Chapter 4: Chapter – 2

Noah woke up eyes wide, trying to prop himself up, his whole body protested. He held his chest, every breath was labored, the bandages on his arm surprised him.

He touched his forehead, remembering faceplating into the tree, finding  it also bandaged. He tried to look outside, but the window was too high for him to spot much, only a few houses not looking much different from the ones he was used to. Noah scanned the room, the bed he was laying in was single sized, next to it was a wooden chair with some padding. His eyes wandered to the bookcase filled with books in a language he wasn’t familiar with. In front of it was a table with a kanapee.‘Lisa probably wanted to decorate my apartment like this’, he felt sad as he would never get to see it. 

Composing  himself Noah tried to figure out what happened and what they would want to do with him. 

‘What was that monster? Since it didn’t kill me, maybe it’s not some hunter? Some kind of guardian? Did I get too close to this village? Who or what lives here? Am I supposed to live here or are they planning something with me? A sacrifice? Fuck!’

Noah held his head, thinking what all of this could mean and going to the darkest place of his fantasy rewarded him with a splitting headache. Taking a deep breath he tried to calm down, coming to the conclusion that overthinking won’t do him any good and he has to find the inhabitants.

“You’re finally up”

A gentle voice called out to him, relief was evident in their voice. Being as tense as he was, it made him relax a little. As he turned his head to see who it was it made him put his guard up again.

“Yuta found you in the forest while he was bringing back wood. You poor thing, all battered and bruised, you were covered in cuts from head to toe. Lawrence is a doctor. He said except for the wound on your forehead the cuts were not that bad, but you needed something to eat and drink”.

Noah did not interrupt her trying to find out every single bit of information that could help him. As he stared into her eyes she handed him the bowl she came in with.

“Here it’s rice porridge. Lawrence said you were sure to be hungry once awake and needed something easy on the stomach”

He took the bowl, but didn’t begin to eat, ignoring how badly his body was craving the food.

‘Is Lawrence the leader here? Can he control the monster or is he one too? What is he planning?’

Looking at the bowl he tried to put the things this woman said together, but couldn’t be certain of any speculation he came up with.

‘Fuck it. They already have me I might as well’

Seeing how tense the boy was while staring at the bowl she tried to calm him down.

“You really have to eat something, okay? If it’s too hard I can feed you” She smiled brightly at this suggestion.

Noah didn’t hear her; he was gathering whatever bravery he could muster in this situation before asking the question in his mind since this woman entered the room.

“What are you?”

The woman was confused at first, but smiled again trying to correct the mistake.

“You probably mean ‘who’.  Sorry I was too excited and forgot to introduce myself. My name is Ayame Takehana. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Noah's eyes never left Ayame as she gave her graceful introduction, there was no deception. But he wouldn’t be fooled.

“Miss Takehana, I would still like to know what you are, since you’re clearly not human.”

“What?”

“It’s close, but you made a mistake. It’s impossible for humans to have red eyes.”

Ayame was a pretty woman, with black medium length hair which she wore in a bun. She had light crow feet at the corner of her eye and a beauty mark above her left eyebrow. Noah guessed she should be in her late thirties. Her demeanor and warm smile gave her a gentle and welcoming atmosphere, were it not for her red eyes. Ayame’s eyes had a blood red colour. Looking at them Noah was reminded how he died choking on his own blood and felt like throwing up thankfully his belly was empty.

“Child everything will be alright, you hurt your head pretty badly. Try to eat something then go back to sleep, alright? I will tell Lawrence you woke up so he can come and look at you.”

Seeing the child getting agitated Ayame tried to calm him down and gently held his hand. Noah slowly slipped his hand out of the woman’s so as to not alert her, betraying how frightened he was would do him no good. He lifted them in front of himself in a non threatening gesture.

“I’m not going to run away, I don’t even know where I am. I just would like to know what will happen to me.”

Ayame didn’t know how to calm the obviously scared boy down and decided to get her husband instead of making anything worse.

“I will get Lawrence, try to eat something, please.”

With those words Ayame stood up and walked out of the room, giving Noah one last smile before closing the door.

Seeing the woman with the blood red eyes leave, should have soothed him a bit, but it did the opposite.

‘Fuck! Should I have played along for a little longer and found what their goal is?’

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He chewed on his nails thinking what he could have done differently, until his growling stomach stopped his train of thought. He looked at the bowl the woman left.

‘She really insisted on me eating this. Maybe there is something in it or maybe I can’t leave after eating. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! How did I get into this situation?’

The door opened and a man of average height came in. His blond wavy hair partially covered his eyes. Seeing the man's blue eyes look at him worriedly, Noah steeled himself for whatever was about to happen. He sat down at the chair next to the child’s bed, his wife standing behind him. Looking at the bowl that has not been touched he sighed.

“Hello I’m Lawrence Takehana, my wife told me you were preplexed, I hope I can clear things up.”

Noah looked back and forth between the two, thinking what he could say to not make the situation worse. Before any sentence could be strung together the man continued. 

“You might be a little bit confused, we don’t know how long you’ve been in the forest. You didn’t lose much blood from the wound on your forehead, but you might have a concussion. Sleeping would be for the best.” Looking at the bowl of porridge then back at the boy he added. “If you’re not hungry that's fine, but try to eat a little bit your body is still weak.”

Turning his hands, which were resting on his lap, up again to look harmless Noah tried to talk with Lawrance.

“It’s fine I will eat, I just would like to know what you want to do with me.”

“We are going to look for your parents; they might be still in the forest.”

The thought of meeting his parents now filled him with terror. This did not go unnoticed by Lawrence.

“Why would they be in the forest?”

“Were they not with you?”

“No, why would they be with me?”

Concerned Lawrence looked to his wife.

“We should call the authorities.” He thought the boy was abandoned by his parents, if his assumption was right, looking for them in the forest was a waste of time. He didn’t want to voice this infront of a child that is having a hard time already.

“Authorities? What authorities could be here?”

“The police of course.”

‘Are they fucking with me?’

Seeing the incredulous look on the kids face Ayame wanted to know why that seemed so unbelievable to him..

“What’s strange about the police being here?”

Seeing both of them staring so intently at him, he didn’t have any confidence in his speculation anymore. 

“Where are we?”

“We are near Fukushima.”

‘Fukushima? We are in Japan?’ Noah remembered the tsunami, which hit Fukushima and knew where he was. ‘How did I get here?’

“Where do you think we are?” Lawrence asked, knowing where the boy came from would be helpful when searching for people knowing him.

Noah couldn’t hear the question, because he finally realized something. 

‘They were speaking Japanese this whole time. And I spoke  it too. What’s happening to me?’ 

Noah held his head, a migraine came over him unlike anything he had ever felt before.

Seeing how much pain the kid was under Ayame reached out to grab his arm

“It’s fine, you don’t have to strain yourself.”

Noah didn’t hear her, he tried to figure out what happened. He died and landed in Japan as a kid, thinking he was in the afterlife would be less ridiculous than this. His nose started to bleed, he just couldn’t make sense of anything.

‘If I'm in Japan What was that monster? Was there even a monster? Am I going crazy?’ Noah’s eyes rolled back into his head and the world went dark again.

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