I slowly lifted my eyelids up. The slit of a potent ray of sunshine hit me full force, forcing me to adjust my vision to a comfortable level. I had woken up from what felt like a terrible, intense nightmare.

My body was numb, as though it just awakened from several weeks of slumber. But even so, I tried to lift my right hand up to intercept the light striking my vision and find an opportunity to inspect the place I had just woken up in. Suffice to say, it just ended up confusing me further, as I couldn’t recognize it.

The mattress I laid in was soft and comfortable, the likes of which I had scarcely experienced throughout the years. Walls and floor were eerily clean, almost untouched, or perhaps disinfected; was I in a hospital room?

I dropped my arm onto my forehead. Just keeping it lifted felt like intense exercise.

Although my mind was hazy, I could vividly recall where I was before ending up here, and that the memories of an entire life that had priorly escaped me were on the verge of coming back. I was about to recollect something fundamental that I had previously forgotten, my entire reason for living. But then, that woman.

— “Can you hear me?”

An angel.

— “What?”

With the realization that the voice was not in my own mind, I turned my head towards its direction. A girl, looking like her mid-twenties, was sitting on a wooden stool beside the bed I was in. She wore a gray nurse uniform—or maybe a doctor’s—with a familiar patch on its left breast. The material didn’t show its age, but the dried blood and filth patches were plentiful, making me wonder if they were all recent.

She didn't waste a single second, checking my bandages in rough and quick motions, lifting me up to my side and then back down, like this was a routine she had already done several times that day, and had just wasted the last drop of energy to care.

“Sorry love, I’m married.” She said in a raspy, unamused tone, with the mug of someone who had been burnt out for years.

Her expression was tired, and she had visible marks below her eyes.

“I… where am I?” I asked, turning my stare to the arm I was previously resting on my forehead. The back of my hand was covered in a single large scar, starting from the left side just above the thumb, going inwards in a smooth line. The cicatrized skin looked fresh, soft, saggy.

I turned it around to look at my palm. Same scar formation.

It looked like something had sunk deep into the side of it not too long ago. I tried closing it, but the weakness that the wound had caused made me struggle to do so. No matter how hard I tried, I simply lacked the force.

I felt a bit anxious at the thought of my hand having permanent loss of mobility, but that wasn’t my most serious concern at that moment.

“One of Raspiel’s outpost hospitals.” She said, getting up from her stool in a hurry.

“Apologies, but I have other patients to see. A nurse will escort you to your dormitory.”

Raspiel? That name sounded extremely familiar.

I looked back at her, the large patch on her stained uniform, and I finally recognized it: Raspiel’s Cross! But before I had time to process it, the nurse turned around, and started walking away, towards the door.

A feeling of urgency came over me, like I had to stop her right then and there or I would’ve never gotten any answers. Of course, in retrospect, that might’ve been an exaggeration.

“Wait!” I yelled, grabbing her by the sleeve. She looked back with a puzzled expression on her face.

“I-”

And yet, I had no clue of what I wanted to say.

So many questions were spiraling me in a vortex of confusion. So much ignorance, so much missing information.

Who was I? How did I get here? Was my encounter real, or was it just a bad dream, a figment of my imagination? What did it all mean? I could not even begin to explain any of it, I had a need for a semblance of control, I felt so desperate to regain my balance. Alas, amongst so many options, I failed to find the right decision.

“Could I get a cup of water?”

Silence.

She stared at me, stunned. The expression of the tired overworked doctor quickly faded away, and in its place there was only what could be described as someone who had just seen a ghost, like I had suddenly woken her up from the trance she had subconsciously put herself in for her job.

As though an eternity had just passed in those few seconds, she ended up not saying anything, only granting me a slight nod.

Having one final look at her, I let go of her sleeve, before looking back down trying to break the awkwardness that I had just created. She hesitated for a moment, before finally walking out the room—now in a slower, more relaxed walk, closing the door shut behind her.

And so, I was left on my own, to gather my hundreds of fleeting thoughts. Or so I believed.

After a short time, I heard the door open again, and the nurse gradually stuck out her head from behind.

