She woke the first time with a start. Her adrenaline was already, or maybe still, pumping in her veins and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. When a pair of arms gave her a gentle squeeze as they readjusted, it grounded her. For the briefest moment she thought that they were Vell's arms and they'd simply fallen asleep reading in the top deck garden again. It wasn’t clear to her at what point she began to drift off again, even if she didn’t want to. Her body was far past the point of caring what she wanted when it wanted rest.

She’d been to several small libraries as she’d traveled with the Pod growing up but her mind had always held onto the wonder she’d felt at seeing row after row of tall shelves reaching for vaulted ceilings in the grand library in Joura when she was very small. Much like that one, every shelf in her own mental library was packed tight, full to bursting, not with books but abstract things she couldn’t quite describe. They shimmered around the edges and weren’t there if she looked directly at them but she could feel them there. Thoughts. Memories. Feelings maybe. She wandered through, not touching anything for fear of disturbing it, just floating, through the endless maze of shelves.

A smooth, inky fear slithered, unwelcome, between the shelves in her mind. She could feel it prodding and poking, looking… digging for something, but she had no idea what. It crept through the shelves and rows of thoughts and memories and knowledge of her mind. She could feel the monster lurking but it was quiet, subtle. It kept just out of sight, just out of reach no matter what she did. All the while though she could feel it observing her, following her train of thoughts and… avoiding her, if she had to place the feeling. It certainly wasn’t afraid of her but it kept its distance nonetheless. She was afraid of it though, of what havoc it could still inflict upon her here in her own domain. She wanted to confront it, cast it out, but she was also terrified of the idea of being face to face with it.

After drifting for what could have been forever or only just seconds, lost in her thoughts with images swirling past her, she stopped.

Even in her dreams she was exhausted.

It was there behind her eyelids, body curled in on itself, lost in the abyss of herself that the images came to her and she was an observer to her own memories, playing out like the grainy visuals on a broadcast box.

The memories came flooding back to her in a wave of devastation.

Her whole family was dead.

She waited for the grief to come. She waited for the stabbing twist in her chest and the tears to spring forth- but nothing came and that scared her as much as anything. She wanted to scream or cry and be upset but all the emotions she wanted to feel felt far away and out of reach. Instead she felt cold and numb. She tried reaching for her fen again but it was nowhere to be found. The loss of it left her feeling colder than she ever had.

Finally, she remembered the face of a man she didn’t know. He’d said something to her but she couldn’t remember what now, it had all been so spotty, like her consciousness. He knew her name though, she remembered hearing him call out to her. She’d felt him call out to her, through everything, the chaos and even the monster.

When she awoke in the total darkness, cold and seemingly alone, she thought maybe this was finally death. She felt numb and tired in a way she'd never been before, like she could lie there for an eternity and still never feel rested. In fact the only thing she really felt at all was tired. She lay there a while with no way to tell how long wondering if this was all there was now. The worst part was, she wasn’t sure if she minded it all that much.

Feeling came slowly, first as a tickle of icy wind across her and then as the whisper of that wind whistling around her. Finally she realized she could, in fact, feel her body. She opened her eyes to discover that the world was not in fact nothing but inky darkness. Her fingers and toes were numb from the cold but she could feel her body pressing down into a somewhat soft, spongy surface, probably grass. She mustered up what little she had left and lifted one arm up, brought her hand to where she thought her face was and inelegantly smacked herself lightly on the cheek just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

Then, feeling came all at once. As her arm fell out to the side of her somewhere in the darkness it fell across what seemed to her to be another body. As soon as her arm was there she was overwhelmed by the flurry of things she felt. It was a barrage of echoing thoughts, images of places and people she didn’t know, emotions she recognized but weren’t her own; fear and confusion. As quickly as her uncooperative muscles would allow she wrenched her arm back and felt it thump back onto her chest and she could hear her own heavy breaths mixing in with the wind.

Her body ached. Her skin felt too tight on her body, like it was trying to contain far more than simply its contents. She also felt hollow. Like a husk left out in the sun, shriveled and dry. She blinked her eyes open rapidly, feeling the tears slipping down her cheeks. As she blinked through the tears she could see that Ahraan was slowly making its way up and over the horizon, illuminating the world around them in a soft pink glow. A sob wrenched itself out of her and the tears kept coming. She pushed herself up from her curled position and dragged the collar of whatever she was wearing to try and wipe away some of the dampness but all it really did was muffle the sounds of her sniffling. When she heard movement off to her right she nearly jumped but a familiar voice spoke up.

