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 Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:49 pm
He remembered nothing. They had told him upon waking, very slowly and in soothing tones, that he had been found with many other children in a clearing, and that he had been involved in an organ trafficking ring. Of course they were quick to say that he had all his organs once he started checking his body, but they told him for his own benefit that he would be staying in the hospital for a time as he recovered. Whatever had happened, all the children seemed to be drained and a few were suffering minor injuries. A therapist came to see him, making her rounds and asking him questions about what he remembered. He knew nothing, and while she probed softly with question about how he felt, he could see that she was wondering if something more was done to him. A bunch of kids winding up almost naked in the woods brought up very obvious concerns.
When she left to go to her next patient in the ward who would offer her nothing in regards to the mysteries of the incident, Remi questioned himself. He TRIED to remember, but was only left with ungraspable feelings he wasn’t sure he was sure he should be feeling or why he was feeling them. It was paranoia whenever a speaker in the hallway paged a doctor. It was seeing a nurse’s manicured nails that made him want to curl inward. It was looking at his tray of food and suddenly thinking that today was a good day to become a vegetarian. All of these things had no reason for why he thought or felt these things, but they gripped him nonetheless. Part of him said that he had suffered a traumatic experience, one which it was probably better NOT to know what happened just to keep his sanity. The other part was VERY pissed off. Here he had a unique experience and if he knew what had happened, he could have written about it! He wanted to know, not only so that he would write something serious, but because what he wrote probably would have had a lot of inspiring words and raw lessons about human nature.
Instead, he had amnesia and was laying in bed, sipping on a soda his sister left him. His family had visited, hugging him and telling him they hadn’t seen him for a year. They thought he was dead and here he was. There was lots of tears, and since he couldn’t remember being separated from them, he was just left being uncomfortable as they hugged and kissed him. His mother showered him with affection, promising to visit him as much as she could. His dad was happy, but he gave the same look the nurses gave him. One of pity over what he had gone though and what he might have been subjected to, and one of worry about how it would translate into his future behavior. The siblings that could come came and made their appearances, but no one had anything to say. Updates, apparently he was an uncle again, and given gifts that they could slip past the nurses. Abigail left him candy and soda, giving him a wink and saying that she knew how bad the food could be.
Still, with visiting hours being only go long and only able to handle his family’s question for a short time, he was left bored in his bed. His legs weren’t damaged, yet the nurses insisted he stay in his room. No arguing there. His gown really didn’t leave him the option of leaving. So there he was. Sitting in bed and flipping through channels as a notebook laid blank in his lap in hopes he would remember something.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 4:41 pm
After Azzo, Alessa was supposed to meet some Remington Montgomery guy. The first visit didn’t go too badly, fortunately, and she had good hopes that this one would go smoothly as well. After all, it was another boy her age, or close enough. Maybe he would even study at Meadowview as well.
The brunette enjoyed visiting patients because the help and company she provided made her feel like a useful, appreciated member of society. She never asked for more, as she had always feared being special and unloved. Even after being attacked by a youma, she found comfort in the fact so many other citizens had crossed a monster’s path recently too. Plus, it couldn’t possibly happen twice to the same individual, right?
Still, that organ traffic case... much scarier to deal with than monsters you could see coming from afar. Amnesia is probably the best thing that could have happened to the victims.
She knocked twice on Remi’s door. “Mister Montgomery?” she asked, “I’m Alessa David, and I’m a volunteer. May I come in?” She wondered if this one liked playing Scrabble, or else she’d be screwed again. Perhaps she should come up with game ideas more suited to teens, and not just older persons.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:20 pm
Out of everything that was on TV, nothing was holding his interest for long. Not until he happened on a soap opera that he was just about to change when a feisty blonde slapped a tall, tanned man in the face. It was while Domina was going to run off with Porter, even though she was the only organ donor for her sister and carrying her husband's child, when he hear the knock at the door. Startled, he shot out and turned off the TV, clutching his chest and gripping a ball of his nightgown as he caught his breath. It was one thing for HIM to know he was watching Days that Pass, but he wasn’t about to make the whole world know.
A volunteer? The thought made him press his lips tight, not liking the idea of someone getting their community service points by fumbling about him and thinking what a poor dear he was. It was one thing for the nurses to be here. They were hired and came in only by obligation to their jobs. If they didn’t have to give you the time of day, they wouldn’t. A volunteer was here by choice and that meant they probably had some idea of being a shining light to come and listen to his woes and troubles. Still, he couldn’t tell her to go away. That was just rude, and she sounded young.
