Chapter One

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he became aware of were trees rustling in a strong breeze. The second was the horn of a car, blaring at him as though from a great distance. He felt heavy, so when he turned to see where the sound was coming from, he didn't have the strength to move out of the way of the car skidding towards him. It crashed into him, flinging him over the hood, cracking the windscreen, then stopping abruptly, so he rolled off onto the road.

He just lay on the ground, staring up at the sky. It was bright blue, thin clouds scudded across it with the wind. Then, a car door slammed, and footsteps approached.

'Oh, my God, I'm so sorry!' It was a woman's voice. 'You just came out of nowhere! Don't move, I'll call an ambulance.'

Her voice brought him down to earth, and the wind died. Suddenly he felt pain. His legs and hip screamed, and scrapes tore up his hands and face. But the worst pain came from his head. It throbbed, deep and insistent, and he pressed it with his hands, groaning quietly.

'No, don't move,' the woman's voice said again, and her face swam into view. She had soft brown hair and light blue eyes. She looked scared, but something about the way she looked at him told him she was kind. 'What were you doing in the road?'

He opened his mouth, but his mind was blank. 'I don't know,' he said, caught by surprise by his own deep, gravelly voice.

It didn't take long for the ambulance to arrive, but by the time it did, the pain in his head had sharpened, almost to the point that he felt it would explode. He was so hot, he felt like his blood was boiling, and his skin burned. He let out a high-pitched whine when the paramedics shifted him onto a gurney, and the cracked windscreen shattered. The paramedics paid it no mind, however, and rolled him into the ambulance, strapping him down before closing the doors and speeding away.

'Hey, what's your name?' one of them asked.

He couldn't think past the pain, and shook his head.

'You don't know?'

'No,' he gasped.

'All right, let's just get you there.'

He clenched his jaw, waves of pain racking his body.

At the hospital, he was run through a battery of tests, but they found no broken bones, and the pain in his head began to fade as the sun went down.

He was undressed, then dressed again in a hospital gown, and left alone in a quiet room while the doctors tried to decide what to do with him.

An older man came into his room and sat in a chair next to his bed.

'Hello,' he said kindly. 'I'm just going to ask you a couple questions, okay?'

He shrugged. 'Are you a doctor?'

'I am,' said the man. 'This is just to test your memory. Are you ready?'

'I think so.'

'All right, can you tell me your name?'

He thought about it, and felt it on the tip of his tongue, but the name wouldn't come. 'I - I don't know,' he said.

The doctor nodded. 'Do you know where you are?'

'I'm in a hospital.'

'Good. Do you know which one?'

'No.'

'Do you know what town you're in?'

'No.'

'What state?'

'No.'

The doctor stopped briefly to write some notes.

'Do you know what year it is?'

A hazy idea crossed his mind, but it was gone as soon as he tried to grasp it, and shook his head.

'Do you know who the president is?'

'President? Of what?'

The doctor's eyebrows shot up. 'Okay, then there's this.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. A hole had been burned right through it. He pulled the cards out from inside, and showed that they all had the same hole. He handed them over.

'Do you know what could have caused this?'

He shook his head, examining the cards. Any identifying information was destroyed, but a couple of them still showed parts of his face.

'And then there's this,' said the doctor. He reached into his white coat and pulled out a silvery blade that flashed in the light. It looked sharp and deadly.

He felt a stirring in his mind, and his heart rate sped up.

'We found this in your coat,' he said, gesturing at the tan trench coat that had been draped over another chair. 'Do you know why you would have something like this?'

'I - I -' Pain shot through his head again, and all of a sudden, his skin felt too tight, and his stomach cramped so tightly he almost threw up. He wrapped his hands around himself and began shivering.

The doctor dropped the blade and moved to examine him, flashing a small light in his eyes and taking his temperature, but as quickly as it had begun, the pain and shivering stopped. The doctor straightened with a sigh. 'We'll monitor you overnight, and see where we are in the morning. We'll get you some food. Try and get some rest.'

The doctor left and he was alone again.

He sat up in bed, holding the wallet carefully in his hands, then swung his legs around the side of the bed. The floor was cold under the soles of his feet, but he bent to pick up the blade that had rolled under the bed. It felt oddly familiar, so he took it and the destroyed wallet, and wandered over to his clothes. He carefully tucked them both into the pockets of his coat. For all he knew, these were his only possessions in the whole world. He checked the pockets himself, but the only other thing he found was a crumpled receipt that seemed to be from a diner, showing an order of two burgers and one apple pie, paid in cash. It was old, and the print was faded, so he couldn't see the date, nor the name of the diner. A dead end. He sighed and went back to bed. His limbs were still heavy, and he could feel his eyelids drooping.

The blanket was thin and didn't do much for the cold, but he was too tired to care, and let himself drift off to sleep.

His dreams were quiet at first, full of mist and barely audible whispers, but then he was standing back to back with a man he didn't recognise. He was wearing the tan coat and holding the blade in his hand. Someone screamed and yelled. There was blood, and a gunshot, then he shot awake, breathing heavily. The pain in his head and the cramping returned, and he groaned quietly, curling up in a ball until it subsided. A sandwich and a cup of water had been left on the tray next to him. He wasn't hungry, but he ate the sandwich anyway, reasoning that he should keep his strength up. He didn't know what would happen next, but it scared him to think too much about it, so he went back to sleep once the sandwich was finished.