“Oh…” He spoke hesitantly. She managed to scrub the fabric over her face one last time before looking over to see the man from the beach sitting there beside her, he was what she’d hit, what caused that strange swirl of thoughts and emotions. She saw that behind him, as she’d suspected, was a wide open field sloping gently downward. She sniffled again before she spoke.

“Hello.” She replied. She took a deep breath in, held it, and shuddered on the exhale, trying to get a hold of herself. The attempt was fruitless though as more tears slipped out. “Sorry.” She said with little gasps between sobs.

“No no no. Don’t be sorry.” He waved his hands in emphasis. “I just uh, I don’t really know what to do- Oh!” She wiped at her face again as he came closer and she saw now that on his other side was a small pack. He stuck his hand down into the bag and pulled out a water pack, popping the nozzle before offering it to her. Taking another shaky breath she reached and took it, suddenly aware that her mouth felt dry. The water was cold and it felt…strange in her mouth but not unwelcome. She took only a couple of sips before she handed it back.

“Thank you.” she said, handing the pouch back after a few moments. He took it back with a smile of his own. She did feel surprisingly better after something as simple as a drink. She sniffled a final time or two and the tears seemed to have at least slowed down.

“I found my backpack once it got light enough to see.” He explained. “No food though. I don’t think I planned for…uh, whatever happened.” His smile dropped. He turned to look at her, narrowing his eyes a bit. For several moments he said nothing, just looked.

“What are you looking at?” She finally grumbled. He startled and seemed to realize he’d been staring.

“Sorry. It’s just…I guess I’m still processing.” He looked down at his hands for a few moments. “What happened?” He gestured vaguely between them and around them. Her eyes followed the movement and she too looked between the two of them then out to the empty fields that went on as far as she could see, just soft rolling hills. She could see small breezes whipping through as the tall grasses swayed and bowed with it.

"I don't really know…" She sounded unsure even to herself. "I mean…I remember the…" she stumbled to get the word out, bile rising hot in her stomach, but she refused to soften it, “the execution.” She kept her eyes resolutely on the distance. "And then I remember waking up on the beach and you were there? I think you saved me.” She dragged her eyes back to meet his, something unsure and fragile felt like it was bubbling in her gut. He nodded before he spoke.

“I don’t remember anything.” He said simply. She stared at him, waiting for more but nothing came.

“What do you mean?” She narrowed her eyes.

“I mean I don’t remember anything before I woke up right here with you.” He clarified.

“But you knew my name!” She accused.

“Oh, yeah. I guess I know your name. It's Mezalie?” He asked. She nodded. “And I know my name. I’m LoVelly by the way.” He pointed to himself.

“But that’s it?” She demanded. "You don't remember the beach?" He shrugged at her, looking sheepish.

"I really don't. I'm sorry. I'm trying to remember but it's like the harder I try the harder it is. It took me until the moon came up to remember my own name.” He shrugged. “When I first woke up all I knew was yours." He said. As he talked his hands came up to worry at a long lock of hair slung over his shoulder that hung down to his waist. She saw him twist it around and around his finger.

She reached out and grabbed his hand as he wound the hair around again. The force of the barrage nearly knocked the wind out of the both of them. She wasn’t entirely sure what happened but the next thing she heard was a crack and then the smell of what reminded her of the desert after a good rain. They both felt the backlash of the fen next as images began to flit past behind their eyelids.

Images of lives they didn’t know but that they felt sure they’d lived. Men and women they knew nothing about but felt indescribably connected to. For split seconds each they saw through each of their eyes and the person sitting across from them wore another face, different but still somehow the same. They felt whatever this bond was reach out between them, connecting them again and again. The visions flashed and flickered by so quickly that each time they’d managed to grab onto one it was already gone. Each passing vision was harder to keep up with than the last and soon neither one was sure where they ended and the other began.

Mezalie saw a woman with dark auburn hair that glowed red as sol in the light. She had a wicked smile that said trouble and dark eyes that devoured the light and then she saw a gaping darkness. Nothing beyond the woman, only an empty vastness where memories should be. She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature, in the darkness she saw a cloud of breath blow out into a fog.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

On the contrast LoVelly saw too much, he saw carnage. Every halfway pleasant thought of other people, Mezalie’s family he gathered, was cut with an alarming amount of blood and viscera. He saw glimpses of the beach Mezalie was talking about, her family murdered around her. He felt the loss coursing through her, nearly unbearable in its weight. He felt the tremendous loneliness she’d felt for so long, pushed deep, deep down. He ripped his hand back from her to get away from the images. It made him dizzy.

“Whoa.” his voice dragged them both back to the now.

“That was a lot…” She shook her head out and took a deep breath. He was a bit breathless, the force of the feeling had hit them both hard. They both sat unmoving for several moments, just catching their breath. When she locked eyes with him slowly reaching out between them, an invitation, he didn't know why he did it, he really shouldn’t want to, but he reached out and met her in the middle.

