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Concussion seemed more and more likely with every passing second.

But, strangely enough, when Jesse shone the light in the guy’s brown eyes, his pupils reacted normally, and when Jesse carefully pushed the man’s shoulder-length dark brown hair off to the side to look for any visible cuts or bruises, he found none.

He was also starting to calm down, which made it easy to note that he wasn’t acting particularly dizzy or sick, and he didn’t seem to be in any pain either—meaning he didn’t likely have any broken bones or internal bleeding.

What the hell had happened?

Nate returned after a few minutes, his lips pursed and a troubled frown on his face as he cast a suspicious look towards the stranger. “Nothing out of place,” he informed Jesse. “I can’t find any sign of an accident, no trouble, and definitely no other injured.”

“Well, something has to have happened,” Jesse said. “He’s covered in blood and he looks like he was in a fire.”

“That’s the thing, what fire? ” Nate pointed out.

“It’s a clear blue sky out; if there were any kind of fire around here, we’d see the smoke—especially if it was bad enough to do all that, ” he indicated the singed, scorched robe the stranger was wearing.

“Seriously, kid, what happened? Where’d you come from?

How’d you end up like this? Whose blood is that? ”

The young man shifted his weight, giving Nate another apprehensive, wide-eyed look. “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?” Nate pressed. “Why won’t you just tell us what happened? ”

“I don’t know, ” the guy said again, hunching his shoulders anxiously.

“I don’t know… any of those answers. I don’t know—where is this place?

What’s wrong with me? Why is this happening?

Where’s—” He cut himself off with a groan, pressing a hand to his head and squeezing his eyes shut, smearing some of the blood on his face.

“Stop interrogating him,” Jesse told Nate, instinctively stepping in front of the stranger as if to shield him. “Come on, we should just get him to the hospital. They can examine him more thoroughly there.”

“…Right,” Nate said. “Okay, kid, let’s get you into the car.”

The young man opened his eyes, giving Nate another look of exhausted confusion. “The what?”

“So, he does have a concussion,” Nate said, as he prompted him to get off the hood and move around to the doors.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jesse told him, giving the soot-covered guy a perplexed look as he helped him into the car. “He said something weird about my phone, too. Maybe some other kind of brain injury?”

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait and find out,” Nate decided, as he climbed into the front seat. “I don’t know how on earth he doesn’t know what a car is, though.”

Yeah, that was pretty strange.

The drive to the hospital was fortunately uneventful, though the stranger seemed very unnerved by it.

From the moment the engine turned on until they eventually parked it, he was tense and alert, looking around at the interior of the car in open confusion and wariness.

Whatever had been done to him had certainly left an impact.

Almost as soon as they got to the hospital, they ran into trouble.

The nurse in the Emergency Room handed them the standard clipboard and pen to get the guy’s patient information as they waited for treatment, but when Nate and Jesse sat down with him to get it filled out, they quickly realized he seemed as clueless about himself as he was about everything else.

“What’s your name?” Nate asked first, while Jesse scolded himself for not having asked the question earlier .

The guy hesitated, a strange look crossing his face as if he wasn’t sure. “…J-Jamie.”

Nate wrote it down, and then looked at the young man—Jamie—expectantly. When he didn’t say anything more, Nate cleared his throat pointedly. “What’s your last name?”

Jamie stared at him. “I… don’t… remember that.”

“You don’t?” Jesse bit his lip, his concern growing. “Are you sure?”

Jamie nodded. “I don’t remember.”

“…Where’s your ID?” Nate asked. “I can just get your information from that.”

“My what?”

“Your ID,” Nate said again. “You know, your card?”

“My – my card?”

“Yeah, your State Identification,” Nate pressed, his voice betraying a hint of his growing impatience. “Check your pockets, it’s probably in your wallet.”

The stranger glanced down at his soot-covered silk robes. “I don’t… have pockets,” he said quietly. “What’s a wallet?”

“Oh my god,” Nate pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesse, are you sure he doesn’t have a concussion? He’s acting like he doesn’t even know what year it is!”

Jamie bit his lip, his face turning pink. “What – what year is it?”

Nate narrowed his eyes into a suspicious frown. “Come on. You’re joking.”

“No,” Jamie shook his head. “I don’t know, really.”

“It’s 2011,” Jesse supplied. “February 4th to be precise.”

This was beyond anything he’d ever heard about.

