Chapter 5 ~ Misplaced Memories

“Ireae,” the girl replied, looking up at him with an expression of wonderment.

“Ear-ee-ay,” he repeated, enunciating each syllable. It was certainly unique. He couldn’t recall ever having met another person with that same name, nor had he come across it in any form of media he regularly consumed. “You have a great name,” he remarked with a smile, overjoyed by the fact that he could talk to her. Communication was everything. “It sounds very pleasant. It’s nice to meet you Ireae. I’m…” He paused as the words escaped him. He blinked in momentary confusion. “My name is…”

A cold chill ran down his spine, his earlier joy evaporating.

My name. I can’t remember my name…

 How was that possible? He had a name. Everyone had a name. Why couldn’t he remember his? It’s not like he had brain damage. He didn’t even have a body! Oh, he thought suddenly. I actually do have a body now. Then why? Delving into his thoughts he froze. What?! He was in fact missing a great deal of information. There were holes in his memory, as if his mind had become a sieve. Focusing, he was able to recall the accident, the last moments of his life with sickening clarity. The sensations, the shock, and the fear they were all there in ultra high definition. And yet he couldn’t recall what day of the week it had been. Nor could he remember the street names of that particular intersection. Looking even further, the faces of his mother and sister were as clear as day but their names were a great blank space in his mind. Many of the moments they’d all spent together, though he knew they existed, consciously attempting to recall them rewarded him with static.

I don’t get it. What’s going on?

He remembered what the house he grew up in looked like, the neighborhood too. He could picture them clearly. Yet the names of his brothers and sister, his parents, they were just gone. That moment when his brothers had taken him bike riding for the first time, visiting a local medieval festival and seeing sword fighting at the joust, and so many other memories; trying to see them in his mind was the same as watching corrupted video footage. It didn’t make any damn sense. It was like someone had gone into his head and selectively removed specific memories. There was so much missing and what was most concerning of all was that he knew it was gone. Once he’d started trying to remember, it was as if his mind had pulled up a list of his past experiences and showed him the glaring spots for all the bits and pieces that were empty.

What caused this, he thought with frustration. Who…who could have done this to me?

His gaze fell to the girl. Could she have…? No. Impossible. I just met her. No way she had time to control alt delete bits of my brain while getting attacked by monty python rejects.

Then who? How? And why was it some things and not others? Because he even remembered the apartment he shared with his… Aster! Relief flooded him as her name appeared in his mind, crystalline and clear. She was still there, his girlfriend, the love of his life whom he had been planning to propose to. He brought her face to mind; clear blue eyes, dirty blonde hair, light skin, with a dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose and cheeks. She was beautiful, his Aster…he froze again. Like so much else, her last name was missing too. What the hell!

“Great Spirit?” Ireae questioned.

He flinched as her words wrenched him away from his increasingly panicked musings. Blinking, he gazed down at the girl in front of him. Despite the mismatched eyes and the much thinner face…she really did resemble Aster. What does this mean?

“Ah, sorry,” he finally responded, deciding to deal with the issue of his missing memories later. “Um, I can’t seem to recall my name.”

“Oh.” She sounded surprised. “I didn’t know Great Spirits had names…I’ve never read…” The girl blinked and glanced around. Ireae’s expression twisted into a grimace as she put a hand over her mouth.

Something was definitely wrong but…“Never mind,” he interrupted. “That’s not important right now.” He scanned the room, looking over the dead bodies, beyond the space where the black wall of blades had dissipated. Did I really just butcher these people?

He’d reached out to the darkness, focusing on the strange sense of connection he felt with the shadows, and had willed it to lacerate and pierce. Like what had happened just moments prior, it was instinctual. He’d felt like he was moving a part of his own body when he made the darkness come alive. Before his eyes the shadows had become blades as solid as the weapons those men had wielded. The soldiers, knights maybe, who’d been intent on first abducting Ireae and then hurting her, hadn’t stood a chance. They’d died in seconds.

It was easy to kill them, he thought. Too easy.

Strangely, he wasn’t much bothered by it. Six men were dead, well seven actually, considering the first man who had tried to bash Ireae’s head in. All at his hands, figuratively speaking. She asked me to protect her. So why did I…what made me default to killing them? He wasn’t the kind of person to immediately choose violence. It wasn’t like he’d been a thug or murderer before he died; his worst crime was probably parking in a handicapped parking space two or three times. Given the fact that he hated guns, he’d never joined the military or police either. There’d been a few bar fights but no one had tried to avoid those more than he had. Shouldn’t I feel disgusted? A measure of guilt? I should feel bad about this. Right?

And yet…he felt nothing at all. In fact the only thing that bothered him about this whole situation was the fact that he was unbothered. Was this a symptom of the missing memories? Had his ability to empathize and feel remorse been surgically removed along with them? But there was something else, something that had him feeling unsettled for different reasons.

The odor of spilled blood swamped the room, making his jaws ache. In addition to all of the sensations of having a physical body, the feelings of thirst and hunger had been returned to him as well. And right now, the smell of blood had his stomach twisting with want. The fact he’d been drawn to Ireae’s, and even drank it, was certainly something that should have freaked him out. But that too was no bother. At least not in the way he thought it should. He was horrified more by the fact that it had tasted delicious and he wanted more. Not falling to the floor and licking it clean was an urge that was proving difficult to resist. Have I become a f*****g vampire now? He’d seen enough movies to know that vampires craved blood like crack addicts. But vampires weren’t made out of black mist; they had physical bodies. Human was definitely off the table so… Maybe I really am a demon. Or a bit of both?

