One Shots ~ Newtmas

Severe Amnesia (Part One)

One single, white, plain telephone was screwed to the wall, one of those ones with the number pad on the side and the curled, plastic (kind of), wire connecting it to the actually plastic square attached to the wall. It was that, but it wasn't, it was different to the older kind. Old and yet new, an old technology, but a newer design of that tech, an upgraded version.

Instead of the white handle with speakers there was just a single, larger scale speaker and a better quality microphone, there was no wire anymore, rather just a few extra screws to fit the, still somehow plastic, slab to the wall. Now the number pad was electronic and in-built like a phone screen rather than actual buttons. In themselves, the buttons were always, for some reason sticky and unpleasant to the touch; they were also so hard to press, never going down enough for the number to be fully entered correctly, a fact that got many people frustrated.

This one thing, was the only thing that sat in his room, this thing that had been upgraded to look modern, unneeded as barely anyone used them, but oh well. It made the bare room like a little fancier, as the only other decoration was the, surprisingly, grey door. Unfortunately, it was constantly locked and sealed, impossible to open, and presumably air tight - he didn't even know how they got oxygen into this room, because there appeared to be no ventilation in sight.

Seeing as there was no bed, no comfort, nothing but white, plain walls, scraped bare of decoration, no fun, no entertainment, nothing, except this phone; he had tried to use the phone more than once, many times in fact, but the voice on the other end always said the same thing. "You're not insane, calm down, now sleep."

Repetition was something he didn't understand, his mind wasn't programmed to understand why it got things stuck into people's heads, he never remembered anything, not in general, but his mind couldn't actually remember anything that had to do with anything, so whenever he heard it, it sounded like a new phrase, never familiar. You could say that's what a mental disability is, but what? Nothing anyone could find explained it, they had tried just repeating the same sentence through this device every day, but his actions and expression always showed that they got no where. Eyebrows would furrow and his mouth would form a sentence that would go along the lines of. "Why would I sleep? I want a bed," and upon our always reply of. "You've told us this already, no is still the answer," he would look straight into the device and say. "When have I ever said those words and when the hell did you say no." He did still remember the English language at least, sadly though, his grammar wasn't the beats and sometimes he had trouble speaking and would also use a lot of cuss words, but at least he could talk.

You see, No.528 is a person who forgets...everything. Not even just complicated things, everything. His actual name was Stephen, but he never remembered it, his mother had told us and he had overheard, he had said straight to her face. "Who is Stephen?" It had broken her heart, she said goodbye as she knew Stephen wouldn't remember her at all.

We decided to call him a new name, one that he surprisingly hadn't forgotten yet, Thomas, then again we had used shock therapy and it had seemed to help. Coincidently, it was the only thing he ever remembered, but we didn't use it on him again because he seemed to be in an excessive amount of pain from the procedure.

Even the nurse who saw to him every single day at the exact same time was unfamiliar to him, he never recognised her at all.

Sometimes you see these kids, under eighteen, and you truly feel sorry for them, No.528 came to us when he was merely seven years old and had started suffering from these symptoms: suddenly forgetting everything about himself and everything he knew and loved, including people, for example, his own mother, who he once pushed out of the house at age six because he didn't know who she was and was afraid he was going to be murdered in his sleep by a stranger he didn't know, his favourite food, his favourite anything, his interests, his friends, people, any sort of human or place or anything really, it must've been truly horrible for everyone.

Of course it just got worse and worse, No.528 was struggling, it was obvious that it was some kind of amnesia, but how and why had it developed and why at such a young age, he's now sixteen, we've had him for nine years and nothing has gotten better or changed in any direction, good or bad.

No matter what we tried, he wasn't recovering, so we used a different method that we had recently discovered, forcing amnesia onto people. Thankfully, it was a simple treatment and we reckoned if we gave him this, even if there were no memories to erase, then we could reverse it and see if anything would happen, if anything would come back, maybe he could remember something.

Occasionally, we had introduced No.528 to other kids, as an attempted method, but he never remembered them, all except one. No.528 kept chanting his name whenever he slept. "Newt, Newt, Newt," it was almost always a whisper, but it was audible enough, he never had any recollection in the morning, but it must've been some sort of sign that he could've been dreaming of this boy and therefore remembered him.

Eventually, the day came that we had to get No.528 this treatment.

Almost certainly, No.528 was everyone's favourite, simply because he probably suffered the worst out of everyone, and didn't even know it, hopefully he'll eventually remember by himself, but we all dread the day it comes; it could come very, very later and it means he missed out on basically all of his life. No one wants to see the hurt, the confusion settle on Thomas' features of a wasted childhood, then having to explain everything that happened to him. That's why we were all hesitant to try this different and new procedure.

It's hard to see loved ones this way, we had kept in touch with Thomas' parents, but his father had passed away only eleven months after Thomas had come with us to be treated, his mother had lived in and occasionally cane to see him, but he never remembered her and was always so polite, acting like he was meeting someone new every time. Someone different, a new adult, someone he should respect or possibly look up to, yet he didn't know quite why, as he didn't know who that person was, ever. We guessed that he could remember how he was supposed to act to certain people and in the back of his mind a tiny voice would tell him that it was his mother who sat in front of him, but he would choose not to listen to the small voice, but still command to its wishes.

Odd, was the only thing we could ever think about Thomas' behaviour sometimes. Today, we had invited Thomas' mom to, first, give consent he could have the treatment and second, so she could watch and see if her son would now recognise her. We really didn't want to fill her with false hope, but she was determined to be there and help her son in any way possible.

Unsuspectingly, Newt had also decided to turn up and stay to watch. Hoping the one boy he truly felt comfortable around, would remember him. Remember Newt, who had gone and developed feelings for Thomas, it was the most obvious thing in the world and no one could deny the feelings Newt felt for Thomas, but devastatingly, no one could tell if Thomas liked Newt back.

Maybe not all good things come to a happy ending, the procedure has a fifty percent chance of success, but we're counting our chances, though if it failed, his case could get worse and he would forget the name Thomas as well. Maybe we would have to treat him with shock therapy again, possibly it would actually help. So much chance and not enough certainty, but it's all we could go off.

Only the maybes could be certain for results.

a/n: yes it's been ten days, i'm so sorry, i've had a lot of writers block recently so yeah, but i'm working on a part two sooooo...