Falling Hurts || Jetko

Chapter 1- Waking Up

He opened his eyes, and gulped down breaths of fresh air. Where was he? It looked like a small Earth Kingdom village. He heard the sounds of children laughing, women shouting, the sound of footsteps on a dirt road. How did he get here? He tried to get up, but pain shot through his arm. He let out a cry.

The woman stopped shouting and he heard footsteps coming towards him. A gasp. "Oh my goodness! Are you alright?" A hand was touching his side.

"Huh?" He turned his head to look at the woman. "Who-"

"Don't worry about that. Right now we have to look at your injuries." She helped him sit up. "What is your name young man?"

His name. What was his name? His mind was blank. What was his name? He couldn't remember. He tried to think about how he got hurt, what he was doing before this, what he looked like-

The women must have noticed he was panicking because there was a hand rubbing his back and a soothing, calm voice. "Hey you don't need to think about that right now, ok? We do have to look at your injuries though. Can you walk?"

He tried to stand. It was painful, but manageable. He followed the lady through the town. Children were playing in the streets, men were farming, soldiers in red uniforms were scattered around. They stopped at a house on the other side of the village. The lady ushered him inside and told him to lay on the bed.

He looked down to what he was wearing. An ugly, ratty, brown shirt that went to his mid-thigh. He had no pants, but was too exhausted to care at the moment, and no shoes. How had he not realized while walking?

He looked at his arms and legs. He was covered in scrapes and blisters. Bruises littered his legs. The right side of his body ached, burned, and his right arm was broken. To top it all off, the vision in his left eye was off, blurry.

He ran his good hand through his shaggy, dirty hair and sighed. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

She looked up from whatever she was doing. "Yes?"

"Do you have a mirror I could use?"

  "No, sorry. Oh! I did find this near you. You could probably use it."

  It was a dagger. Upon it was the inscription 'Never Give Up Without A Fight'. He looked at his reflection and gasped. There was a big, red, ugly scar over his left eye, covering most of that side of his face. His hair was long, almost past his shoulders. Without thinking, he grabbed his hair and cut it at the base of his neck with the knife.

  The woman looked at him with wide eyes, but didn't say anything. She started cleaning his arms and legs, with what he assumed was alcohol. It stung. She was about to clean his torso, when he stopped her and asked her for a pair of pants. The woman blushed in embarrassment, and left to get him pants.

  The pants were about five sizes too big, but he really didn't care. When he took off his shirt the woman gasped. That couldn't be good. There was a big red burn mark on his right side. It was bleeding, and blistering, and most likely infected.

  The lady didn't even try to clean with her rag, she just poured the alcohol over it. It was agony, his entire torso burned. After she wrapped a cloth around it. Luckily, she didn't try to set his arm, thank god. Best to leave that to the local healer.

  When he was all cleaned up, the lady brought him a bowl of soup. Then she started asking questions.

  "So....what do you remember?"

  "Nothing." His voice was raspy.
 
  She was silent for a second, thinking. "Do you want me to call you anything?"

  He shrugged his shoulder.

  "How about Li?"

  Li. It didn't ring any bells, but it would work. Li.

  "I guess that's fine."