He’d forgotten his own name.

When his savior, Halari, he knew now, asked what his name was last night, he couldn’t remember. The word had fought him like an anchor stuck in mud, deep and hard to unlodge from where it lay. It only came out with the greatest effort and an old memory.

Callan could remember the color of the skull’s hair as it burned.

He remembered his hatred for the man depicted in the statue and those whose stood beside him.

He remembered why he had pocketed his ring.

But, when Halari had asked him for his own name, he’d struggled to bring it to mind.

How horribly ironic.

Callan thumbed his ring and stared into the glittering depths of its set ruby, trying to find something in the cut that he didn’t even the ability to identify. A face? Forgiveness?

A light snore snapped him out of his ruminations.

He glanced up, then smirked at the reminiscent sight of the father, Fedro, leaned back in his folding with his chin on his chest sleeping.

He’d volunteered to keep Callan company, although Callan expected it was more of a sentinel-type position against him, while Halari and her pleasant sibling went to rest.

Her more unpleasant brother had been less than enthusiastic about leaving his father alone with the ‘Storm Devil’ through the night but was easily cowed by his father’s insistence.

Fedro snored again, harsh enough this time to wake himself up. He jerked in his chair and looked around, stilling when he saw that his charge still seated in the same place.

“Kinda surprised I woke up,” Fedro said, rotating his arms at the shoulder to get them loosed up. “It’s said that the Tyrant showed no mercy to weakness.”

There was that word again: Tyrant. What exactly had James told them during the centuries? And where had they gone? So many questions, so much lost in the dark.

“Then those whose spoke of me are wrong,” Callan said. His voice was returned somewhat; the more he breathed more free air and engaged more of his mind, the more his regenerative abilities kicked in and healed unused muscles. “And Halari did more than I expect she knows by binding me to my word.”

“My girl does tend to act first,” Fedro said, a small grin turning the corners of his mouth. “It’s always from a good place, even when it might end badly.”

“Such as releasing the ‘Storm Devil’ from his prison?” Callan asked. “What does that mean exactly?”

“You’re the fallen king of the storm,” Fedro said, “according to our texts. And you’re supposed to be dead.”

They tried. “Believe everything that you’re told?” Callan asked.

“No idea what to think now,” Fedro grunted, rising and stretching out his legs. It seemed to be some kind of ritual for the older man, something he did for rough mornings. “All I care about is my kids don’t get hurt.”

The garage door rolled up, groaning on its slides like a wounded beast. Halari and her sister rushed inside, the blonde going to hug her father while Halari came up to him with an odd-looking black ball in her hand.

“Here, breakfast,” she said, holding up the object to him. “I figure you haven’t in a long time.”

He took it gingerly in his hands. The feeling of its skin was like rubbery silk and entirely alien to his fingers. It was also unnaturally smooth; his enhanced sense of touch felt almost no texture, even at the smallest level.

“What is this?” Callan asked, rolling the supposed consumable in front of its face and giving it a light squeeze. It gave like an orange or a rotten apple, but there was no stem that he saw, just a small patch of light gray skin on one side.

“It’s called an ashbud,” Halari said. “It’s not going to hurt you, promise.”

Callan took a big bite of the ashbud, then frowned. It tasted like some watered-down apple and the rind of a watermelon combined in a most unsatisfying way.

And yet, it was the most fantastic thing he’d ever tasted. His tongue woke up at the unsettling flavor and rejoiced in the presence of something that wasn’t airless metal.

He scarfed the rest of it down quickly.

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“Wow,” Halari muttered, brows raised, “nobody’s usually that enthusiastic about buds.”

“Do you have any more?” Callan asked. She lifted her other hand, presenting something that had to be some kind of tool or utility object. It was oblong, its shell white, and textured like sandpaper. “This is edible?”

“You have to crack it open,” Halari explained, smirking at his reticence. “And you can cook the shell in a stew. Tams belong everywhere.”

He followed her suggestions and snapped the fruit in two, then scooped out its guts like a digging into a bowl of oatmeal. It tasted better than the ashbud, but its consistency was disturbingly rich for a type of fruit.

Can’t imagine how these taste together, Callan thought, grimacing inside as he finished the unpleasant gift.

“Where’s your brother?” Fedro asked. “I figured he would be here before you.”

“He took off when we got up this morning,” Viria said. “Muttering about the Melokides and…” She pointedly eyed Callan, probably refraining from repeating whatever derogatory, religious insult her brother used.