“Come in!” Remi checked to make sure his gown was closed without revealing a leg or the side of his hip before pulling the sheet up to his stomach, pressing it neatly to give the appearance of a nice and proper patient. “Mr. Montgomery is my father’s name. Just call me Remi.” Upon looking up, he saw the girl was indeed his age, and a pretty thing at that. Smiling, he shuffled up more to sit straighter and set his hands in his lap. “Hello.” Volunteer or not, he wouldn’t mind if this girl patted his head and soothed what ailed him.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 3:25 am
Pushing the door, Alessa gave the patient a warm smile. “Hello! I hope you like cookies, I brought homemade ones!” The box she took out of her bag was identical to the one she gave to her previous visited student. That was starting to make a large amount of cookies, and indeed, the girl was contemplating just buying candy next time.
This time, however, no obvious centre of interest to talk about. Fortunately for Remi, she had no idea he’d been watching Days that Pass; it would have made things awkward for both. Her eyes scrutinized very quickly the bedside table and the bed in hope of finding a not-so-awkward topic…
… notebook detected! It was much less difficult for her to show interest in art. “Oh! Were you drawing?” she asked, walking around the bed to put the cookie box on the table.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 8:21 am
Cookies AND a Cutie. Well this was a very nice visit. Replacing a grin with a smile as to not appear too overjoyed, he leaned back and watched her move about. It was around now that he wished he was dressed in something more impressive than the pale gown he was wearing, but it could work to make him appear hurt and vulnerable. It was often said that some girls went for guys they could help out, and if the injured puppy angle really worked, he’s play that card.
“Of course I like cookies. It’s not mashed peas or a meat loaf from the cafeteria.” He eyed the box, wondering if they were normal cookies or the ones that people passed off as healthy. The last thing he wanted was something crammed with disgusting raisins or made from some sort of gritty grain mix. If she was bringing fiber into his diet, he’d be very disappointed.
While he was rather relaxed, he could tell that the other girl wasn’t. The room didn’t leave much in the way for cozy, what with it’s metal chairs lax of anything personal. The only thing that suggested this was his room was the cards and a vase of flowers (his mother’s idea of having something to perk him up) that was on the nightstand. Looking as Alessa put the box there, he felt embarrassed to have them out in the open.
If it wasn’t for the notebook, she might have talked about family, and he felt that this was the better topic. “Oh no. I can’t draw to save my life. Might try a doodle if I’m bored. I write. Well, trying too. Nothing really inspiring here in the room.” The white walls, blue curtains and lack of any real communication with the outside world really put a damper on one’s muse.
“Thought it might help the old noggin try and shake out a memory or something.”
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 12:30 pm
“Thought so! No mashed peas, no meat, just chocolate cookies. Nothing prevents you from eating them today, I hope…” Alessa had little to no experience with hospital food, but she was more than ready to believe it was a systematic attack against all digestive systems.
Oddly, hospitals weren’t a particular dislike of hers, perhaps because she did lack personal involvement with them. Her parents never had to spend more than a few hours there, she didn’t know if the rest of her family ever had to stay, and Alessa herself never had to stay more than a grand total of 28 hours in a room. As a future nurse, she lacked the personal drama intimately linked with the place for most other people.
But yeah, the room was still cold and lifeless.
The girl sat next to him. Surprised, she let out a “So you’re amnesiac too?” before wondering briefly about secrecy, but decided she was vague enough not to risk being blamed for anything. “It’s odd, another guy who was found also claimed to be amnesiac. Do you remember anything beyond one year-ish ago?” Since Remi seemed to be curious about his own past, she figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.
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Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 11:38 am
Being called an amnesiac was new for him. People like that forgot who they were, where they grew up, and where they were. He knew he was in a hospital, that he was Remi, and his childhood. It wasn’t like he didn’t know, it was that there was a gap. Actually, if no one had said he’d been gone for a year, that going to school in a place called Barren Pines was all made up, he would have never known. Waking up at a hospital had been very confusing for him. One day he was at school and the next he was here, being told that he had been missing for a year and that everyone thought he was dead.