“...Ansel?” She said in an almost whispering volume, unsure of herself.

I froze in place.

That name.

I could recall it was mine, I could recall I used it in my encounter with the angel, although it felt unfamiliar at the same time. As if I needed to be more disoriented than I already was. My head was hurting in confusion, but I closed my eyes and tried to use this circumstance to my advantage.

“You know me?” I asked, genuinely surprised, yet trying to emphasize it.

“I thought it was you.” She said, this time in an audibly more excited tone, walking into the room and gently closing the door behind her once more.

“I wasn’t sure because of the… beard.”

“Beard?” I said, touching my chin.

My face was covered in a raggy, unkept beard, the kind a vagrant in the slums would have. It was bad, and despite my current situation, also more than a little embarrassing. The woman pauses for a moment, staring me down, as if trying to inspect me.

“You don’t recall having a beard? How long have you been here?”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that question?”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Usually yes, but I just got here.” She says, and then lowers her head, looking to her left, as if trying to prepare herself for what she’s going to say next, locking her hands together. It is then that I noticed a wedding ring on her finger.

“Saying the frontlines are suffering losses would be an understatement. The empire needs all the doctors it can afford, so carriages from the capital are in a constant flow. I arrived here fairly recently.” She then looks back at me, a gentle smile on her face. “I’m glad I could meet you in relatively good health. Not even most knights of the Feuerlilie were as lucky.”

The Feuerlilie, another name I’ve definitely heard before.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit dazed at the moment, what was your name?”

She frowns, but only for an instant. “I understand, I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve gone through.”

She walks closer, and sits back down on the same stool, pulling herself towards me.

“I’m Kate, we met in Andonia, we used to be part of the same party.”

“Party?” I interject, confused.

“Sorry, the Navigators’ Guild.” She explains, as if correcting a mistake she’s made. “We were part of the same Navigator party back when you were but a lad with nineteen years of age.”

“And you?” I ask. “How old were you?”

“Back then, I used to be almost thirty.”

I paused for a moment. She did not show her age. “You’re over thirty?”

She looks at me with a slight grin. “This year I’ll be thirty-four!”

Her expression, however, changed rather quickly to one of serious concern.

“You… don’t remember, do you?”

She looks at me, realizing the state of which I’m in.

“What happened to you?”

Shifting around in the bed, I tried getting into a more comfortable position. My heart was relaxed, but the beat betrayed my current state of mind. Where would I even begin to explain? I wasn’t even sure I knew what was real anymore. I didn’t remember how I knew my name, or why I even forgot in the first place. Am I sane of mind?

And that patch on her uniform, Raspiel’s Cross, an icon that I felt so many emotions towards, and yet none of them I could describe as strong. They were simply nostalgic.

“Forgive me, Kate, I don’t think I know.”

My head turned to look at her. She had the look of a worried old friend, and part of me did not want to put the burden to find the validity of what I witnessed on such someone.

“I don’t think I remember anything. At all.” My stare wandered down again, to her chest. “But I do vaguely recall that Cross.”

“Vaguely?” She says, like I just told her terrible news.

“Ans, you’re a devout follower of the Cross.” She sighs, then continues. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met a more fanatical zealot than you.”

Her expression shifts to that of a sad, yet tender smile, almost like she’s looking at me in pity. “But I guess this would be a positive change for you!” A single laugh escapes her, perhaps out of nervousness.

“Yeah?” I joined her, forcing a grin, trying to comfort her.

Nevertheless, an awkward silence befalls us again.

“Hey… Kate.” I hesitated, looking at her reaction, eyes now widened in expectation. “What is it?”

“Who am I?”

She bit her lip, trying to hold in the sorrow of watching an old acquaintance you once knew forget everything about themselves. I didn’t envy her position.

“...I can’t exactly tell you much, we haven’t met in years, but.” She stops in her sentence, playing with the ring on her finger for a while. “I know last time I saw you, you wanted to enroll in the royal army, to fight in the war.”

For a moment, I pondered on what she told me.

Even given my current state, I could tell that fighting in a war was not something I felt like I’d ever want to do. At this rate, I was getting more questions than answers.

