Darkness again.
And then pain.
Jonathan's first clear sensation was a big headache, followed by a sharp pressure in his chest and an urgent need to take few deep breaths.
As he gasped for air, he felt something hard and cold pushing against his back.
Before he could question his surrounding, he heard a voice cutting through his ringing ears.
"Whoa, easy there, mate! Take deep breaths. You're all right!"
He tried looking around but all he saw was light blinding him from each direction. Fluorescent lamps. White ceiling panels. He could only smell disinfectant and metal.
His brain automatically told him the answer: A hospital.
He blinked, waiting for his eyes to focus. Everything looked doubled.
"How many fingers am I holding up?" The man in scrubs held up his hand.
Jonathan squinted. "Two. No—three?"
"Good enough. Tracking's a bit off, but that's normal after a collapse. Should clear up in a few minutes."
It did. By the time the nurse came back with a cup of water, the world around him cleared up.
He saw a man and a woman in scrubs leaning over him, one of them with concerned looks and the other with a professionalism of a person who deals with situation like these every day.
The man shone a flashlight into Jonathan's pupils, while the woman started talking.
"You gave us a scare," the nurse said. "Someone found you collapsed on the street. Do you remember anything?"
Jonathan opened his mouth, trying to speak, but no words came out. He felt like the sentences were stuck in his throat.
"I… collapsed," He finally managed to blurt something out. "Outside… Walking back home…"
"Passerbys called you an ambulance, which brought you in. You're dehydrated and exhausted."
The nurse looked down at his clothes.
"Still in your work clothes? Been burning the candle at both ends?"
The man, hearing this, gave Jonathan a reassuring smile that told him this sort of thing happened often.
"Do you know your name?"
The question froze his thoughts immediately. For a terrifying second, Jonathan's mind went completely blank.
The nurse seeing his state, pulled something out of his pocket— a wallet. She flipped it open, searched for an ID card inside, and looked back at him expectantly.
"Can you tell me your name?" she repeated, more gently this time.
She covered up the text with her palm and turned it to him. He just stared at the ID she was holding up. The photo looked like him—or at least close enough. Same face, same hair, although something felt slightly off, like looking at yourself in a bad mirror.
Steven Hale, his brain eventually told him. Born 15 March 1978.
"Steven," he said slowly, the name feeling both familiar and completely foreign on his tongue. "I'm Steven Hale."
The moment he said it, memories slammed into his head, like a file finishing its download. School uniforms. A cramped flat in a block that screamed 'Average UK housing.' A mum who smoked way too much and a dad who wasn't around anymore. Apprenticeship forms. His first day at the local workshop. Then getting the job at the garage. His colleagues and friends.
The memories felt real. They felt like *his* memories.
But somewhere deep down, something twitched. As if there were another possible answer to that question.
"Good," the nurse said, writing things down on her paper. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-seven."
The number now came easily, but he also felt that something was wrong with this answer.
"Do you have any allergies?"
"No."
"Anyone we can notify? Family members?"
"Uh, no, no. I live alone. My neighbor is the one who is given as my contact, Jackie Tyler."
Steven then gave them a phone number and an address.
After some further questioning, the nurse wrote everything down, she looked at the man who just nodded his head and they moved to their next patient after giving Steven some comforting words.
He just stared at the ceiling. He couldn't shake a vague sense of unease. Like something was very wrong with this situation, but he couldn't point to what exactly.
By the time a different nurse came in to wheel him to a different ward for observation, he mostly just felt tired. And very, very thirsty.
***
He was held in the night to monitor his body. After his body stabilized and the doctors didn't find anything wrong with him, Steven was discharged the next morning.
He got a pamphlet about stress management, a warning to take it easy, and a follow-up appointment card he immediately ignored and forgot it.
A bored administrator tried to hand him his personal items, his wallet, keys and some loose change—but his phone was missing. Either he's lost it before collapsing, or someone had nicked it at the hospital or when he way laying in the street. Apparently, it happened all the time.
