SOMEWHERE TWO HOURS OUTSIDE BRISBANE AUSTRALIA
OCTOBER 2 1984.
The branch broke before Hendrick ever heard it crack.
One moment the six-year-old was halfway into the crown of the old gum tree, dirt beneath his fingernails and the triumphant jeers of his friends somewhere below. The next there was nothing beneath his foot.
He fell nearly six metres.
Branches caught him on the way down, enough to turn him but not enough to stop him, and Hendrick struck the packed red earth beneath the tree with the right side of his head.
He did not scream.
That was what his mother would remember most clearly afterward. Not the ambulance tearing along the dirt road toward their property, nor the blood running from beneath his hair, but the silence. Hendrick had always been a noisy child. He complained loudly, laughed louder, and considered most injuries deserving of an audience.
This time he simply lay there.
By the time the ambulance reached the hospital, Hendrick had vomited twice and scarcely opened his eyes. A rigid collar enclosed his neck, an oxygen mask covered most of his small face, and one paramedic kept a hand against his shoulder as the trolley rattled through the emergency entrance.
"Six-year-old male, fall from approximately six metres. Loss of consciousness at the scene, duration uncertain. GCS nine in transit. Pupils equal and reactive. Vomited twice. Possible right temporal fracture."
The words meant little to his mother. Six metres did. So did loss of consciousness. Then he disappeared into a room full of people.
His clothes were cut away. Someone checked his pupils with a light while another doctor ran careful hands across his skull and neck. They spoke in short, economical phrases around him, airway, cervical spine, blood pressure, neurological response, and whenever Hendrick began to stir, someone asked him his name.
Once, he answered.
"Mum."
She heard it from the corridor and tried to go to him.
A nurse caught her gently by the arms. "He's responding. That's good."
"Then let me in."
"We need some room at the moment Mrs Archer"
Through the open doorway she saw Hendrick's eyes flutter open. They wandered without finding anything, his face twisting in confusion before his body suddenly heaved. The doctors moved almost as one. Suction appeared. Hendrick was rolled carefully without allowing his neck to twist, and within moments the senior doctor had made the decision to intubate. His level of consciousness was too poor, and repeated vomiting made aspiration too great a risk.
That was when his mother understood that this was more than a bad concussion. The little country hospital could stabilise him, but it could not give Hendrick what he might need. Within the hour he was being transferred to a larger centre with neurosurgical facilities, sedated and breathing through a tube while his parents followed behind.
Imaging showed what the bruises on his face could not. There was a fracture through the right temporal bone and cerebral contusion beneath it, with additional injury to the opposite temporal lobe where the brain had been thrown against the inside of the skull. There was bleeding, though mercifully no large haematoma demanding immediate surgery. The greater concern was swelling.
For the next several days, Hendrick remained in intensive care while the doctors watched for rising intracranial pressure. His parents were told not to think too far ahead. Brain injuries were unpredictable, particularly in children. Hendrick might recover extraordinarily well. He might have problems with memory, concentration, language or behaviour. Some deficits might not become apparent until months or even years later. For the moment, the fact that he was alive and stable was enough.
Four days after the fall, Hendrick opened his eyes properly. Within a week he was talking. Within two, he was complaining. That, more than anything else, convinced Thomas and Veronica Archer that their son was coming back. And for the most part, he did.
His speech was unchanged. His memories aside from leading up to the accident remained intact. His coordination recovered, the headaches faded, and before long he was pestering nurses with questions and attempting to leave his bed whenever nobody was watching. Follow-up examinations were sufficiently encouraging that the terrible possibilities discussed during those first nights began slowly retreating from his parents' thoughts.
It was only after the swelling had subsided that the scans revealed something less obvious. The neurologist explained it with a pair of images illuminated against the wall. Hendrick's temporal lobes had borne much of the injury, including damage deeper within the brain. Two structures in particular appeared to have been affected on both sides.
The amygdalae.
They were small, almond-shaped collections of nuclei buried within the medial temporal lobes, and the neurologist was careful not to describe them as some simple fear centre. The brain did not work that neatly. The amygdalae participated in emotional learning, recognising threats and attaching significance to danger, working alongside a much larger network of structures responsible for everything Hendrick understood as fear. But the damage was significant.
What that would mean for a six-year-old boy was impossible to say. Perhaps very little. Perhaps changes in emotional behaviour would emerge as he grew older. Hendrick would need neurological follow-up, and his parents were advised to watch particularly for unusual impulsivity, difficulty recognising danger, or changes in how he responded to things that had frightened him before.