“Actually, it doesn’t even seem like a year to me. I just think I was at school and then I woke up here with everyone telling me I’ve been missing. The whole in-between doesn’t even feel like a gap until someone tells you that there is a huge chunk of your life missing from your memory. The doctors say it’s all repressed due to trauma, but I would think I would remember something. Even if something bad was done, there had to be some downtime where I was just resting, a time where it wasn’t traumatizing, where I would have remembered a few minutes of that time. But nope. Nothing. Notta thing. Really wish I could shake something out. It’s driving me up the wall to not have the faintest idea what’s going on.”
He reached over and tipped the lid of the box, not shy about helping himself. Taking a cookie, he leaned back and inspected it before looking up at her. “So is it the same with the other kid? I heard that a whole mess of us came back, but I would have thought someone would remember something.” He took a bite of the cookie and found it really good. Now all he needed was some milk.
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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 4:07 am
Alessa listened to Remi intensely. It made sense to her that over such a period, it would be hard to simply grasp how long it could possibly have lasted. But it was hard to understand that in such a case, it would not just be like a blank, a black-out you’d be emerging from. How could one year suddenly disappear from his memories, as if it simply had never happened at all? Did he find himself one year older, from one moment to another?
She was about to suggest he may have been hit on the head, or have been given bad medication altogether, which could have destroyed the physical support of the memories, much like burning a manuscript would prevent any further access to what was written before. But she decided against it, as there was no way it would have made him feel better.
His question was answered rather vaguely as well: “He didn’t tell me much, but he didn’t seem to remember a single thing, either. Actually, he’s not even sure he remembers everything he’s learned in high school, and he’s just a bit older than me.” She appeared concerned. “I hope frankly it’s just the school experience itself that he forgot, and not the content of the courses. You do remember something about your previous school, right?”
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Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 9:57 am
It turned out that he wasn’t the worst case. The fact another kid couldn’t remember more and was missing some of his class lessons really troubled him. It made him worry about drug testing, physical trauma rather than a mental one, and those were things that seemed more permanent and less likely to be overcome than just forgetting something due to experiencing or seeing something terrible. You could get a shrink to help you through those. The human body, that was something that wasn’t that easy to fix. It made him wonder if there were even worse cases. Kids who either couldn’t remember their name or how to act properly in public, acting wild when a nurse approached, all flashed through his mind. He considered himself lucky.
“I can remember books I read before, and classes I went to. I even remember my school uniform, but I was told it wasn’t real. They never found any uniforms I described, I never went to any classes, and they said I never wrote any of the books I thought I did.” Talking like this made him seem more and more damaged in the head, and he reached up to ruffle his messy, blue hair for a moment, struggling to accept that what he felt was real in his mind was also fake. It left no real distinction to when the world was real and when he was kidnapped. “I also though I wrote a lot of books too, but that wasn’t real either. I guess I just made it up to work through the whole experience. Like making a fake persona, I just made up a fake life.”
Was he damaged for life now? Would he go to appointments to “talk” to someone every week to work through this? He didn’t like thinking he didn’t have all his marbles.
Move on. She’s going to think you’re a nut job.
“So where do you go to school?”
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 4:12 am
It was a pity to see a boy her age having lost so much, or rather, feeling like he’d lost so much. The oblivion was obviously better than the reminiscence of events related to organ stealing. However, the remembrance of things that never existed seemed like such a cruel and masochistic way to cope. “Perhaps… perhaps you could write these books for real, if you remember what they were about? If the stories were made up to start with, it’s not like you can’t re-imagine them again…” suggested shyly Alessa, obviously expecting nonetheless Remi to not even remember his subjects.
Poor guy, so young, and already aware there was a problem with his mind. At the very least, noticing the problem is the first step towards recovery.
Thank God, he preferred talking about something less depressing. “I’m at Meadowview! It’s rather nice, and actually, it’s only been a few months since I started going there.” Alessa tried to give Remi some hope. “It’s very nice! It wasn’t hard for me to get adjusted at all.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 6:49 am
Rewriting the books? Well, if they were fiction, then just creating another book would be fine, but the thing was, he only have a sense that he wrote several books, but not what they were about. That he felt like an accomplished writer, but had no idea what he wrote out to be accomplished. It was all rather aggravating.