“Before that, I just knew you as a religious young man, trying his best to survive on his own in this cold world.”

“On my own?”

“Well.” She looked up, as if trying to find the words. “Your mother died at the beginning of the war. When we spoke, I recall you told me your village was raided by barbarians, like most of the poor souls outside Raspiel.”

A fragment of my past flashed in front of my eyes.

I could see fire; ashes of my own home were accompanying the strong winds of that day. My hand reaching out to my mother.

Her eyebrows sharpened down in anger, revealing the wrinkles of an actual thirty-year-old. “Your father still lives, but not much of a father he is. Even though he’s long retired from his duties, he abandoned you to rejoin the Feuerlilie Knights. He cared more about avenging her than to take care of you.”

Noticing her frown and clear discomfort, I lay my hand on her knee.

“Kaytlinn, it’s okay, I remember now.” I say, making sure she notices my smile.

“Thank you.”

I lied to her, but not about remembering.

The cross. Raspiel. The war. The Feuerlilies. Finally, some sense of stability.

Her name was Kaytlinn, she always treated me like family, and when reminiscing about my past, I always avoided telling her the truth, so as to not burden her with my own shortcomings. She had enough on her own plate already.

There never was any raid. My village was executed by the Raspelian army.

If I told her the truth, the dream of becoming a doctor to save the lives of the people she cared about would simply turn into a moral dilemma for her, funding the very force of the ones who took my mother’s life. I didn’t want that. Despite her older age, she never handled her own emotions very well.

As for why I enrolled, it was to get closer to my father. I don’t know why he joined the army who took everything he had away from him, but there is no excuse that could ever redeem his decision.

Abandoning me to avenge my mother? No, it was far worse than that, but she didn’t need to know.

Raspiel’s Cross, on the other hand, was the symbol of a fanatic branch within the Empire’s church. Only reason I joined it was because of simplicity; Members serving the Cross had an easier access to becoming a soldier for the military, perhaps because the Empire thought zealots would have less reasons to desert or rebel against their people. In other words, easy bait, which I gladly took.

Carefully, trying not to tear my bandages, I got up from the bed, and shifted around so that I could face her eye to eye. The pain was discomforting, but bearable.

My arms extended outwards and embraced her into a tight hug.

In that instant, I felt like I was experiencing the warmth of a comforting campfire after months of walking on ice and snow. Everything felt numb, my head was killing me, but that didn’t matter. I finally had a lead.

While hugging her, however, it took me a while before noticing that she was sitting completely still. I retreated my hands from her and backed down into my bed. She looked completely bewildered.

“Forgive me, I-”

“N-No! It’s alright.” Kaytlinn interrupts me, with a forced smile.

Her head tilted down and stared at the floor, as if thinking about something. After a short while, she started playing with her wedding ring again.

She then continued. “I just… a lot of things have changed since last I met you. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

Me and you both, Kaytlinn. But right now was not the time for sharing each other’s sob stories. I still had questions.

“Kate, I need to ask you something.” I said, waiting for her to look at me again. And yet, she didn’t.

“Y-yes?”

“How did I get here?”

“What do you mean?” She asked, finally raising her head, but only enough to make me acknowledge that she was listening. The wedding ring was now off her finger, as she used it to fidget around nervously. “The healers found you wounded on the battlefield, did they not?”

I pause and try to find the best way I could explain myself without giving too much away.

“The last thing I remember is walking into a thicket the likes of which I had never witnessed in my years of living. The trees felt alive, but a life unlike simple nature is supposed to be a part of — breathing with the lungs of man, staring with the eyes of a stern elderly. My body…”

Another flash, this time of the woman in silver armor. Her head layed gently the grass, bleeding liquid gold onto the dirt. Given the circumstances, I decide to keep it to myself.

“...It—almost—gave up on me. I remember walking, and then… nothing.”

After recalling my experience, I look back at Kaytlinn, which is now intently staring at me with perplexed eyes.

“Ansel.” She says. “Your battle was fought on the empire’s East side, where only sand lies. For thousands of miles.”