Another Brother, chapter 1

I gasped; I take one last look at the light, then... darkness. The taste of blood is strong and thick. I swallow down hard. But more blood quickly fills my mouth.
My head feels as though some one is pounding it with a hammer. I lay on the cold ground, or at lest I thick I'm on the ground.
Everything is black.
I can hear a voice, but see nothing. I let out a loud groan. I have never felt worse in my life.
Rain pours heavily from the dark grey clouds that fill the nigh sky. My blood washes away with the water down the drain.
I slowly open my eyes; I am lying in the middle of a cold path. Under the light of a lamppost.
I roll over onto my back.
Still holding tightly onto the photo, the writing on the back may have been smudged from the water, but it was that very piece of information that held my future.
I slowly pull myself up; my head is in a million places at once. I stand for a few seconds before I stumble. I nearly hit the ground again, when out of the dark shadows a tall man appeared and grabbed me by the arm, stopping me from falling down.
"Hey kid are you okay?" he asked with a caring tone in his voice. I was all over the place. He was the only thing holding me up.
I turned to face him "I should b...." I couldn't finish my sentence, when I saw his face I nearly fainted.
"Look kid, you're clearly not fine, come inside in my dinner, I'll take care of you okay." He offered directing me inside the dinner next door to where he found me. Rudy's can't fail café, it was called.

Before we went too far, I stopped him. I looked at the treasured piece of paper that I held tightly in my hand. And sure enough it was a match. The guy in the photo was the same guy that stood right before me now.
I turned the piece photo over to read the back I could barely make out the words they were so smudged.
"Michael Pritchard?" I asked.
He got quite a shock when he heard me say that. He looked down on me, "How'd you know my name? If you're a fan, please don't get existed, I'll give you an autograph, but now you really need to rest." He sighed.
"No, no you... got me all wrong," I insisted, I was struggling to speak.
"Stop, we can talk later we really need to get you inside, its pouring with rain, and look at your head you're a mess. If I hadn't seen you out here you would have frozen to death!" he said in a concerned voice.

Then and there I couldn't go on, I was far too weak.
I collapsed into the mud. I couldn't get up again. So he picked me up and carried me inside.
He put me down in one of the booths of the leather seat, were I could lie down.
The place was closing so no one else was in sight.
He went out back for a while. While he did that I looked at the photo some more. It was defiantly him. He had even confirmed his name was Michael Pritchard. There was no doubt he was my brother.

You see, I come from an orphanage. My mother was heroin addicted, and my father, well. He is dead now from what I know.
So I was put up for adoption when I was a baby, 13 years ago.
I've lived in an orphanage all my life, it was only a year ago that I found out my real parents had other children before, and although they were old enough to be my parents themselves they were my brother and sister.
As soon as I found out that I had people out there somewhere that, well were related to me I have wanted to find them. I some how managed to get my hands on a photo, of him with a name. I have carried it everywhere since I got my tiny pale hands on it.

That's why I ran away from the orphanage about a year ago. I sent myself on the mission to find my only brother.
Since that faithful night, I have slept in allies and made money for food with my busking out side various shops. Including this dinner, I was out there all day strumming away on my only possession base guitar, well besides the guitar all I own was the clothes I wore on my back.
That's how I ended up on the ground out there. I was making my way back down the street after it started to get dark; I needed a place to sleep for the night, and I had made a lot of money for some food.
So I was on my way, and this guy came up and mugged me for the money I had made earlier. I didn't give him the money, so he beat me up, that's not the first time it's happened. But it was the first time I lost my base as well.
So anyway, that's how my life story goes.

Now my journey, my search for my family was up. I had found him. I was over whelmed with joy and fear at the same time.
For the first time in my life this was it. I had looked forward to this day all my life, and now it was here I didn't know what would happen.
What if he told me to just rack off? What if he didn't want anything to do with me?
"Get a hold of yourself, Ryan." I said to myself out loud.

