Dear Reader,

It has been months since I last wrote, the days have become shorter it seems. Not so much that the world has changed, but more that I am finding it hard to remember what it was that I was doing. Often waking far from home, unaware how I had arrived. The other villagers have begun to avoid me, they think I do not notice their pitying gazes, but I do.

I have yet to go out to sea, my fishing boat still awaiting repairs. The carpenter has left my ship sitting on the shore for weeks… months? For as long as I can remember I have been without a ship, yet he refuses to show me my vessel. What am I to do? It has been seemingly ages since I last experienced the sea. Relegated to the shore like a lonely dog, I am a man of the sea, the sea is my home. Yet here I stand, forced to scrawl my grievances upon a piece of paper no one will ever see.

The other day I overheard some of the younger men discussing the war, apparently nothing has changed. With winter fast approaching the men say that the sides are settling into winter quarters, for now the battles would come to a momentary pause. This is the same kind of information the merchants brought over when they passed along their usual route, it did not matter much to the villagers so long as the supply of crab traps were still available.

Here was an item that the other villagers would kill for, ever since we first purchased this strange contraption no villager has gone to sleep hungry. Our small community has begun to thrive, trading with the imperial town in the south. We do not make much, not when compared to the city dwellers, but for us out here on the edges of the empire, this much wealth is unheard of.

However, the problem, like with all things is time. The village has had to purchase more and more traps, as these same devices were sold to other villages. In these last few months, the value of crab parts has decreased significantly, there are just too many. Unable to understand that catching more and more of the creatures will not solve the income problem.

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I am denigrated as a crazy old fool, that I should go dawdle along the coast and play with my little monster. Going so far as to threaten Lukka if I were to interfere with their business. Why do they ostracize me so? Have I not also lived here all my life? Grew up here and fished these waters since childhood? The villagers do not appear to think so, and my age has taken all the memories of my childhood with it. At this time, I can no longer even recall the faces of my wife and sons, in fact I cannot even remember our last meeting.

These lapses in memory have been getting longer, these last few months have increased the stretches of darkness. At one point I had even forgotten my time with Lukka, it is only by rereading these letters that I have managed to remain centered. I do not know what is happening to me, I fear my time may be coming and that these moments of awareness will be slowly whittled away.

Lukka was my focus, and although I did not wish to mention it here, for fear that my saying it will make it true… The truth is that I fear Lukka is deceased. For the past month I have seen no sign of her, where previously she would always arrive to greet me. At first, I had accepted this, she should go about her business, live her life rather than hang around a decrepit fossil like myself. Secretly I hoped she would return, within a few days she would be back in her nook, rushing to greet me and take her place upon her throne.

The possibility of her death has hit me harder than I had imagined, my lashing out at the villagers may be the true reason for my ostracization. Everyone knows of Lukka and my bond, aware of what I might do, of which I have been judging and demeaning them. I am truly a terrible person, I loathe myself, where could Lukka have gone and what will I do now that I have lost the last remaining family in my life.

Her disappearance has triggered a new terror, sometimes I would see it in my sleep. Rare at first, but now haunt my dreams whenever I close my eyes. Visions of people I do not know, men, women, children, their faces devoid of features. Always I find myself holding one especially small boy, his body broken like a shattered cart, my hands soaked in blood, cradling the smashed skull.

Rivers of tears poured from my eyes, I could never understand why, I could not recall any of these people, not even one. What relation did they have to me? Why did it feel so painful? Every morning for the last few weeks this is what has haunted me. So many questions, yet every time I try to recall why, my head aches and not long after I will find myself somewhere far from home, unable to recall why. What ails me so?