Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

Nothing made sense to him. From the first fleeting glimpses of shore across the crashes of the waves it hadn’t made sense to him. Time brought no epiphany or understanding, only more confusion and more chaos. His initial sensation, the first memory he had, was of darkness and the cold around him. Filling him.

Then suddenly there was light, soft orange light as he broke from the surface of the water and for the first time felt the air on his skin and drawn down deep into his lungs. Moments later he felt sand beneath his skin, knew suddenly there was such a thing as skin. He landed hard on the wet beach and stumbled into dry silken grit. There was warmth, sudden warmth and lashes of cold water as a wave rushed in behind him.

There were people – a young man and a young woman. They spoke to him and although he had never heard language before in his memory he suddenly knew what they were saying. They were speaking and wanted to know who he was. Like rifling through an empty drawer there was nothing. No name. No understanding of self.

He vaguely remembered language coming out of him, his mouth saying sounds in the words of English that he didn’t know who he was. Overloaded, he slipped back into darkness.

He didn’t know how much time had passed before he awoke next. His second memory, it was hard to believe it was his other only one in existence, was of feeling some soft fabric beneath his body. The word came to him, bed. He was in a hospital from the faint smell of disinfectant. When he opened his eyes the world was bright, white, clean. A world away from the very unsterile (beach) place in which he’d found himself in his first memory.

“Hola, senor.” A man had entered his room, a man in a white coat which he could remember was a doctor. It was a strange sensation to know all the words that described the things around him but unable to remember their context or if he’d ever seen them before in his life. His life which so far contained two memories. “Mi nombre es Ruez, soy tu medico. Puedes entender lo que estoy diciendo?”

He looked at him blankly for a moment, it took him a longer moment to locate the language was Spanish. The young couple on the beach had been speaking English. He had spoken English back to them.

“Can you understand me?” the doctor asked again in thickly accented English.

“Si,” the man found himself replying, “Te entiendo. Mi nombre es…” he searched briefly before giving up, “…No lo se. No me acuerdo.” He sighed, leaning back into the bed feeling a new sensation, that of frustration as he repeated in his own unaccented English, “I don’t remember.”

The doctor seemed content with his answer or at least knew enough that pushing him would not work. There were several days over which he found himself pacing his small room and being submitted to multiple tests and questionings. Doctors, policia, even the local news, all wanted to speak to him – whether in Spanish or English. The staff psychiatrist even wanted to sit down with him and discuss what he thought, what he felt; before assuring him that memories would come in time. That amnesia, a term he did not feel was right, was rarely forever and usually was a psychological block against trauma.

In their minds whatever event had happened to have him stripped and thrown into the Mediterranean Sea, it would equate to a trauma. He didn’t know how to form the words to tell them that it didn’t feel right – that everything felt new to him as if he was experiencing it for the first time. They wouldn’t listen, they didn’t know – so they thought they would tell him what they thought instead. None of it would help.

Quite quickly they’d established the known facts. He was male – that one was a fairly obvious and an easy observation to make. The doctors guessed he was somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties. His ability to understand both English and Spanish hinted that he was at least familiar with both cultures, though the ambiguity of his racial heritage left them unsure whether he was both. One student doctor had used the term ‘half-n-half’ and he’d heard him being shouted at later in the day. That was it. Blood tests, normal. X-rays normal. Dental records came up with no match – though the police never seemed particularly hopeful that they would. Fingerprints, similar.

By the third day, he was fed up and a new emotion began to emerge - frustration. He started to feel trapped, as though they were keeping him their prisoner because he was a man who didn’t exist. He began to feel like a ghost or a curiosity. There was no doubt that several times the nurses who hadn’t been on a shift in a while were brought to see him like some monkey in a zoo. He felt more like a lion in a cage.

On the morning of the fourth day, he awoke to find someone new in his room – someone he didn’t recognise at all. It was made all the stranger by the sensation of being pulled from a dream – the first he’d had. He could not remember the visual, if there had been any, only the sensation that he was being pulled towards something – drawn from his chest towards a siren call. Then it was gone and he awoke into sunlight already too intrusive into the room and to a strange man sat in the chair in the corner.