Bits of random information, images that were more flickers of a vague idea of something, floated softly on the edge of their consciousness. The longer they sat and focussed on them the less intrusive they became, more like a hum or a buzz around the edge of their own thoughts. Mezalie could still feel out the big ones, the panic, the fear, but now she could feel the little ones too; curiosity: about her, about himself, about where they were. He wasn’t lying- he really didn’t know.

Finally, despite it beginning to settle, the feeling still became too much and she pulled her hand away. Immediately the buzzing of those outside thoughts was gone. Her eyes met with his and they both seemed to have the same expression of bewilderment on them.

“That’s weird right?” He asked.

“Yeah.” She quickly nodded.

“Is that going to happen every time?” He wondered.

“It seems that way.” She huffed a heavy sigh. She brought her hands up to cover her face, pressing her palms into her eyes. She could feel more tears welling up there. She startled both LoVelly and herself when she let out a long miserable shout that ended in a sob. At the end she took a deep breath, as deep as she could and she held it. She hiccuped on another sob, releasing her breath and then took another deep breath and held. She repeated the process until the sobs subsided.

LoVelly watched her fight the back the tears and his heart ached so viciously that he wasn’t sure who's emotions he was feeling. He’d moved to reach out more than once but he wasn’t sure it would do more good than bad with their track record. He had an idea though.

Once Mezalie finally pulled her hands away, her eyes were red rimmed and her lashes were wet and clumpy. She pulled a thick sweater up and wiped at her face. When she pulled it back she inspected the sweater, squinting at it.

“Where did this come from?” She asked, still a bit watery, into the sweater as she pulled it up over her face once more.

“It’s mine.” LoVelly said.

“Did you dress me?” She accused. She had no memory of putting the sweater on but truth be told she was glad for it. There was a comfort in it, in the warmth and the smell of it. And it fit okay.

“You’re going to hate this answer but I don’t remember. You were wearing it when I woke up but it’s definitely mine.” He scooted a bit closer to her, sidling up right next to her but not quite close enough for shoulders to touch. She looked over at him with great skepticism in her narrowed eyes.

“I have an idea.” He said it gently and when she made no move to push him away he bridged the distance between their shoulders. He scooted the rest of him to press the two of them together from shoulder to hip. The force of emotional barrage was slightly less powerful this time but still significant. LoVelly had a plan for it this time though. Once he’d gathered himself through the mixed thoughts and feelings he pushed back. He took his own feelings of calm and desire to comfort and he pushed outward with them. He’d had no idea if it would work or not but when it did he felt somehow sure he had known, somehow. He tried to find Mezalie’s distress in the jumble and when he came across bits and pieces he set his task to offering comfort.

“That’s weird.” Mezalie finally said, after a while. It felt like someone was coming along to snuff a candle on her hurts. She felt a bizarre sense of peace despite the still present knowledge of her situation.

“Do you want me to stop?” He asked, already moving to pull away from her.

“No.” She said simply. She moved to press herself back into his side. For a while they sat there and said nothing. They listened to the wind whisper through the grass and the occasional tree that she’d spotted in the distance.

“What do we do now?” He finally asked. She realized she’d been close to dozing off when his voice roused her.

“‘m not sure.” She said, yawning and sitting up to stretch. Ahraan had crept across the sky by now, about midday, and it bathed the landscape in soft pinks and deeper magenta.

She admittedly felt much better than she had. She looked over to LoVelly.

“Thank you.” She told him, taking a good look at him now. He was a bit shorter than her but she couldn’t tell how much sitting down. He had a square jaw but a baby face and maybe it was the light and maybe it was her last driev but she found it hard to focus too much on his face. He had eyebrows but she couldn’t quite tell if they were thick or thin, was his nose round or pointed? She shook her head, moving on. His hair was long, at least to his lower back she’d guess. It looked like it had been in a braid at some point but it had fallen out. He was fussing with the loose hair trying to gather it all over his shoulders and re-bundle it.

“Here. Turn around.” She motioned at him to turn his back to her. There was a tie that had been tangled into the ends and gently she worked it out before moving to undo what was left of the braid. “Got a convenient brush in that bag of yours?” She asked. He leaned forward, pulling the hair from her hands, to go through the meager contents in the bag and sure enough produced a small comb. She set to working through the long strands. It was clearly very straight naturally but the braid had worked a slight wave into the locks. They were fairly easy to brush out thankfully. Her own was much curlier and would take some time once she was done with his.

“I’m not sure where we are.” She said over his shoulder. “I’m not even sure how we got here.”