The first answer came sooner than anyone expected. Before the accident, Hendrick had been terrified of the dark. Not merely uncomfortable with it. Terrified.
Taking the rubbish to the outside bin after sunset, one of his first chores he was learning, had required the porch light, the kitchen light and, preferably, his father standing somewhere within sprinting distance. Hendrick knew perfectly well there were no monsters lurking beyond the paddock fence. Knowing had never stopped him imagining them.
One evening, several months after coming home, his mother handed him the rubbish without thinking. Hendrick took it and wandered outside. It was only when she heard the screen door shut that she noticed the porch light was still off. She looked through the kitchen window. Her son was halfway across the yard.
"Hendrick?"
He stopped and looked back.
"Yeah mum?"
Veronica stared at him. Beyond the house, the Australian bush was little more than black shapes beneath a moonless sky, a rare occurrence in a sky usually so bright.
"Aren't you going to turn the light on?"
Hendrick looked toward the porch.
"No."
"You always turn the light on." She stated with a furrowed brow.
That made him hesitate. He looked toward the darkness again. There was nothing remarkable about it. Trees. Grass. The distant fence he could barely see. Somewhere farther out, insects chirped among the scrub. He remembered being afraid of it. That was the strange thing. He could remember standing at the back door and refusing to go farther. He could remember imagining eyes between the trees and running back toward the house so quickly that Thomas had laughed. He knew what the darkness was supposed to make him feel. He simply couldn't find the feeling anymore. Veronica had come to the doorway.
"Henny?"
He looked at her.
"Are you scared?"
Hendrick thought about it for a moment. "No mummy."
"Not even a little?"
He looked once more into the darkness.
"Nope." He smiled, idly swaying the garbage bag back and forth a little out of idle boredom.
His mother said nothing. Hendrick shrugged, turned around and continued toward the bin. He was six years old when someone first realised Hendrick Archer was no longer afraid.
November 14th 1996, 12 Years Later
A familiar man made his way through town, where he had picked up a sealed envelope from the post office, appearing eager to open it. Making his way into the hills just outside of town and up into the hills, he came across three of his friends.
"About time you made it. Not like we have school anymore." Damon chuckled.
"You leave him alone. At least he's not a fuckin bludger. What you got there Henny?" Morgan, Damon's girlfriend chastised him, before looking to Hendrick to ask as he took a seat amongst the small group, politely declining a beer, never having liked the taste.
Hendrick smiled as he held up the envelope. It read M.I.T. Or the Melbourne Institute of Technology.
"Wait...you're fuckin jokin...you were serious about that?" Scott asked with a furrowed brow.
"Wait, you're leaving Henny?" Morgan asked, snapping up straight like an unstrung bow.
"I did say there was a chance guys." Hendrick reminded them.
"Well, open it then!" Scott said, part eagerness and dread.
"Nah, waiting until I get home. I want to do it with mum." Hendrick said matter-of-factly as he slipped it back into his bag.
"Mate...there's teasing, then there's that. Your future chick is gonna hate you." Damon laughed, slapping his knee. That copped him an elbow to the ribs from Morgan.
"Gonna be some beaver-looking computer chick." Scott cackled.
Suddenly, the nasally whine of multiple dirt bikes came into earshot. Within the minute, three of them peeled up onto the hill the group was sitting on before stopping. One got off, stumbling a little as he fiddled to remove his helmet. Who was revealed made all four of the group sigh. Derrick, the town drunk, meth head and wannabe gangster.
"Didn't...I tell you cunts to fuck off from here?" He slurred his words a little, a disposition that explained his uneven skullet and rotted teeth.
"Yup...and no one gives a fuck mate." Scott said, raising his bottle with an unbothered smile.
Derrick didn't speak, instead, resorting to taking out his flip knife and going for Scott.
Hendrick didn't hesitate. Equally fed up from multiple confrontations like this in the past, he shot to his feet, a fistful of fine red dirt in his hands he proceeded to throw into Derrick's face, forcing him to stumble back in disorientation. Damon understandably instinctually defaulted to protecting Morgan, while Scott used the almost empty bottle in his hand to smash Derrick's knife hand, definitely cracking a knuckle or two, and sending the knife flying into the brush.
