When the meteor crashed outside New York City the whole world rejoiced it hadn't been a mile closer to the big city. There were no casualties but that would not have been the case if the city had been hit.

No one had been suspecting it and no one would be able to escape if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, while it was the only name they had for it, the 'thing' wasn't quite a meteor at all, rather it was a large piece of off-white debris made from a material they had yet not been able to identify.

That was the news being relayed globally in a plethora of languages. Some channels had reporters at the scene, standing right by the boundary those not working with the scene were allowed to cross, others had live video footage that studio reporters talked over. Not one person had not caught the news.

Then the scene, already in disarray, was plunged suddenly into a complete commotion when a pained groan was heard, the source not seen. Then it had rung through the air again and the crowds had quietened. All eyes present at the scene slowly and unsurely drifted to the debris and the crater it rested in, speech of even professionals fading away and crane lifting the meteor stopping.

Then everything began to move again, faster than before as they were certain the very human, pained noise had come from beneath the weird debris they had been told had not harmed anybody. It was a wonder, after being crushed beneath that great weight, the person beneath was even capable of making such a sound.

All cameras were turned away as the debris was placed onto the waiting truck and the precautionary paramedics present at the scene rushed down into the crater where there lay a figure the public were shielded from seeing.

The figure was broken and bloody, wearing something that essentially screamed "sci-fi" making it appear as though he had been at a convention of some sort before he had ended up in the predicament he was currently in. But it was definitely good quality for a costume: the material was too robust, too shiny, a material that would be difficult for anyone to make much out of. He wore a helmet too, or at least what had once been one. Now it lay around his head in shards, a few buried within the skin of his face.

There was glass too, it was a wonder the boy had not been blinded by all the shards.

The position in which he was laying was an unnatural one, accessorised by an arm bent in such a way it was surely broken in more places than one. There was an order for cameras to be turned off and the public to leave the scene as he was hurriedly lifted onto a stretcher, covered in blood and dirt that hid just how much he may have been hurt.

By the end of the day, even if his image had not been displayed publicly even once, everyone knew of the boy beneath the debris. To some he was Meteor Boy, to others he was Miracle boy, to all he was a mystery.

He was sat by the foot of the teenager's bed, waiting impatiently for him to wake up, foot taping an unsteady rhythm on the floor and fingers clumsily twirling a pen.

The boy was never peaceful, always moving but never showing signs of waking. His upturned nose crinkled, his eyes tensed tighter shut, his long limbs witched. It was almost as though his body wanted to wake up but couldn't.

One of his arms was plastered from one end to the other and had been operated on to fix the placement of the bones after the sever break, the other, just like the rest of him, was covered in bandages and plasters, a few stitches dotted here and there to keep the more serious wounds closed.

He was going to wake up soon, the hospital staff had assured him, but he did not feel comfortable. He had to talk to the teen as soon as he was able, the moment after he woke up he would have to smother him in questions, begging to know who he was. But he needed the money and to get the money he'd have to do the job.

He was taken back when he was released from the cage his thoughts formed. He was looking straight into azure eyes, dark blue that didn't quite match the face that framed them.

The boy was blinking his tired eyes, looking through the veil of his eyelashes as he tried to pry his eyes further open so he could see clearly, drawing the world before him into focus. He was surprised to see the scene before him, sterile and clean, white and somehow off-feeling. He was not put at ease by the fact there was a stranger sitting in front of him, staring with wide eyes as though shocked or scared.

The boy, slowly and in slurred Spanish that the man would not have been able to understand even if it was spoken clearly, began to speak as he sat up, looking at the man unsurely.

He felt his stomach drop a little. If the teen didn't speak English they would find someone who spoke Spanish and he would lose the job he definitely needed.

"Hello?" It was a question, a hesitant one spoken only to see if the boy could respond in English.

"Hi?" The response was also a question, nervously spoken with the raising of the hand not plastered.

"You speak English?" After receiving a gentle hum in response he dared to continue "Do you mind I ask you some questions?"
"Go ahead." There wasn't the accent of someone speaking the language as a second one present but the accent there wasn't the one from New York.

"Okay. We'll start easy." the man righted the position of his pen and lifted the leather-bound notebook from its place on the table beside him "I'm Mark Roberts How about yourself?"

His stomach dropped again as the boy's eyes shut lightly and his head began to slowly drift from one side to the other, hands mussing his short hair, already messy from sleep. He began to mumble, freezing for a moment and terrifying Mark as he sat before him.