"Whom are you talking to?" He asked as he sat down opposite me and handed me a coffee, and through me a big coat. I quickly put it on even though it was miles to big and took a few sips from my coffee.
"Well, if your not a fan, then how do you know my real name is Michael Pritchard?" he asked, taking a sip out of the coffee he had made for himself.
I didn't know how to explain it. So I just blurted it out, and let it sit on the table. To see what his reply would be.
"Well, I'm your brother. See." I said shoving the photo in his face. He stopped dead. He slowly took the photo out of my hand, he gazed at his picture. Then he flipped it over and read out the back.
Michael Ryan Pritchard
Birth date - 4th may 1974
Brother of Ryan Michael Pritchard

His jaw dropped past his toes. He couldn't believe it. He looked at me, he stared into my eyes. He had the same blue eyes of me. I looked back at him, and then I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the window. I hadn't realized until then, how much I looked like him.
He hadn't said anything yet.
"How, how can this be??" he asked himself.
"You're my brother, I can see it now. I was watching you today, playing out there. All day, I knew there was some thing about you that reminded me about me, but I couldn't put my finger on it." He replied.
"Oh my god, when Amelia, my... our, sister told me that she saw you I thought she was just seeing things." He explained. His face had gone so pale it was nearly as white as the tiles on the floor.
"Wait!" I said loudly in annoyance. "You knew I existed?!" I screeched.
Mike nodded. Looking at me with a confused look in his eyes. Like he didn't understand why I was so angry.
"So you knew very well you had a little brother, who was living in a shit hole of an orphanage, wishing everyday of his life he could die, and you made no attempt what so ever to contact him!?!" I yelled.
How could he do that to me? Know I was alive and let me suffer.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down little bud, don't get me wrong. I didn't know you existed until about year ago. And when I found out you existed, it was from the orphanage saying that you had run away, to come looking for me, they wanted to know if you had found me. You see, I had no way of contacting you, I had no idea where you where. Okay?" he explained in a perfectly calm voice.

That made sense. Not only did it make sense, it made me feel like a complete fagot for going off at him like that.
"Dude, I'm so sorry about that, but you know" I apologized with a shaky voice, my bruised face and head was really starting to hurt.
" I understand, when I was your age I had lots going on in my life to, if I found out I had a brother that could care, but I thought he didn't I would of gotten just as pissed."
We nodded in agreement.
Mike moved over so he was sitting next to me on the same seat. He put his arm around me and rubbed his hand up and down in an attempt to make me warm.

"Fuck, little bud your hands are like ice." He said grabbing my hand with both of his big warm hands and rubbing them to make them warm. It was the first time, ever that any one had ever cared about me like that.
"Little bud, your so skinny don't you eat?" he said eying me up and down. I was incredibly skinny for some one my age. I only weighed 29 kg most people my age weighed about 40-45 kg.
"I don't always eat, it depends on how much money I make busking, weather or not I eat." I explained as I finished off the warm coffee.
"What?!" Mike said in shock.
"You mean you haven't gone back to the orphanage since last year!" he exclaimed.
I nodded. I didn't know what was so amazing about that, I had a rotten. I knew how living on the streets worked. I was used to it.
"Where do you sleep?!" he was shocked.
"Where ever, I put a little money aside every day, and when I save up enough I stay in a crummy hotel for a few nights. Other wise I take the back door steps of shops and stuff" I explained.
"That's amazing, that a 13 year old boy survived on his own, in America. The person I talked to from the orphanage said most runaways get found, or end up coming back within two maybe three weeks that the most." He said still shocked.
"oh, I saw what happened, how that fagot took your money and guitar, without your guitar what are you going to do?"

I began to cough badly, my throat hurt so much. It was the middle of winter and sleeping out side was getting harsh, and on top of that my headache was becoming more of a bad migraine by the second.
"Kid, you're a mess. I can't send you back out there, on the streets. Not after everything you've been through. You're coming with me."

He stood up, grabbed his keys from his pocket, through them up in the air, and caught them again.
"Come on, what you are waiting for?" he said coolly.