“That boy,” Fedro sighed. “I’ll bet he’s gone to the priests to report the situation. Look, I’ve gotta go fill your mother in on everything, so I’ll leave it to y’all. Keep an eye out for Tel, I’m sure he’ll be around.” The man left through the open door and closed it behind him.

“How are you feeling?” Halari asked.

“Like I’m at the end of a dream,” Callan said, polishing off the shelled fruit. “At the part where I know I’m about to wake up.”

“So… better?” Viria asked.

“Somewhat.” Callan crushed the shell in a fist, then dumped the powdery crumbs into his mouth. Salty. “I can speak normally at least.”

“That’s… not really how you eat those,” Halari said, looking uneased but somewhat amused. Her sister looked like she wanted to hurl.

“Oh,” Callan said. “Well, thank you anyways.”

“Are you really the Betrayer?” Viria blurted out.

Callan sighed. “I’m not even sure what that means. Your dad told me a little bit, but it doesn’t make much sense.”

“The Book of Jomens,” Viria said as if that explained everything. Halari sighed and shook her head.

“It’s so bullshit,” she said. “Viri, it lied about the Betrayer being dead, I mean, look…” She gestured wildly to Callan. “Who knows what else wasn’t true?”

Callan stared at her blankly. “What is this book?”

“Y’know, the book King Jomen wrote while the Flames ruled the world,” she said. “You wrote the first part together, it says so. I mean, assuming you are him.”

That was also definitely a lie, seeing as the man she referred abhorred writing anything himself. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Callan said. “He and I never wrote anything.” Hatred boiled in his blood mentioning James, or ‘Jomen’ as these people knew him. That man never picked up a pencil to write anything of substance in his life, even before Coronation.

The skull whispered to him from below, reminding him of the rest of the man’s crimes. He had more than just lying about everything to be punished for.

“See!” Halari boasted, snapping Callan away from the voice of death. “Viri, we’ve got a live Blessed Flame here, I bet most of that book could be proven wrong.”

“But… but it’s…” The blonde slumped back on to the wall, looking entirely frayed. Callan felt bad for her, losing a sense of religion was like losing a limb. He sensed his own god, the Great Dragon Melokon, but he was far, far away from the world. “But it’s the word of the Visionary.”

“The Visionary,” Callan scoffed. “Unbelievable.” He clenched his fist, anger boiling in his fingers. Purple sparks flicked between his knuckles, fueled by his irritation.

“Callan…” Halari approached him slowly, followed by a dense air of concern, even sorrow. “I think you need to know that the world might not be how you remember it.”

“You said my kin left centuries ago,” Callan said, eyes narrowing. “Just how much progress did I miss?”

“That’s… the thing.” She grimaced and he suddenly felt cold, as if the Fires of Melokon had been sucked right out of his soul and whisked away, back into the dark. “They didn’t leave the world because it was good to move on, but because…” She trailed off.

What did they do? he thought. Oh those fools, what did they do? “Please, tell me,” Callan said. “I have to know.”

“It’s unlivable,” Halari whispered. “Except for some small areas.”

Please no. Callan closed his eyes and breathed deep. “Show me.”

He stepped out under a gray sky, a perfectly, horribly, completely gray sky. The buildings around were stout, manufactured constructions that looked identical in design and material.

Many of the yards were covered in a about an inch of a deep blue foam, or maybe gel was a better term. Those awful black fruits grew on it in big groups while the shelled fruits poked out like stalagmites in the floor of a cave.

They weaved between buildings, her explaining certain parts of the town, talking about the biofoam, waving to some of the people she knew. Most of them didn’t look at him, but some gave him a wary glance, perhaps remembering his exit from the Center.

Everything was terrible. No flowers, no good food, no dirt even.

“…god, what did they do?” He asked after she explained the sky. It was all so terrible; the world was supposed to be so vibrant and now it was like a piece of coal left to cool in a dead furnace.

“Come on,” Halari said, guiding him somewhere else. “Let’s go see the Center. You can tell me the truth about those statues.”

He finally got a hint of brightness on the way to their in the image of two children playing. How they found happiness under this dreary sky, he didn’t know, but at least they were capable of joy.

Past them, he caught sight of a tall building in the distance, one in a skyline of towers. They were destroyed, with whole segments missing, with whole chunks carved out of them so large.

And yet, that skyline, it was… familiar.

NO! Terror bolted through him, and he walked toward the cliff in a daze. Halari was speaking but her words were far away, barely audible to his drowned mind.

Callan froze at the drop off, eyes wide, body shaking. These ruins were familiar. He saw the Spire of Melokon standing alone, untouched by time and the cataclysm that surrounded it.

These ruins were his home.