She found the body in a forgotten alley, cold and awaiting. He was leaning against a wall and surrounded by a pool of blood. A sword laid within his palm. When Ana got close enough, she kicked it away.
She set her bag on the ground before bending down to examine him. He looked younger than she did, but not by much, and he was wearing plain clothes. Human clothes. She checked his pulse to make certain, however, she easily guessed that the boy was dead from the gaping wound in his chest.
She pondered for a moment. She hadn't had the chance to test her theory out on a proper subject just yet, and this could prove to be the perfect opportunity. She'd be a fool to let it pass her by. She reached up and removed the rose tucked neatly behind her ear. As she did, her thumb caught on a thorn she must've forgotten to remove.
With one hand holding the rose and the other placed upon the boy's chest, Ana began. Cold and warmth passed through her fingertips and along each of her arms, starting on opposite ends and mingling where they met in the middle. She allowed it, embracing the sensation of being a vehicle, a witness, but nothing more. When the last remnants of that energy bled from her, she looked at what was left.
A rose drained of all color and moisture crumbled to dust between her fingers. Hopeful, Ana looked to the boy. The blue had fled his skin, and his chest was moving. Ana pulled his shirt up to assess the damage. A wooden plug replaced the boy's wound, and vines of thorns had covered his chest like a living tattoo. She could've sworn they kept growing ever so slightly.
"What are you doing?"
Despite believing she had succeeded, Ana had not been expecting to hear the boy speak. She pulled her notebook and pen out of her bag, scrambling to find a clean page.
"What's your name?" Ana asked, but the boy wasn't paying attention. Instead, he prodded the strange new marks of his. "Hey," she said. "I'll answer any questions you have, but first you have to answer mine."
The boy looked at her for a second before nodding. "Okay."
"What's your name?" She repeated.
Silence, then a small "I don't know."
"Okay," she said, scribbling notes. "Do you know where you are?"
He looked down at his hands then shook his head.
"Do you know why you were holding a sword?"
"No."
"Do you know what happened to you?"
"No."
"Hm." Ana looked around, trying to decipher what circumstances had led the boy to his death in an alley. "You died. I was able to bring you back, but you were dead for an unknown amount of time. Do you feel as though you died?"
He clenched and unclenched his hands. "I don't think so."
Ana nodded, going back to her notes.
"But I apparently don't remember what it feels like to not have died before, so I don't know how reliable my answer is."
Ana didn't laugh, but she did feel relieved that she hadn't created another empty shell. This one had some spirit to him.
She stood up. "Come on," she said, offering her hand to the boy. He accepted it, standing up fairly gracefully.
She had him test his limbs, his walking, and his memory. He never lost his balance, and he felt no pain. When Ana asked him about his chest, he claimed that it felt completely natural. He was in perfect condition, save for the fact that he couldn't recall any information about his life.
She named the boy Thorn and led him back to her apartment. She didn't have a spare bedroom for him to occupy, and she wasn't about to give hers up, so he slept on the couch.
Ana never expected to live with someone, let alone with a living experiment, but soon, her and Thorn established a routine. In the morning, he told her about his dreams. During the day, she would pour over her notes, comparing Thorn to her past subjects. Thorn would go to bed early in the evening, but Ana stayed up reading new articles and writing letters to old colleagues.
For the most part, Thorn was a normal boy. Ana did, however, find his diet quite peculiar. The first night, he had refused to eat the leftover chicken she offered him, opting instead to gorge himself on her entire stock of carrots. As the days progressed, he never found himself interested in any sort of meat. Even the bread she gave Thorn was left missing only one or two bites. Once, Ana gave him a bowl filled to the brim with nothing but strawberries, and he ate every last piece.
About a month into their living arrangement, Ana noticed something while eating breakfast. The mark of vines on Thorn's chest had expanded enough that it began to peak out from underneath the collar of his shirt.
"Can I see it?" she asked, gesturing towards it.
Thorn nodded then took off his shirt. Just as she suspected, the vines now reached past his collarbone and wrapped around his shoulders and biceps.
"Have you noticed this?" she asked.
"Yeah, but I didn't think it meant anything." He put his shirt back on. "Does it?"
Ana walked away to find her notebook. "I'm not sure."
"Is there any way we can go out?"
Ana looked over from her desk to Thorn standing in front of the window. It was a cloudy spring day, the rain soft but steady. She felt a slight pang of guilt at his question. She had only let him leave her apartment a handful of times, and she never let him go alone. She feared that someone who had known him before would see him, or that he would gain his memory and never return. It was a practical move on her part, but selfish nonetheless.
"You want to go out in this?" she asked. Thorn was quiet.
She wanted to figure out some excuse to stay in, but she found herself coming up with more reasons not to.
"Never mind, we don't have to," Thorn said, walking away.
"Hey," Ana called out. She turned to face him properly. "Why do you want to go out today?"
He contemplated for a moment, then responded. "I don't know, I just do." He sounded curious about his own statement.
She sighed, rubbing her hands over her eyes. "Well enough, then."
They both got dressed, and Ana dug out her extra umbrella to give to Thorn. Then, she grabbed a few letters she could send while they were out, and together they left the building.
In the middle of their walk, Thorn stopped dead in his tracks.
Ana looked at him, confused. "What is it?"
"I just remembered something," he said with a big grin on his face.
"What?"
He dropped his arm, letting the umbrella hang at his side. "I love the rain."
Ana opened the blinds, letting light shine across her living room. On the coffee table sat a fresh bouquet of roses, handpicked from her favorite garden outside the city. They had just begun to unfurl, but she knew that they would begin to wilt soon after blooming. No matter how much she loved and cared for them, once they were cut, they wouldn't survive for long.
Thorn sat on the couch trying to fix one of the roses that had a broken stem. Enough time had passed for vines to cover most of his arms and neck, and as she watched him, Ana wondered if he, too, had already bloomed.