He woke up several times in the night after hazy nightmares, and come morning, he was sweating and nauseous. His skin was burning again, and the doctors decided not to discharge him yet, uncertain as to where the fever was coming from.

Half way through the day, during a moment the fever had gone down, there was a knock at the door. He looked up and saw a familiar face.

'Hey,' she said shyly, holding a small bouquet of flowers.

He squinted, trying to place her.

'I - uh - I'm the one that hit you,' she said. 'Can I come in?'

He nodded, and she awkwardly walked over to him, placing the flowers on his bedside table.

'I just came to see how you were doing.'

He shrugged. 'The doctors say you didn't do too much damage with your car. Just some bruises.'

The relief was clear on her face. 'Good. That's good.' She hesitated, then held out a hand. 'I'm Daphne.'

He shook her hand with a polite smile.

'Um… and you are?'

He shrugged. 'Your guess is as good as mine.'

'Oh.' She shifted from one foot to the other. 'Okay, um, yeah cool, I just came to see if you're okay, and you are - I'm sorry, by the way - so… I'm gonna go. Sorry. Again.' She gave a little wave before backing out of the room.

He waved back, then looked at the flowers she had brought. Daisies and sunflowers. Sunflowers were his favourite, he remembered. Someone had once given him a sunflower. The memory shuddered through him, but then it was gone, and his eyes unfocused. He absentmindedly ran a finger across the yellow petals. 'Pretty…' he murmured. Then the fever returned, burning him from the inside out.

The next day passed in a haze of hot and cold, and feeling as though his insides were trying to escape his skin. To his surprise, Daphne came to visit again that day, and the day after that.

No one other than Daphne came to see him. No one came to claim him, tell him who he was or where he came from.

On the fourth day, his fever broke, and though the doctors still did not know the cause, they deemed him fit enough to leave and discharged him. His own clothes were dirty and bloodstained, another mystery that frightened him, so he was provided a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. He swung his coat around his shoulders and wandered away from the hospital entrance.

With nowhere to go, he sat at the bus stop for a while, breathing in the fresh air. He tried to come up with a plan, but his mind was sluggish and blank. Hours passed while he sat there quietly. No one paid him any mind until a car pulled up and the window rolled down.

'Hey, I was just coming to see you. What are you doing out here?'

'Hello, Daphne,' he said. 'I've been discharged.'

'Oh. Are you waiting for a bus? I could give you a ride.'

He shrugged. 'I don't know where to go,' he said, strangely calm.

Daphne hesitated. 'Well, why don't you come with me?'

He stared at her. 'You don't know me.'

'You don't know you,' she pointed out.

He could only agree, but he was still wary. He thought about it, and eventually came to the conclusion that it was either go with her, or stay at the bus stop.

'All right,' he said, climbing into her passenger seat.

'You still don't know your name, huh?' Daphne asked as she pulled away from the bus stop.

He shook his head.

'Well, I can't keep calling you "hey", so we'll have to come up with something.'

He shrugged.

'How about Emmanuel? That's a nice name. Manny for short?'

He rolled the name around in his mind. It felt ill-fitting, but Daphne was right, he had to be called something.

'Manny it is,' he smiled.

Daphne beamed and drove him to her place.

'It's not much,' she said bashfully, letting him in, 'and I've only got a couch for you to stay on.'

'It's better than a bus stop.'

'True… Well, I've got some clothes my ex left behind that you can have. We'll get a good meal in you, then we can figure out where to go from here.'

'Works for me,' said Manny.

Daphne made him a bowl of mac and cheese, and he ate it gratefully. He wasn't hungry, but it was nice after days eating sandwiches and tasteless vegetables.

Once they were done, she got up and took his bowl from him. 'Okay, I have to go to work,' she said, grabbing her keys. 'Uh… Don't steal anything?'

Manny shook his head. 'I would never,' he said, oddly certain of it.

She smiled at him. 'Okay, well I guess I'll see you later. Hey, maybe I can get you a job, have you ever been a server?'

'Um…'

'Right, right. Bye.'

She left him alone in silence, and he wandered around the apartment. There were lots of plants and two doors. One led to a bedroom, the other to a small bathroom, with a full length mirror in one corner. He pulled off his clothes and examined himself in the mirror, looking for any sign or mark that might give him some clue to his history. All he found was smooth skin. He leaned in close to look at his face. It seemed familiar, blue eyes and messy dark hair, but it too didn't seem to fit right. Then the pain in his head returned, his eyes watering, and his stomach cramped. He dropped to his knees, gasping for breath, and ended up curled naked on the bathroom floor. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it should concern him, but the thought soon faded.

The pain had drained him however, so he tiredly put his clothes back on and shuffled over to the couch. He lay down, and closed his eyes, but the moment he did, he was assaulted by whispers and swirling lights.

'No,' he groaned, pressing his hands over his eyes. The lights faded, and the whispers trailed off. All but one. It sounded familiar, but a deep dread filled him upon hearing it.

'Cas.'

Manny covered his ears and blocked it out, until it too was gone. Calm spread through him, and the whispering became a distant thought. As he drifted off to sleep, the thought slipped away, and when he next woke, he had no recollection of it at all.

Hello, welcome! So I'm not sure how much I'll be updating this one, with all the other stories I have going, but the idea was burning a hole in my brain and I had to let it out. Anyway, hope you enjoyed and I'll be back at some point.