The boy lays motionless in bed.

His eyes trying to make sense of his surroundings, the doctor and nurses examine him slowly and carefully, in their eyes he could disappear at a moment’s notice. Meanwhile the boy is puzzled, trying to figure out what “Doctor” means, he knows the word but not its meaning, it lingered in his mind, and this bothers him deeply, his face contorting inwards showing his anger as he tries harder to understand, and a headache suddenly hits him.

The words in his head come together to make sense of his surroundings, slowly the boy in the bed starts to remember, each object around him making sense, but not helping him understand.

The boy tries to get up but his legs are frozen in place, and his arms feel like they were glued to the bed, making any movement sluggish.

The nurses keep their gazes on him, afraid that he could collapse or have an episode, their faces clearly show worry and pity, to them this was a miracle, yet they could not stop themselves from feeling pity by how much the boy has lost.

Questions started to be thrown out by the doctor, at first the questions are for the nurses who try their best to answer quickly and coherently as to not waste any of the doctor’s time, the questions for the nurses weren’t too many, and soon the doctor finished questioning the nurses, he changed his attention to the patient that laid in the bed.

The doctor is already looking in his direction, and a question is quickly shot towards the boy with no remorse.

“Do you know where you are?” asks the doctor, not expecting a swift answer while looking down at his clipboard, knowing that this would take time.

“Where am I?” says the boy in the bed.

No one in the room expected an answer, much less for the answer to the question to be another question, not even the boy in the bed himself who is surprised by his reflex like question.

It wasn’t clear to anyone else the amount of effort it took for the boy in the bed to speak out. He is still trying to understand the question asked by the doctor and yet he had spoken out a question of his own.

‘what is where?, here? what does that mean?’, He finds himself struggling to mentally process what it means to be in a place.

Dr.Park answers the question of the patient after the moment of silence,

“A hospital in Anchorage, Alaska”

The boy has no clue of what ‘Alaska’ is, yet he began to make a shape in his head. But he gives up on knowing its meaning, meanwhile the rest of the words asked by the doctor now start to make more sense to him, he was deciphering every word very fast, but as for how he is doing it remains a mystery to him.

“I don’t know where I am” he answers, feeling defeated.

“Do you know what date it is?”, asking this question the doctor looks unworried, as if every answer he was going to get after this small conversation was within his expectations, like it was standard procedure, the doctor remained unmoved unlike the nurses around him.

“I don’t know”, says the boy in the bed, tension slowly starts to raise in his head.

“Do you have any family members?” Was quickly asked right after by Dr.Park.

“I don’t know”, Repeated the patient.

“Do you know your name?” the doctor now quickly throwing out questions towards the patient, not even bothering to write down ‘I don’t know’ as an answer in the paper he holds.

“No”, says the patient dejectedly.

All these questions where unfamiliar to him, what date it was?, He doesn’t know. Family members?, he doesn’t know how to answer and even less its meaning, yet the question itself stings at him in the chest for no apparent reason, but why?. Name?, did he ever have one? he could not recall.

He starts to feel pensive, ‘What am I doing here?’, he thinks to himself, only questions start to fill up his mind.

Suddenly, one question that made his heart skip more than a single beat was thrown.

“Do you know why you are here?”, the doctor’s tone suddenly changed, his eyes now focusing on the patient instead of the paper for the first time since the questioning began, as if the question had more meaning than it was meant to have, or was he overthinking?.

The thoughts of the patient stopped, he finds himself panicking, pressure from each and every muscle fiber pushing inwards, his brain is pulsating now, guts feel like its coming out of his mouth and breathing becomes impossible. He wants to respond to this question, like it was his mission to do so yet he couldn’t.

Something very important was missing from his head, something he was not allowed to forget, the answer to the question asked by the doctor is the answer to his existence, and he has forgotten it.

“Mina, get some tissues, lets postpone the questions for later, his current diagnosis is simply Post-Traumatic Amnesia”, the doctor calmly said as he was leaving the room with his clipboard.

The eyes of the boy in bed is filled with water, today he learned something new, that when feelings become overwhelming , water comes out his eyes.

Why is he crying?, because to him, he lost his reason to exist.

____________________________________________________

[Dr.Park, Darl Park Gumzoo, Doctor in Anchorage General Hospital, Neurologist ]

A few days have passed by and he isn’t feeling any better, he continues crying in that room as if something is shred from him.

The nurses keep asking if I can do anything for him, but the only answer i could give them is to wait some more time, wait and hope to find any family members alive, my worry was to find any disabilities he could have developed from being in a coma for 10 years, knowing exactly how to help this patient is currently very difficult, I am not a family member that can help him freely out of goodwill, so I am coming up with new ideas.

I hope that after a while he can pick himself up, we have to start rehabilitation right away.

Karlin was the nurse I asked to take care of this patient through rehabilitation, after knowing her for so long I could place my trust in her.

Probably the most caring nurse in the entire hospital, she has been working here for almost 20 years, and by far the most qualified nurse in this hospital in my eyes.

As for my game plan, I will have to figure it out as I go, but I hope to see him walking out of this hospital soon enough.

Who knows?, he still seems young.

A young boy chasing his dreams after being in a coma for 10 years?, boy who wouldn’t wanna see such story end in beautiful success?.

____________________________________________________

The crippled boy now sitting on a wheelchair

Being pushed by a fragile and kind seeming nurse down one of the many white halls, warmth is radiating from her.

The legs of the boy still weak, but his arms and fingers became easier for him to move than before.

Every now and then he would see patients, barely any who looked young.

This place is very silent,but to him it was screaming with emotions, he could feel the entire area, the emotions he felt were strong, yet calm.

The only sound he could hear is the wheels from the long lived wheelchair he was sitting in, it makes him wonder how many people had sat in the same chair, and just how many are still here now?, how many still alive?.

After being brought to destination, the grin of a boy wakes him up from this thought, the nurse closes the doors behind him, and with it his previous thoughts are closing as well.

The doctor was the first to speak.

“Nice to see you again, the nurse who has brought you here is Karlin, she will be in charge of taking care of you during your rehabilitation, she will also help you recover while we look for any family members of yours, or until you are able to rejoin society and able to find a path on your own”

Unfamiliar words were said to the crippled boy, but he is calmly and quickly beginning to understand them.

‘Rehabilitation?, What is society?, and why should I be part of it?’ the boy thinks to himself.

“Because society is who we are”, says the doctor that is now standing in front of him.

The boy in the wheelchair had thrown his thoughts out from his mouth unknowingly.

But there is something in what the doctor said that did not become any easier to understand compared to anything that was said before.

“Then who am I, who are you, and what are we?”, said the crippled boy.

“You are Hanniel Lennon, I am Dr.Park, and we are humans”, responded Dr.Park.