There was nothing present except for pure silence.
And right when he thought it couldn't get any quieter...
Everything around him started screaming, almost at once. He suddenly felt a strong urge to never open his eyes again as people surrounding him yelled of joy, hugged each other, squeezed his shoulders, patted him on the back, pressed the back of their palms on his forehead, laughed of happiness, and sighed of relief. Judging by the scruffling noises of their shoes and feet, they were dying to tackle him with a looooooongggggg embrace and couldn't wait to see him smile.
Feeling hopeful for the first time in forever, he opened his eyes to find a blonde-haired girl hovering over him, tears streaking her cheeks as she laced her fingers with his and squeezed so hard he felt a pimple suddenly pop on his face.
He was happy. He didn't exactly know who the girl was, but he somehow knew that his mind was foggy for the moment and it'd come back crashing at him a moment later. He held his breath, waiting for the familiarity to set in...
And nothing happened.
The girl, whose eyes he suddenly noticed were brown, leaned in to touch his cheek and whispered something... 'Kee'? He jerked his arm away and felt a twinge of satisfaction when he noticed that she felt genuinely hurt. When she tried to get ahold of his wrist, he let her hold on for a moment while trying to hold in his smirk, and let go rather harshly.
The room went dead silent for a moment — so silent you could hear a pin drop and cut through the tension with a knife — until it started buzzing again, like people who couldn't shut up if their lives depended on it. Except for the girl. She turned around rather clumsily and faced away from him, probably so he couldn't see her bawl like a sissy.
"What's wrong with him, Elwin?" She demanded to the dark-haired, modest-looking... physician. Grey-blue eyes that seemed to be calculating something as they fixated on his... brown eyes?
How could he not remember the color of his own eyes? Feeling stupid for jumping to such an exotic and ridiculous conclusion, he scowled. The physician — Elwin, supposedly — frowned and shook his head sympathetically at the same time. Before the girl could strangle him with one arm and punch him in the eye with another, he carefully stepped toward The Boy That Was Him.
"Keefe?"
It should've triggered a chain reaction. But the only thing he thought of was: Seriously? That's my name? It should be something way cooler. But there was a glint of determination in Elwin's eyes that made him feel determined, too, like he was missing something.
"Who... are you?" He whispered, hating how weak he sounded, "Where am I?"
Another long moment of silence broke out like it was infectious. Then, a voice snorted from far back: "Seriously?"
"Shut up, Stina!" A strawberry-blonde haired boy nudged the purple-eyed girl hard with his elbow. The girl grinned and shoved him in return, making him glare at her.
Even he had to laugh. His eyes rolled back as he almost fainted with intense glee and snorted, followed by an uncanny and on-spot imitation of her, "Seriously? Your name is Stina?"
The girl looked adorably confused for a second, making her seem instantly likable — until she giggled and pointed at him. "Look who's forgotten his own name!"
He opened his mouth to argue back — then reeled backward when he realized that she was right. He had no idea who he was... if he was meant to be anybody.
A gray-haired figure emerged from the shadows, effectively snapping him out of his confusion. Out of everyone in the room, he seemed to have the most authority, shown by his bowed head and surrendering stance — a sign that something very, very bad was happening. "Miss Heks?"
Stina hung her head low and nodded, making a somewhat apologetic gesture to the person with the shaded blue eyes and old gray hair. "Leto, I think he's... gone numb," she whispered the last word like she didn't want to believe it.
Numb? What do you mean? They didn't seem like words he could say out loud, not really.
"Numb?"
As if on cue, the room erupted into a chorus of arguments. He took the time to sit up slowly and examine the people around him — they were oddly out of place but seemed to belong at the same time, too, like they were meant to be there. A stunning, pretty girl with wavy chocolate brown hair, teal eyes, soft skin, and bulging eyebrows. Another girl with ice blue eyes that took the attention off the rest of her facial features who looked particularly deadly and cutthroat. A boy who looked like the sister of the first girl he'd glimpsed upon, with teal eyes that were slightly darker and had more depth — nothing really special. He tried to avoid the blonde-haired girl by simply skimming over her. A dark-haired girl with silvery tips that looked like they'd been dipped in moonlight, holding on tightly to a quirky-looking boy who resembled her greatly, only his bangs were gray and seemed to be the result of aging. Maybe her brother? Her twin? A few others who seemed far too boring — twelve adults who stood together and seemed to look all the same, despite their differences. A swift, smoothed-out dark-haired girl whose hair glowed an intimidating light purple under the sunlight, shaking her head with disbelief. A massive, eight-foot-tall... thing covered in fur who was holding a sword and clenching his teeth. The girl he'd talked with earlier with eyes that were in between shades of blue and purple, which automatically made him look for the boy with the strawberry-blonde hair that seemed the most easygoing and, by default, friendliest. He glanced at him hesitantly; he looked away, cheeks flushing...
And yelped when someone pinched him in the arm, hard. The blonde-haired girl with brown eyes — it was certainly a weird combination, but it seemed like something people would brag about. Something that people with features like hers but not the exact same as hers would take pride in.
She had a pleading look. Desperate. It made his heart break into small pieces that he knew he could fix eventually.
What's your name?
Just as he worked up the nerve to ask her, a small voice at the back of his head boomed, It's Sophie.
He was suddenly too tired to know what to make of mysterious girls transmitting messages into his mind.
But as he drifted in and out of sleep, the one thing that kept him holding on was her last message to him before he'd dozed off: My name is Sophie Foster. And, Keefe — we're not going to give up on you.