"Sign here, Mr. Hale."
He did. His signature came immediately, familiar and smooth, though he couldn't remember ever practicing it.
Leaving the hospital he took in a deep breath. The weather was—in typical London fashion—gray and damp. He pulled his jacket tighter around himself and headed home.
Steven knew the way without even thinking about it. Left at the grocery store, right at the big roundabout, through the park and there it was. The apartment blocks.
The yard was empty, so he didn't run into anybody on his way to Powell estate.
He went past the garages, and as he started walking up the staircase toward his apartment.
He was halfway up the second floor when he heard footsteps coming down.
"Oi, Steven!" Mickey appeared around the corner, a takeaway coffee in hand. "Where'd you disappear to yesterday? Rose said you weren't answering your phone."
Steven patted his pockets automatically, but found nothing. "Uh, must've lost it. Had a bit of a rough night and ended up at A&E."
Mickey's eyebrows shot up. "You serious? You all right?"
"Yeah, yeah, just exhaustion. They sent me home with a pamphlet and everything." Steven tried to smile. "Very official…"
"Mate, you've got to take it easier. Rose and I are heading out for breakfast— you should come, too, get some food in your system."
"Nah, I'm knackered, mate. You two have fun. I'll catch up with you tonight."
"If you're sure." Mickey clapped him on shoulder. "Text when you find your phone, yeah? Rose'll worry otherwise."
"Will do."
They parted way, Mickey continued down while Steven climbed to the third floor and let himself into his flat.
This building was one of those places where everyone knew everyone—not always by choice. Jackie Tyler lived directly below him. She'd practically adopted him when he moved in two years ago. Mickey lived across the hall from them and worked with him at the garage. It was all very… cozy. Very normal.
He dropped his bag next to his toolbox by the door.
His flat had a narrow hallway. A tiny kitchen that opened into the living room. A door to his bedroom and another to the bathroom. Beige, yellowish walls, faded carpets and second-hand furniture.
Not impressive all things considered. But it was his.
Steven hung his jacket up. Something small pressed to him in his pockets. Frowning, he took it out.
A pocket watch. His pocket watch.
It didn't open and it didn't work, but he couldn't help keeping it on him at all times. He tried storing it in a drawer, but it felt wrong to be without it.
The metal casing was dull, more gray than silver, etched with faint circles and lines he didn't understand but they formed cool-looking patterns if he stared at it long enough.
No maker's mark. Or any logo.
He tried to remember where he's got it. A gift maybe? Or an heirloom? Something he found in a shop?
Absolutely nothing clear came. Just a vague sense that it was very important to him, and that he definitely shouldn't throw it away. That he should never, ever let it out of his sight.
He wanted to put the watch back into his pocket, but his hand hesitated halfway there. The metal felt warm against his palm—warmer than it should be, warmer than his own body.
For just a second, he could've sworn he felt something inside it. A rhythm. Almost like a heartbeat.
Then the moment passed, and it was just a broken watch again.
He set it down carefully on the coffee table instead of pocketing it, took his shoes off, and fell onto the sofa. But even as he drifted to sleep, part of his mind tracked the watch's location, making sure he knew where exactly it was.
***
Weeks passed since his hospital visit.
The first week was strange.
He kept expecting something to feel wrong. He kept waiting for someone to tell him that this wasn't his life, wasn't his flat, wasn't his face in the mirror. But everyone treated him exactly how he always remembered. Mickey ribbed him about proper food and sleep. Jackie fussed over him. Rose dragged him along to a pub on Friday.
The memories felt more solid each day. Childhood holidays in Brighton. His mum's laugh. The smell of his first car. His first kiss behind a shop when he was fifteen.
Real memories. His memories.
By the second week, he's almost stopped questioning it.
Weeks passed after that.