The man did not look like any of the doctors. He was paler skinned for a start with a beard that was less than a bush yet more than stubble, short brown hair that looked like the rustled tussle of a traveller. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands locked looking directly at him. The warm brown eyes were filled with one thing he’d not seen yet from anyone – recognition. And something else, something that looked like pain.

“Hi,” the man said. His accent was again different to all those he’d come across. English, vaguely northern – although those words came to his mind they meant nothing to him. It just felt right.

“Who are you?” he asked, sitting up fully on the bed and looking towards his intruder. He knew the words came out rude but he didn’t care – the man had after all been watching him sleep. Still, that look of recognition intrigued him to ask further, “Do you know me?”

“You could say that,” the man scoffed, though it seemed tinged with the same sadness. He looked away, took a breath and turned back to him, “The nurse let me in, I hope that was okay. My name is Dr Rick Carter...do you, uh, recognise me?”

He took it all in, the man before him. The man in blue jeans and a dark hoodie in what he’d gathered by now was southern Spain. He fought to remember something, anything, but instead was faced only with a simple truth. Another doctor.

“Doctor?” he asked, “Well I think I’ve had my fill of bloody doctors, so you can just…”

“No, I’m not one of your doctors,” the man, Dr Carter, told him, “I mean, I am a doctor, but it’s a PhD thing, none of that Grey’s Anatomy crap. And I’m making references you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about, so that’s back to normal.” The man seemed more nervous than ever, “Look, yes, I’m a doctor, yes I do the psychology thing – but I’m not here to psychoanalyse you or to heal you or anything. I’m just...” He fell back into silence for a moment before resuming, “Fancy going for a walk? I brought some human clothes because hospital gowns were made by a vengeful fairy. What do you say?”

Ben regarded him a moment longer to determine he was truly sincere, then accepted the clothes he was offered. Dr Carter gave him privacy to change and waited patiently outside his hospital room door until he was ready.

The new material of a simple t-shirt and pants felt good. Something new, something different. He’d roamed the grounds of the hospital before but this felt different. As if now he was doing it as a real person rather than a ghost in a hospital gown. Dr Carter led him through the day room where he saw the majority of other patients weren’t up yet; and to the large balcony which provided them with fresh air.

This morning it was warm already, the sun high in the sky and beating down on the both of them despite the relative shade of an awning. Dr Carter walked through the dry heat and leant against the stone railing, looking out across the city and the landscape that he, the man, didn’t recognise. It was as alien to him as anything else but had a certain urban beauty he’d come to appreciate over the previous few days.

They stood for a moment in the sunshine, hearing the sounds of the birds intermingle with the occasional shout from market stallers heading up to the main street. The breeze was soft but it was there, playing across their faces like ripples in a pond.

“Dr Carter…” he began.

“Rick, please,” Dr Carter interrupted, “Dr Carter makes me sound more like a douche than I deserve.”

“Rick, you said you know me,” he reminded him. “How?”

“We were...uh…friends,” Rick explained, though he could sense him holding back something. The words came out heavy, the thickness back to his tone for only a brief and fleeting moment. “We knew each other for eight years. More or less.”

“Knew?” he couldn’t help but pick up the tense and frowned.

“Look, there’s a lot that happened and I don’t think it’s too smart to take it all in at once,” Rick explained to him, his face still turned away to the city where he couldn’t see his eyes. He felt the hesitation and it frustrated him even more.

“Hell all I’ve had is three days of nothing,” he snapped, “Which is exactly what’s rattling around up here and that more than anything is too much to take. Tell me. Please.”

“Okay,” Rick nodded and finally he turned to look at him. The pain was back, stronger than ever. He suddenly realised the pain was for him, the man with no name. Rick didn’t just know him, he felt pain in seeing him. He felt something gnawing at the pit of his stomach, something a little like horror. “Your full name is Jose Benjamin Ramirez.”

“Two years ago you died in my arms.”