“I think it was me.” He tried to turn his head to look at her but she held tight to the hair as she braided, guiding him to look straight ahead. “I think it was my fen.” He said to the open field.

“You remember?” She asked, hopeful, but he shook his head.

“No. I just kind of know.”

“He just knows,” she mocked, rolling her eyes.

“Okay, Mezalie-” he began.

“Mez.” She corrected, finishing off the braid.

“Mez.” He huffed. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m as inconvenienced as you are by this no-memory situation.” He finally turned to look at her. “I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something important and then I remember, oh yeah- my whole life.” He closed his eyes tight, scrunching them slightly, wrinkling his nose. “It’s still here somewhere. I can feel it. It’s just like someone’s put a big wall between me and it.” He explained.

“Hmm…” She considered it for a moment, rolling over what they knew and what they didn’t. “I think maybe we should find a temple first.” She said finally.

“Yeah?” He asked, waiting for her to elaborate further. She nodded.

“Yeah, I think they could help you with your head and help me with…” She hesitated, eyes flicking to his briefly before bouncing away. “I think we could both use a temple. I need to tell someone what happened, get word out to other Pods. I don’t know if they’ll be able to help but we need somewhere safe to figure out what to do next. And I want to know why our fen does that.” She waved between them. She stared at him for a moment trying to understand the familiarity she felt when she looked at him. “I feel like I know you but I’m sure we’ve never met.”

“I get what you mean. I don't remember anything but somehow I remember you.” He agreed. “Okay, how do we find a temple?” He asked. He looked around them and the empty fields. “I really don’t know where we are.” Mezalie pointed upward and he followed her to Ahraan. She then arced her arm down, in the direction the moon was travelling.

“I figure the moon is going that way so if we go this way,” she turned her arm a bit “then we’ll hit a coast eventually and we can follow it to a city.” She turned to the horizon where Sol was threatening to stain the sky red as it approached. “Based on Sol’s position I’m confident we’re still on Arlenasch at least.” LoVelly nodded along as she explained.

“I’m really glad one of us is smart.” He said with a good amount of awe.

“I’m Solahaan. All I do is travel. You get pretty good at navigating. Also I think that maybe I see a path or a road out that way which means hopefully someone lives out here somewhere.” She said, hauling herself to her feet finally. LoVelly followed suit, hefting his pack over his shoulder. It was then that Mezalie realized that he was about a half a head shorter than her.

“Oh you’re tall.” LoVelly noticed at the same time.

“So I’ve heard.” She rolled her eyes but she couldn’t hide the small smile she wore as well. She started walking down the gentle slope and in the direction she’d spotted the road. It wasn’t too far really with nothing but empty field in front of them but they’d be walking for a while. She could hear LoVelly tromping along behind her. They said nothing for a while and it wasn’t exactly awkward but also… she felt a little bit awkward.

She was trying desperately not to think about the beach but there was nothing else so pressing and all consuming in her mind. Eventually it became impossible to drown out the echoes of screams in her mind on her own. She needed to drown out the dark thoughts and the slinking feeling in the back of her mind. LoVelly saved her from her spiraling as if he could sense her despair.

“Is your favorite food pickled nava?” He asked and she wasn’t sure what she had been expecting him to say but it wasn’t that. She turned to look at him, eyes narrowing.

“Yes. How do you know that?”

“I think I picked it up when I was in your head?” He guessed. “I get what you mean that it feels like I know you but I don’t know how.” Mez put her hands to her face, palms cupping her cheeks and took a deep breath in before laughing a little wildly on the exhale.

“What is even happening to me?” She asked, a bit hysterical. She felt a single tear escape down her cheek and she determinedly pushed the feelings back down, wiping away the dampness. LoVelly looked at her, brows furrowed and worry written on his face.

“I saw…” He hesitated, trying to broach the topic gently. “What happened on the beach…” Neither of them looked at each other. “I don’t know what to say Mez. Sorry isn’t enough.” They were quiet again as they went, Mezalie leading and LoVelly beside her as they wandered along toward a point on the horizon.

LoVelly could see the thoughts bombarding Mezalie. She was trying to hide it, he could tell she was trying to put on a neutral face but the despair slipped through the cracks. He desperately wished he knew why he knew how to look for the way she bit and rolled her lip when she was trying to hold back tears. Finally he couldn’t stand it and he reached out between them and caught her hand. Surprisingly the force of it wasn’t so bad this time, just a shock of colors and swirls of feelings flowing between them but like before he tried to project a feeling of calm, of something kind and soft. She looked between them at their joined hands as they continued, and then at him, but she didn’t say anything, she just slotted their fingers together more comfortably.