“That’s great. I’m actually being enrolled in Meadowview. That’s really good too, since I had to convince my parents just to keep me from being home schooled. Love em to death, but I wouldn’t be able to handle them all the time and rid myself of normal people my age.” As far as he had seen, the home schooled kids never seemed to fit in as easily or as comfortably as the ones in normal schools, and he didn’t want to feel any more out of place than he already did.
“I guess I’ll see you around school then?” Having one familiar face would be nice, but it might be pushing it to expect her to give so much as a wave to him when it came to being at school. She was volunteering now, but in a school setting, talking to him would mean different things. If she was popular and he turned out not to be, then it would be damaging for her to talk to him. He hoped they were all on even ground when he started his first day.
“I hope no rumors start going about. I’m really friendly on any normal day, but who knows what’s being said in the papers.” If anything, he could say he was a transfer student from out of state. Making up a year of his life was better than being associated with organ trafficking.
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Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 1:16 pm
“Phew, I couldn’t stand being homeschooled, either… I literally wither away when I don’t see classmates on a daily basis.” Being an only child certainly didn’t help, either. Nor did the lack of cousins. Or family in general. “Hey, maybe we’re gonna be in the same class, actually… I could maybe help you with maths or history. The rest, well, I’ve got sufficient grades, so I’m not quite sure I could do much.” She freely admitted that her skills weren’t stellar; she was glad with managing not to fail any class, instead. In fact, her proposition would have been more useful if she had mentioned the name of the classmate who had helped her earlier this month…
The girl turned to him with a sincere smile, optimistic to the end. “I won’t say anything, I swear, and my friends aren’t the kind to spread rumors…” While she was telling the truth about herself, there was no way of telling if her acquaintances were as considerate as she was. Probably not. To be fair, she would probably do the same if she hadn't met the lost students.
Suddenly, her face lit up, illuminated by a sudden inspiration. “I could pretend you’re from my old school, or something! That’d make you pretty rumor-proof!” She looked at Remi expectantly, waiting for his reply. The idea sounded so silly and random she feared he’d flat out refuse, however.
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:57 am
Very few things were silly in Remi’s book. For a boy who believed in anything from ufos to fat-free cookies that might one day actually taste good, he was pretty open to all suggestions. The last thing he wanted was to enter a new school, a new classroom, and sit down to only have everyone talk. The idea of being asked the same questions and doctors, cops, and the local counselor all had asked and not knowing any of the answers to only repeat it in school was not something he liked to imagine. It was also a known fact that his future fellow students would not be as merciful as the concerned adults here. To have a way to avoid all of it was what he was looking for, and he sat up straighter at the suggestion Alessa gave was something simple but great.
“That would be great. I mean, I sort of know you now. We at least met. If we’re strangers, we can just say we haven’t’ seen each other in a long time and grew apart.” It was better than going up to the front of a classroom and saying ‘Hi my name is Remi Montgomery and I got amnesia after being lost for a year in a organ trafficking ring.’ That was not the first impression he wanted to give to his hopefully future friends. He REALLY needed friends right now. Normal, nice, friends.
“You don’t mind. What with lying and helping me in class?” This girl was awfully nice to complete strangers. Maybe it was being in a hospital bed that was tugging at her charitable heartstrings.
"I can help you in English. It's probably the only subject I'm good in."
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Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 2:21 pm
There was no such thing as being too charitable to someone stuck in a hospital bed for Alessa. Plus, hey, future classmate, perhaps? Such a small and harmless lie couldn’t possibly hurt her or anyone else, after all. “I’m surprised you agree with me! Then, it’s set. Remi Montgomery, normal transfer student.” What a weird, spontaneous plot. But it sure was a bit exciting to get to make up some story. Well, some boring story pretending nothing weird happened to him recently, sure, but still a completely fictional story, and Alessa was well-versed in normalcy.
She leaned forward to help herself with a cookie. “English? Alright then, but don’t feel obligated to help me” replied the brunette before taking a bite of her snack. “By the way, is there anything you need right now?”
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:34 pm
If he had been in her old school, he would have liked to think that he would have been friends with Alessa. The girl was free to give ideas and was pretty relaxed. Following her example, he took a cookie and leaned back. “I’ll agree to a lot of things if you let me. You have less fun saying ‘no’ all the time.” It was settled and he felt a great deal better about leaving the hospital and starting school in Meadowview.
As for what he needed, well, he already had a new friend. “Some milk?”
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