Once he accepted that as likely, something settled into the core of his being. That sense of connection with the surrounding darkness became stronger and his new body more solid. His senses expanded bringing with them the sudden beating of more than a dozen strange drums. Somehow, as if by instinct, he knew he was hearing the pounding of living hearts.

“We should leave,” he stated, slightly disturbed by that realization.

Ireae started at his sudden declaration. “R-right. Father’s knights, I mean the Count’s knights, know I’m here now.”

He blinked at that. “Your father’s men?” His gaze swept over the corpses. “You mean your father, a Count, a Count as in a nobleman, sent these guys after you?”

“Yes,” Ireae whispered, lowering her head. “They’ve been searching for me ever since I escaped from the dungeons. I was hiding but grew careless. As a result they managed to track me down.”

“But…they attacked you. If I hadn’t intervened, that man would have…he tried to kill you.”

“What you say is true,” she sighed, not looking up. “It seems reasonable that they had orders to slay me if my capture failed. I imagine the Count would find the destruction of a tool like myself preferable to falling into another’s hands.”

He was appalled. What kind of b*****d sent a dozen armed men to murder his own daughter? And she’d called herself a tool. Did her father not even see her as a daughter? No, of course he didn’t. The girl had just said she’d escaped from the dungeons. She had been a prisoner. Furthermore, she was on the run. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she’d been cornered. Her words from earlier, the command Ireae had given him, to protect her…what kind of fucked up life had she living until now?

A low, very much inhuman, growl rumbled in his chest, escaping his throat. Whoa. How did I even make that noise?

The girl flinched and looked up at him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, not meaning to frighten her. “It just pisses me off that someone would try to kill their own kid. Your father sounds like an absolute piece of s**t.”

“Oh,” she said, lowering her head, which he patted gently. “Ah…yes. Again you speak truth. After everything that…” Her voice trailed off as her slight body began to tremble.

“Are you ok - -“

“He is a piece of s**t,” she declared before he could finish his sentence. “Someone unworthy of being called a father.”

He narrowed his eyes. Command or no command, he decided then and there that he would protect Ireae from whatever came. The fact that this kid was shaking after admitting her sperm donor was trash filled him with rage. He’d gone with Aster on more than one occasion as part of her aim to help kids in foster care. This was not the first time he’d encountered a child who behaved like this.

Ireae had been abused.

Aster would be furious. So even if he wasn’t some kind of summoned monster now, even if this young girl hadn’t freed him from the unending emptiness of that other realm, even if she didn’t resemble the woman he loved, he would have come to this same conclusion. As far as he could tell Ireae had no one else. If she did, wouldn’t she have been with them rather than alone in this…dump? It seemed all she had was him.

“Alright,” he said at last. “We should get going. Is there anything you nee - -” His voice trailed off as he noticed his hand and bare arm. His hand was big, his fingers ending in claws, and his entire arm was muscled and as black as a crow. His gaze followed up his arm and then down his body. He’d noticed it before but hadn’t consciously thought much about it but he wasn’t made of mist anymore. He was physical, solid, very much naked, and fortunately, or unfortunately, he was not anatomically correct. Still…it would probably be best to try and pass as human.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Well then…”

“What is it,” Ireae asked, her violet eye peering at him quizzically.

“Ireae, you don’t happen to have any clothes I could wear, do you?”

It was at that moment that the girl blinked, her face flushed, and she flinched away, seemingly realizing she was holding onto his bare skin. “I…uh, I have a spare cloak…”

That was better than nothing but…he grimaced as he considered the bodies. Some of them were quite large. Gritting his teeth, he stood. “If there’s anything you need to bring along, grab it now. And uh…don’t look in my direction until I say it’s okay.”

“Of course,” she muttered, busying herself with lighting a candle, visibly holding her breath sporadically while trying not to vomit again.

For his part, he picked over the bodies as quickly as he could and managed to scavenge a lightly soiled shirt, boots, gloves that hid his claws, a belt, and one pair of ill fitting pants. It was sheer luck that these few articles of clothing weren’t stained with blood or other kinds of filth. He dressed as fast as he could, not wanting Ireae to get an eyeful when she got that candle lit.Not that there was much to see but…old habits and all. Once he finished, he continued searching the bodies. Again he was struck by how unbothered he was by this. If it had been before, he was sure doing something like looting corpses would have been impossible for him.

Is it because I died once? he mused.  Or maybe it’s because of my…misplaced memories…

Aside from clothing, weapons, and armor, each man had a small pouch that jingled with the sound of coins. Glancing around the tiny, disheveled and desolate, room it was obvious that Ireae didn’t possess a lot of personal wealth. This place was practically falling apart. And money was necessary everywhere. It seemed to be a universal constant even in a different world. He was finally beginning to accept that this was a different world. Only an idiot would leave money lying around. So he took every coin purse he found along with their small trinkets. Among them were six matching badges with what looked like an owl engraved on them and a few bands of silver and gold.

Their presence reminded him of the engagement ring he’d gotten for Aster.

Before he could progress any further with that thought light suddenly sprung into existence and he turned.

Reviews

[Dewella~Vintella]

Love seeing the beginnings of thier dynamic, so excited to see how this will continue. Love the little mystery of his missing memories and his unnatural unbothereness over the whole situation. Very good over all so far and can't wait to read more!

[Caradoc]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I just finished revising the chapter to give a little more depth to their dynamic and make the mystery feel a bit more personal for the character. Added a sprinkling of backstory for Mr. Spirit and his girlfriend too. I intend to build this up bit by bit. Thanks so much for stopping by!

- Cara