Amnesia was one thing, but most people who suffered it either retained most of their general knowledge and only lost a few bits and pieces, or they were a lot worse off than Jamie was.

This was something different, and he for the life of him didn’t know what could be wrong.

Maybe he needed to study harder .

The door into the E.R. opened, and Jazmine—one of Nate’s coworkers, who also happened to be his girlfriend—stepped out into the lobby.

“Nate?” She walked over to the group, her smoky gray eyes widening at the sight of the blood on Jamie’s hands.

“They told me you’d brought someone in. What’s wrong with him? ”

“That’s the problem; we can’t tell,” Nate told her, getting to his feet with a frustrated sigh. “He doesn’t have his ID, and unless he’s lying, he’s got some kind of amnesia.”

“Amnesia?” Jazmine repeated, pushing her black braids out of her warm brown face as she gave Jamie another look. “So he can’t remember what happened to him?”

“More than that,” Nate informed her. “He can’t even remember what cars and cell phones are. We also checked him for external injuries, but he doesn’t seem to have any, so we don’t know where the blood came from.”

Jazmine bit her lip. “That’s… really worrisome,” she said quietly. “Should we call the police?”

“Wait, what?” Jesse stood up as well. “Why would you call the police? He hasn’t done anything.”

“That we know of,” Nate corrected. “But he’s covered in blood that can’t be his, Jesse. Even if he didn’t do anything, there’s somebody out there really badly hurt, and the police ought to be notified.”

Jesse had to admit they had a point. But as he looked back down at Jamie, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

He was looking up at them all so trustingly, but with a blank look in his eyes as if—just like with the other things they’d mentioned—he had no idea what police even were.

It was hard to imagine someone with eyes like that could be guilty of anything.

But there was no arguing it. The hospital had policies in place, and Jesse didn’t have to work here to know that if a person with no ID was brought in covered in blood that must be someone else’s, of course the authorities would have to be notified.

“At least let’s make sure he’s not injured first,” he tried. “It doesn’t seem like he is, but looks can be deceiving. ”

“Fair enough,” Jazmine said. “Alright, kid, let’s go into the back and get you looked at, yeah? Nate, you can come along too. And, I’m sorry,” she looked over to Jesse. “I know we’ve met before, but what’s your name again?”

“Jesse Callahan,” Jesse supplied. “I know Nate from school.”

“Right, sorry about that,” Jazmine offered a smile, as she led the three of them into a small room in the E.R. “And how about you?” she asked Jamie, as she motioned for him to lie down on the exam cot. “What’s your name?”

“Jamie,” he said again, though looking far more tense now as he gazed around at the equipment in the room. “What is this place? What are you going to do to me?”

“We’re just going to check you over and make sure you’re not hurt,” Jazmine told him. “My name is Jazmine Campbell, I’m a nurse here at the hospital, and a friend of Nate’s.”

It was smart for Nate and Jazmine to keep their relationship professional when they were at work, though it felt odd to hear her call him a ‘friend’ when they’d been together for almost a month now.

“Now then,” Jazmine continued, offering Jamie a gentle, reassuring smile. “The first thing I’m going to do is check your heartbeat, alright?”

Jamie proved to be a difficult patient as the examination got underway.

They couldn’t get him to lie down, and had to settle for just having him sit on the edge of the exam cot.

Under these circumstances, Jesse couldn’t help but be impressed as he watched Jazmine work.

Her bedside manner was great. She was calming, friendly, and natural; explaining everything she did to Jamie before she started so that he wouldn’t freak out, but not sounding at all patronizing or condescending as she did it—something Jesse knew Nate still struggled with sometimes.

She cleaned up all the blood first thing, and a good deal of the soot that covered his face and arms, and then got to work checking him over for injuries far more thoroughly than Nate and Jesse could do on the street .

And despite the hiccup about lying down, Jamie mostly cooperated, even though it was clear he was anxious.

But when she went to get a blood sample, things started to fall apart.

“What’s that?” Jamie demanded, his eyes widening at the sight of the needle and syringe.

“It’s just so we can get a sample of your blood,” Jazmine told him soothingly, as she got some rubbing alcohol ready to prep the area. “We’re going to use it to make sure you’re not—”

“No,” Jamie shook his head at once, shifting away from Jazmine on the cot. “No, I don’t—What do you want with my blood?”