There was a scene playing behind his closed eyelids, warped and blurry, nothing more than an odd formation of shapes and colour that didn't quite form a recognisable image. There were noises too, just as warped as the imagery, sounding as though they were spoken through water and barely conveying the words intended.

"Lance!"

"Lance!"

"Lance"

The next thing he knew there was a large, tan hand clamped over his shoulder, shaking him out of whatever unpleasant tence his mind had been dragged down into.

He angled his eyes downwards, looking at his hands as he knit one slender finger though the space

between two others.

There was only silence for a moment, then two, three, four.

Until he dared break it with a word that shook as he breathed it, feeling more confused than he felt he had any right to be.

"Lance."

Mark glanced at the boy before him, staring at his hands as though he held the answers in them, confused by the single word he had uttered. "Hmm?"

"Lance." he spoke more surely this time around "My name." he confirmed "It's Lance." He felt as though he were telling himself more than he was Mark.

"Okay Lance, you got a last name?"

"No." He was about to say the thing he didn't want to admit "I don't have anything but that: Lance. I don't remember anything."

"Nothing?" Mark's stomach had hit the floor, eyes twitching a he watched his job grow harder.

"Nothing." He confirmed. Then the silence that followed came in waves. "Do I sound like a parrot to you right now?" Then Lance easily broke it.

"A bit." Mark agreed through a slight laugh. "Why are you so unaffected by your amnesia?"

"I'd tell you but I don't know. Might be the amnesia."

"It might."

He was let out of the hospital and put into Mark's care after another couple of days. It should be clarified that care was only temporary and mark was in charge of finding him a sense of normalcy even if no one knew who he was. Because they didn't.

A picture had been taken and published over the news channels, in advertisements and in newspapers. But there were no claims. The number attached had not been called once seriously, there were some prank calls from delinquent teenagers who didn't have a grasp of the situation. But that was it.

He was a social media hit too. The 'MeteorBoy' and 'MiracleBoy' hashtags were trending across the internet, full of theories as well as awareness posts displaying actual concern for the boy. Lots of people believed he was a liar too, perhaps a young orphan desperate for attention.

Mark didn't think so.

His small apartment really wasn't the best of places for a child but a teenager like Lance was fine. Well, sort of. He was fine but also kind of lonely. He didn't have any friends and there was no one else under the age of twenty five in the building in which he took temporary residence. He had grown to like the boy and could not see him being so dishonest. Well, there was the fact he had not slipped up once, too.

His name was lance and that was all he knew.

But the summer holidays were ending and it was becoming clear he would need to find the boy somewhere to go to school. He already knew that would be difficult. The boy had no legal forms of identification, no official age, birthdate or surname and he had politely declined the (again) temporary solution of adopting Mark's until they found his.

Lance wouldn't say it but he was starting to think there would be no 'when'. He would never get himself back.

He realised, as soon as the suspicion came to him, that he was mourning the loss of something he was not even entirely convinced of the existence of.

Mark was running out of options as the new school year grew nearer and nearer. He was beginning to worry - there was absolutely no way he could possibly home-school the boy but the other options were wearing thin.

There were no schools for troubled children in the area and it was certain those were the only type he would possibly get Lance accepted at when he, at least legally, did not exist.

He had exhausted every school he thought an option, each one, despite possessing a less than favourable reputation, had been unwilling to take in a student who they, along with everyone else, knew nothing of.

Mark liked Lance, he really did. He like the awful jokes the boy made, the weird references to nothing he made with a single raised eyebrow that were funny to here even if they were a nod to his amnesia, he liked watching the boy as he moved around tirelessly. However, he would not sleep until he found a way to be free of him - not in a mean way, it was better for the boy to be away room mark's apartment that meant he had to sleep on the couch, eat takeout every day or make food for them both himself (thankfully, he seemed to have some sense in the kitchen, even if cooking made his brow scrunch and his lips twitch like there was a memory sitting on the tip of his tongue, boxed up).

Just as mark's hope was beginning to truly drain, a miracle happened.

He stumbled across a school that promised to accept all, a school that would take in the strangest and worst cases of troubled children who needed to be 'fixed'.

Lance had never once been happy with the types of schools his painfully plain application was being sent off to but he had never complained - it was better than nothing even if it, among everything else that felt wrong felt the most off of all.

The names of this school?

It was, rather oddly 'The Wilderness School.'