He continued to live his ordinary life like everyone else. Go to work in the morning, fix cars all day, come home. Hang out with Mickey and Rose. And fix whatever broke in the neighbors' flats. Rinse and repeat.
Normal people. Normal job. Normal London weather.
If he ignored the fact he kept fixing things he never technically had the training for.
It started shortly after he got his job at the garage a year ago. One day, an imported German car came in with an automatic gearbox the shop didn't usually service. The customer needed it urgently, and their regular mechanic had called in sick.
"Oi, you sure you want to mess with that?" Mickey asked, peering over Steven's shoulder at the exposed transmission. "The customer'll have our heads if we give it back more broken than it came in."
Steven just stared at the open casing. The shop manual lay open beside him, but the diagrams didn't match what he was looking at. Different model year, maybe, or a regional variant.
He should've been lost.
Instead, it was clear to him like broad daylight. Just a clear, crystalline understanding. He could see how the gears matched together, where the pressure should distribute, which components were worn and which were misaligned. It was like looking at a familiar piece of machinery he's worked on a thousand times before, even though he'd never seen this exact model in his entire life.
His hands moved before he's consciously decided what to do.
"Nah, it's fine." he said distantly, already reaching for the right tools. "Gimme an hour."
Mickey raised his eyebrows but didn't argue. "It's your funeral, mate."
After just forty minutes, the car rolled out smoothly out of the bay, the gearbox purring like it was brand new.
"How'd you even know how to do that?" Mickey asked, genuinely impressed.
Steven looked down at his grease-stained hands, a frown tugging at his face. "I… I'm not actually sure of it myself."
Mickey just laughed, thinking it was a joke. "Natural talent, innit? Don't question it."
But Steven did question it. Late at night, sometimes, he'd lie awake and wonder about all the things he could fix that he's never been trained to fix. Wonder about the gaps in his memory that should've been there but weren't.
Wonder why, despite having a perfectly good life, he sometimes felt like he was waiting for something.
This became a pattern all his life. Electronics, engines, diagnostic software that hadn't been updated properly—as long as he looked at it long enough, he figured out what to do with it like it was second nature.
Life went on.
One day, on his day off he was at Jackie's place, fixing her old TV that broke. Rose came out of her bedroom looking absolutely miserable. She looked pale and shaken, still in her dressing gown at two in the afternoon.
"I didn't know you were at home." Steven asked, looking up from the tangle of wires. "What happened, don't you have work today?"
Rose turned to him, annoyance written all over her face.
"My work blew up" Rose said flatly. "The whole building collapsed last night. Some kind of gas explosion, they're saying."
Steven stopped what he was doing, his hands stilled on the screwdriver and turned to her. "Christ. Were you—were you there?"
"No, I was home. But… " She swallowed. "Keisha was on late shift. And the new security guard, Wilson. They're still pulling people out."
Jackie appeared in the kitchen doorway, tea towel in hand, her face filled with worry. "The news said four confirmed dead so far. Could've been so much worse if it happened during the day."
"I should've been there," Rose said quietly. "I swapped shifts with Keisha last week. If I hadn't— "
"Don't," Jackie said sharply. "Don't you dare do that to yourself."
There was a knock on the door.
Rose seemed to shake herself, wiping at her eyes. "I'll get it."
A moment later, her voice rang out from the hallway, startled: "You!"
A man's voice replied, cheerful and almost inappropriately casual given the circumstances: "Hello!"
A moment later, Rose dragged a man in leather jacket into the living room. He was all manic energy and sharp eyes. Grinning like he's just won the lottery.
Steven looked up from behind the television, screwdriver still in hand.
The man's eyes locked onto his, and the grin faltered.
For a single moment, Steven felt something shift in his chest. Like he recognized something. He felt a sense of something important he's forgotten.
Then it passed as quickly as it came, and he was just a mechanic with a screwdriver, looking at the stranger in his neighbor's flat.
"Can I help you?" Steven asked.