Breathing in deep, Hendrick shifted all his weight, his entire body tensing as he jumped and planted both feet into Derrick's chest with all his might. Derrick groaned from the air being shot out of his him as he stumbled back, slamming into and toppling off the ridge with his bike. His other two friends on the other bikes looked to Scott holding a beer bottle like he was Inigo Montoya, and that lightless determination in Hendrick as he rose back to his feet, turned around, and sped off on their bikes.
Scott chuckled, spinning the bottle in his hand. "I'm your huckleberry." before fumbling and dropping it.
Hendrick didn't laugh. The last thing he'd want is for any of them to get into shit over something as stupid as this. He turned to address Damon. "Get her home. I'll see you all later. If anyone asks, we were all at the movies watching that weird ghost mask movie." Hendrick said, grabbing his bag.
Damon nodded, his stance still partially guarding Morgan, who shoved him off a little. "Yeah yeah, you big sop." She chided teasingly.
All four of them went their separate way within minutes as the sun began to sink over the horizon, none caring what became of Derrick, whose position would likely be settled to a characteristically drunken bike ride.
Hendrick had been walking through the dirt paths he knew like the back of his hands for barely ten minutes when he felt comfortable enough to take out his walkman and turn on some tunes, his head beginning to subtle bob to the rhythm of Easy Lover by Earth, Wind and Fire. When suddenly...
The air tore above him as something whizzed past and slammed onto the ridge high up on his one o'clock. The ground quaked, birds shot from trees, and night had become day for but a moment. Hendrick had grounded himself, on his hands and knees, his breathing heavy but even, unknowing if the ground itself would come apart at any moment. It didn't, and after allowing himself to catch his breathe, he rose to his feet, and began legging it up onto the ridge to get a better look.
Smoke and fire bellowed into the sky, likely impossible not to see from even all the way in town, the destruction to the empty desert contrasting with the emerging, vibrant night sky. Hendrick slowly approached the scene, his experiences with stories clashing with his rationality he had come to live with for most of his life. It was a ship...alien, elegant, yet half smashed to pieces from some previous accident or incident.
He crouched to look at a partially broken pane of glass that appeared to shift between an array of chromatic light depending on the angle, when he saw it...He was pink of skin, his outfit as green as his eyes, a wide wound on his left shoulder, his breathing weak and uneven. Slowly, the figure turned his head to look at Hendrick.
"Sir...are you alright?" Hendrick didn't know what else to ask in this scenario, what he was feeling...indescribable.
"Your name...what is your name?" The...alien rasped followed by a cough.
Hendrick didn't reply for a moment, but swiftly brushed past the shock of hearing it speak English.
"Hendrick...Hendrick Archer."
"I, am Abin Sur...Green Lantern of Sector 2814...and it has chosen you." Abin stated as he proceeded to outstretch his hand, as though offering something to Hendrick.
"We need to get you to a hospital sir..." Hendrick said, crawling into the cockpit in a in vain attempt to help him.
Abin then outstretched his hand, and open his hand. Within was the conduit to perhaps the most important question Hendrick had ever received, something had become fundamental to him, made others think twice about him, but now had become fundamental.
"Are you afraid?"
Hendrick looked at for a moment, mesmerised by it's beauty, then back to him.
"No..."
"Place it in the lantern to replenish it's power...recite the oath...and embrace your destiny, Hendrick Archer of Earth." He informed Hendrick, before the last of his strength faded. Hendrick had little time to process any of this before the ring began to float. He attempted to grab it to recover it, only for it to evade his grasp, then slip onto his finger.
He stumbled back, bumping into the crystalline lantern, which followed him in fallout out of the ship and back onto the red dirt. Hendrick breathed heavy as he got to his feet, dusting himself off. He looked to the ring on his hand before attempting to take it off...nothing. It refused. His mind was racing at a thousand thoughts a second as he thought back on Abin's words...the Lantern.
He looked to the strangely familiar device next to him, never having thought something so mundane could be so otherworldly beautiful. He looked at the ring one final time, taking in a deep breathe, before placing the symbol into the slot.
A force enveloped him as he lifted off the ground, his eyes turning from royal blue to vibrant green as he was infused with understand, information he could sense was only the beginning, power that should've overwhelmed his mind, made him feel insignificant, but protected it. He shed a tear as ethereal emerald energy enveloped him, binding and solidifying into a suit, layers of armour, backed by a flowing cape, a bulwark against things indescribable, that came with the words he now understood...
"In brightest day, in blackest night. No evil shall escape my sight. Those who worship evils might, beware my power...green lanterns light!" He said as the Lantern disappeared, an the ring proceeded to blast him into the sky.