He feels a distant prickling under his skin, and he cannot recognize it at first. It is somewhere between pleasant and uncomfortable, and he nearly shivers beneath it before he realizes this is the feeling of hope. A path being forged before him and at the end of it is himself, the self that he senses in dreams or at certain nonsensical things.
And is he scared, of this self? Of what might be uncovered? Surely he isn’t named garbage for no reason. He is frightened, just a little, but he thinks any history is better than this expanse of blankness, of knowing nothing, all while having the sense that the self was lurking, just below some surface that he cannot break through.

The smile is slow to break across his face as hope staggers to its feet within him, and he touches her again, trying to do something to express his thanks, that she is willing to facilitate help for him, a stranger.
“You’re both so kind,” he says softly, “so wonderful.”
He pulls back from her, does not want to impose himself on her. His anxiety has already crept up, asking what if it doesn’t work? or what if she refuses? but he can swallow that down, allow hope its place.
“Where does she live?’ he asks then. He doesn’t know how to find anyone here – not that he knows anyone to find – but he will happily follow Agetta to the ends of the earth for this chance, to remember the world he has forgotten.