and following closely behind is the connected word, 'English'.
He speaks English (and Spanish). They speak Chinese. Why hadn't he known that before?
It hits him that he doesn't belong here if he can't speak the language and he wonders where he does belong.
Unfortunately, this...isn't something that ever comes back to him. Not like the words.
But Rex never does stop looking.
The cup of tea his hands are curled around is cold, it's warmth faded hours ago, yet he holds it still.
He stares into the dark liquid but doesn't see it, really, and wonders how he can still feel heat on his fingers.
"Are you alright, kid?" Asks the waitress, concern swirling in her deep black eyes. Everything feels dark here – all the people have scowls and turn their dark heads away, and surely night is night everywhere, but it feels lonelier here, with less light than ever. Yet somehow, despite her ink-blue uniform, she seems full of light.
He tries not to think about how he's brown brown brown in this new world of two colors, like he's a normal person that just stepped into a black-and-white movie.
"I...I'm fine." He stammers, then blinks and swallows. The words taste strange – he's still so new to this conversation thing. Yes, he spoke with the stranger, before (and don't you need to speak to order tea?), and surely he's been taught how by a person (mother, father, sister, brother), yet he can't recall it. Words still feel so fresh and awkward on his tongue.
"Thank you..." He tests his voice slowly. "For the tea."
Somewhat bewildered, the girl gives him a smile and ignores the fact that he hasn't drunken a sip of it.
"You're welcome." There's a sort of mumble on the 'r' and maybe the 'l' too, hinting that this isn't her native language.
Perhaps that's why most people don't look at him or even try to talk with him, he theorizes – none of them speak his language. Indeed, as he breathes and blinks and remembers that there's a whole other world outside of his confused mind, he hears sounds, words, conversations that don't makes sense.
Some remind him of places he's never been, of pictures he's never seen, and it's with a very dry gulp that he wonders when this will hit him fully. This whole...not-knowing-anything thing.
So he attempts to distract himself.
"I'm..I'm Rex." He tells her, then frowns, momentarily lost in the pause that should've been his last name. Doesn't he have another name? Don't most people have one? He wonders.
Unaware of this, she gives a little head bob that could've become a bow it was so deep; yet she seems to stop herself half-way and grins.
"Rex. Latin for 'king'. That is an odd name for someone so lost."
He looks up at her. Perhaps this is the distraction he wanted, but...it catches him off-guard.
She offers him a smile, seeing his bewilderment.
"Mai-Wen Ning. I study Latin. And English. And many, many others. I am interested in languages and meanings of things."
"Oh." Is all he can say at the semi-speech. This new information looks odd compared with the person before him – a minimum wage worker, dressed in a cheesy maid dress, oily hair escaping confinement.
It's difficult to completely separate intelligence and appearance, he learns, and it's only early in the game but already he doesn't think he's doing very well. He's not doing good with anything, really.
"That's why...you're the only one who'll talk to me?" He's not sure if it's a question or a statement, but she answers anyway.
"Yes. Many people who come through here," She gestures over the bar at the booths beyond. "Know many languages, but English is not often among them(2)."
"Oh." He says again.
"If you do not mind..." She begins, and there's a hesitance in her voice that makes him pause. Still, she's been nothing but kind, if certainly not interesting.
"Yes?"
"If you do not mind, what is it that you are doing here...alone?"
Somehow his heart is caught in his throat and he can't breathe. There's something wrong with him, the room is spinning, he should sit down – no, he's already sitting down. Should he stand up? No, no that's silly.
But why can't he breathe, he needs to breathe, isn't that important?
Distantly, he can hear Mai-Wen talking on and on like it matters still, when he's obviously suffocating right in front of her.
"...not many young ones travel by themselves. You are but a child, surely there is someone worried about you?"
Perhaps she means her words to be kind. In his awful, grey, oxygen-less haze, he only feels slicing, stabbing pain blood at her questions and implications.
Because he is alone. And he doesn't know why. He never knows why.
Right now, he doesn't know anything more than this pain.
He is so, so lonely, and so incredibly overwhelmed with grey and depression. It's not fair, all of him is screaming. The girl is right after all – he's only a child, and he is horribly, massively irrevocably, lost lost lost.
Maybe that's why he's been sitting here for so long. Maybe he's waiting to be found.
They have to kick him out two hours later. It's closing time, they tell him. Maybe in apology, Mai-Wen puts a new paper cup of tea in his trembling hands as she guides him outside. She says something about parents and police, and he nods distantly when he feels her worried gaze on him. He has no idea what she asked.
Later, he stumbles back to the same crumbling building that second night, not knowing where else to go. He curls up to sleep in the back, tea clutched like a stuffed animal in his hands.
He still can't breathe.
(1) Note that this does not necessarily reflect the actual nature of the Hong Kong people towards strange, smelly, homeless eleven-year-olds. ^^ I'm just using them to be mean to Rex some more.
(2) I've read that while government officials (like police) know conversational English, most citizens in Hong Kong know very little, if any, English. And if that's actually incorrect...well just pretend that in this alternate world that fact is totally true. :)
A/N: So I hope this wasn't too OOC. I like to research amnesia (weird hobby, yes) and in most retrograde amnesia cases, they cannot remember the first few hours after they woke up. So in this, Rex probably turned into his giant build thing (for reasons) then eventually wandered to this part of Hong Kong. He just doesn't recall it.
Also, in many amnesia cases, they can have trouble remembering even simple concepts like 'wife'. That's why in this Rex is struggling to remember things like 'parents' and even 'oh hey I'm speaking a different language than everyone else'.
Fun fact: Rex's first memory is derived from what he remembers in the canon Hong Kong episode.
Phew. This is kinda a long, rambling author's note, iddn'it?
Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!
Replies to Reviews:
YellowAngela: Thanks for the review! I had no idea you knew Cantonese! That is really freaking cool!
And yes, you're right - Chinese and Cantonese are SO not the same thing. I wanted to put mostly Cantonese in this story, seeing as it's the main language of Hong Kong and all, but you might be surprised at how hard it is to find translations for Cantonese. Really, I could only find Chinese (...the main dialect? Sorry, I'm very ignorant of Chinese languages) and that is mostly just from Google Translate.
I've probably already offended Spanish speakers with Rex's awful Spanish (although that is sorta excusable since it's canon) and I apologize for my absolutely zero knowledge of Chinese and Cantonese, but hey! Feel free to correct away. I appreciate it!
Hope you keep reading ^^
Guest: Aw, thanks! Hope you keep reading!