One of those Angstober prompts I really wanted to do. One of the really fascinating NPCs I’ve come up with for the campaign that I was really curious to explore more.

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They didn’t question him for very long, at least, not about anything serious.

In fairness, there was little he could tell him, but in his – admittedly limited by the imperfections of his memory – experience, that rarely mattered. He had a feeling that the big guy – the one that had stayed on the lower floor fighting the constructs until he dropped near-dead – had stepped in for him.

Maybe these guys weren’t too bad. They even returned his hat.

That said, he didn’t quite get the point of some of the questions.

“So you don’t remember anything about yourself? No documents? Family heirlooms, perhaps? Letters?” The scary-looking lady in white kept drilling him. Still, her voice was a lot gentler than when she’d been talking to his… colleague? Captor?

He really wasn’t sure about anything.

He just shook his head, and the lady pursed her lips, clearly unhappy.

“May I take a look at your head?” she finally asked.

He was torn.

He had vague memories of the masked man inspecting his eyes, his forehead, fingers firm and painful. Whenever he tried to probe his mind further than that, he stumbled into the usual fog, but unlike most other attempts, in this case he mostly felt relief.

Granted, he was quite sure the masked man had never asked.

These people also didn’t have to ask. He was their prisoner – he’d attacked them, and was defeated. He didn’t even try to explain how memories sometimes became clearer in the fighting, how it wasn’t out of malice, but out of desperation.

For some reason, he felt like saying it out loud would be – was? – bad.

So he nodded.

Her fingers were warm and careful against his forehead, almost pleasant as they parted his hair and lightly probed at the skin around the crown of his head, testing the unevenness of the skin going all the way around. He waited, as patiently as he could, for her to finish.

Then she sat back and was quiet for a while. He didn’t interrupt, despite feeling antsy and itchy. He fiddled with his hands and the rim of his hat and tried not to think too hard about anything.

Finally, the lady sighed. “Oh, I really don’t know what to do with you…”

After some consideration, she looked around and finally addressed him once more. “Do you think you can find an address by yourself? Do you remember much about the city?”

Asking what city felt like the wrong move, but he must have hesitated long enough for the lady to shake her head, “Never mind, I’ll find someone to take you.”

Take me where? he again didn’t ask, but it probably wasn’t jail if she’d considered letting him go there alone.

She eventually returned with a young woman wearing leather armor and an appallingly white jacket.

“Okay, Cara, there he is.”

“Are you sure you don’t need me here?” the girl asked. She seemed harmless enough, very young. She flashed a smile at him and he couldn’t help but smile way.

Yes, he decided he didn’t mind going with her.

“I don’t think there is much you can do,” the lady waved the girl – Cara – off, and then added as an afterthought. “Oh, and while you’re at it, after you drop him off, stop by the headquarters and see how everyone’s doing there. I’m still worried about the aftereffects of mind control.”

Cara nodded and looked at him. “Well, shall we?”

She had a lovely, unthreatening spring in her step even as they exited the building. He looked back – it was a tower, a large clock at the top.

So that was where all the clicking came from.

“Miss Maisie said you don’t remember anything?” Cara asked, but before he could get embarrassed or angry about it, she added, “So do you want to take the scenic route? We can always find a cabbie, but I thought you might like a walk.”

That… didn’t sound bad at all. In fact, when all he could remember were the tight walls of that tower and the dim lights poking through the small, dirty windows, a walk sounded downright heavenly.

The weather was quite lovely, too. It was warm, and the trees were a striking green of young leaves. Cara kept talking the whole way, pointing out the things she found interesting and explaining the history of various buildings to him as if he was a tourist.

It would have been sweet, if it wasn’t tainted by the knowledge that he would likely forget it come next morning.

Finally, after quite some time of wandering around, a warm loaf of bread and an apple, Cara announced, “Well, we’re finally here! Sorry for the short tour, but there’s still that other stuff Miss Maisie asked me to do. If we had more time, I would have shown you the menagerie!”

They were in front of a tall fence with a set of ornate gates, wide open but still intimidating. On top of the gate, in equally ornate letters were the words:

The Laswestry Hospital for Ailments of the Mind

His steps slowed down.

Cara kept prattling on, not noticing he had fallen behind. “You’ll need Dr. Price, that’s who Miss Maisie said to talk to, we can probably find out where she is at the… hey, what’s wrong?”

He didn’t know.

There was a smell in his nose, stifling and sharp. White, too much white. Pain around his skull, reverberating in his temples and behind his eyes.

Someone’s voice, whispering – promises, threats, platitudes.

He took a step back.

“Hey, hold on –”

He took another.

And then he turned and ran, pushing through the passers-by, ignoring Cara’s alarmed shouting.

He ran, and ran, until there was no more sound of a chase behind him, until he had no idea where he was.

He took his hat off and hugged it to his chest. The hat felt important – the only thing that did.

Beyond that, he had no name, no home, no past.

If he had a future, only time would tell.