Jack watched the abrupt old man stride out of the room, while the young lady placed a bowl on a table next to the bed before seating herself on a chair in the corner of the room. He struggled to sit up, fighting the pain in his side, finally just managing to prop himself up on his right arm. “So weak!", he thought.

With effort, he smiled at the girl sitting silently in the corner. "Let's try again. I'm Jack, pleased to meet you!" he said, emphasising his name by gesturing at himself. In response, all he got was a somewhat irritated glare and a fleeting frown, before she pulled out an egg shaped orb from a pocket and then just sat there, apparently entranced by what - to Jack - looked like nothing more than a pretty rock.

"Well they're not the friendliest bunch, but they don't seem to mean any harm." he thought, as he all but collapsed back into a prone position.

His stomach rumbling, he reached out to the bowl and picked up the first fruit he could feel. Expecting something mundane; an orange or an apple perhaps, he stared at the object in his hand in confusion. It resembled nothing so much as a tomato, slightly smaller than his fist, and utterly featureless. Just a round, shiny red orb. A heavy, shiny red orb. Why was everything in this dream so heavy?

He sniffed at it, but could tell nothing from the smell. Shrugging mentally, he took a tiny nibble of the fruit and found it to be slightly sweet and peppery. The inside of the fruit was a solid mass, no seeds or pips. So not a tomato, but tasty. Finally, his hunger got the better of his caution and he took a large bite from the strange fruit.

Then darkness descended on him as it felt like his whole body was burning up from the inside out...

Jun obediently sat on the chair in the guest room, more than a little displeased to be saddled with looking after this savage looking boy that the villagers had dragged to her uncle. She was supposed to be studying, learning all that her uncle had to teach her about law and governing.

She did not share his gift for healing, but that wouldn't disqualify her from one day standing in the election to become a town elder!

She was startled by movement from the bed, seeing the boy raise himself up to look at her before muttering, well, something. She couldn't discern any intent from the gibberish he was sprouting, which meant it was most likely just empty noise. And why was he patting himself on his chest? If he wasn't a savage, he was at the very least an imbecile! An imbecile taking up her valuable study time!

She glared at the boy briefly before fishing out one of the orbs of learning she kept on her at all times and immersed herself in it. It was about farming, but if she were to be an elder one day she needed to have all kinds of knowledge pertinent to keeping their town prosperous.

She was dimly aware that the boy had picked up one of the fruits she had scrounged up at short notice, and that he had nibbled on it, as was the proper way of eating it.

Then she looked up in shock as the idiot took a huge mouthful! He truly was an imbecile, didn't he know that the vitality of the fruit would overwhelm him? A single small nibble alone would be enough to satiate a grown man for a time!

She quickly checked that the idiot was still breathing, before dutifully going to let her uncle know what had occured. What a waste of her valuable time!

The elder examined the unconscious Jack, and decided that other than a mild fever brought on by the fool eating too much there was no immediate danger.

In fact, he was quite surprised to find that the boy was coping with the energy released by the fruit remarkably well! Most adults would have been wracked with vomiting and severe stomach cramps after daring to take such a large bite, but this boy was merely passed out. Curiouser and curiouser...

He returned to his study and sat in meditation, bringing to mind anything he could remember about cases where patients had been found to have little to no vitality, or to talk without any discernible intent. How could the boy be alive with such low vitality that even a sickly newborn would have more of? And all intelligent creatures, man or otherwise, should be able to convey at least some intent when communicating!

Was the boy playing an elaborate joke and just making meaningless noise in place of talking? Otherwise the lack of intent could only mean that the boy was truly an idiot, with no intelligence. Truly an animal in a human shell.

Between the lack of intelligence, vitality and the sheer frailty of the boy he could only conclude that the boy was, in fact, nothing more than a cripple.

Awareness came, rousing Jack from a tormented slumber where he dreamed of the void, into a state where he was, barely, able to feel like his whole body was burning up; before moving on without fully waking him. For days, he lay there in a fitful slumber punctuated by moans of discomfort.