Glow-moss took a step towards me. I took a step back. She winced, but nodded to herself a second later.

“I… I guess that’s how you’d react. Some complete stranger comes up to you and starts apologizing for things you don’t even know.” She laughed sadly. “Well… okay. This is going to sound completely crazy, but it's all true. This world… it's the second time we’ve been here. The first time around was some kind of trial run, and only people who got chosen by Embodiments got to keep their memories.”

To say that surprised me was an understatement. She didn’t know I remembered anything, so… she was here to apologize? For what she did in her last life? Why?

She fidgeted nervously, then continued. “I have schizophrenia. It’s been… controllable for most of my life, but in a few years, I go completely off the rails. My Embodiment said it was a combination of stress and my body just deteriorating, and I kept getting worse and worse until I was barely the person I am now. And I remember everything I did. With crystal clarity.”

“Seb… do you know her?” Jun whispered just loud enough for Inopsy and glow-moss to hear. “What’s she talking about? Old life? Schizophrenia?”

I could almost hear the wink in Jun’s voice. She was giving me an out–to play the part of a guy who’d actually gotten his memory wiped. But I was curious. This glow-moss actually seemed somewhat put together, unlike the freakish specter I’d killed.

“You came all this way to apologize for something I don’t even remember?” I asked in disbelief. Real disbelief. “Did you do something so horrible to me that it stuck with you that hard?”

Glow-moss looked away. “I… I killed one of your best friends. I got too attached to your group, followed you for years, and just… couldn’t stand seeing all of you work together and succeed while I was on the outskirts. My brain made that your fault, not mine, and I started harassing you. Making it hard for you to sleep, stealing your food, planting little illusions to make you think you were going crazy. That kind of thing.”

“Wow. This ‘schizophrenia’ must be pretty intense.” Inopsy whistled. “So do you just turn crazy again in a few years?”

“I don’t know. But I’m scared of what I’d do if I did. So… I came looking for you.” Glow-moss gestured at me. “The strongest person I knew in my old life. Someone who actually tried to make a community. Someone who… might be able to find a core that could cure me. Or at least get me some meds to control my brain.”

Inopsy nodded along as if she’d made the most logical choice. “She’s told me most of her story, but I think you should hear it too, Sebastian. There’s something going on with your species’ Embodiments–not as bad as Endra, though. Not sure anything could get worse than what she did to Persephonia.”

Well. This wasn’t going how I’d expected in the slightest. I briefly considered that this was all some elaborate scheme to get closer to me, but if she wanted to kill me, all she had to do was use one illusion. Especially if she thought I didn't know what her core could do. There was something about the regret and desperation in her voice that plucked at my heartstrings, and it might’ve been because the other two human chosen I’d met had sucked, but I kind of wanted to believe that some of the chosen humans weren’t complete assholes.

“I have no idea what’s going on, but I’ll listen.” I said, much to glow-moss’ relief. “Inopsy, can you make sure she doesn’t try to kill any of us?”

Inopsy shrugged. “Maybe. She’s the one that put me back together, so I kind of owe her.”

“Hey. That makes it sound like I might actually try to hurt them.” Glow-moss argued. “I’m not going to hurt you. But the guy who somehow ended up with the core you had in your last life might.”

Garrett? Why the fuck… wait. If glow-moss had started off looking for me, then she probably went after people who had armor that looked like mine after she couldn’t find anything about me. Since, y’know, I wasn’t there. Then how’d she end up here? How did she find me?

“I’m so confused.” I sighed and leaned against the nearest tree. “Enlighten me.”

Glow-moss nodded eagerly. “Thank you for listening–I swear you won’t regret it. My name is Annette Delamar, and I’m Kavre’s chosen. That’s our Embodiment of obsession, and before you say anything, I know what it looks like. Yes, I’ve got some obsessive tendencies, but they don’t get uncontrollable for a few years. But that’s not important yet.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Annette gestured off away from Rainbow Basin. “There’s a caravan of humans about two days away from here. We all gathered around a guy named Garrett who was going out exploring, but I heard rumours about how he was looking for a guy named Sebastian Cormier. That’s you.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Um, that’s good. I think.” Annette muttered. “Well, I thought that was just a cover, and that he was you. He had your armor, and your core, and he had one of your old friends with him. Damian, but you called him Dee. I joined his expedition going away from wherever we’d spawned in, and I learned that we were going somewhere called ‘Rainbow Basin’ a little while later. To find the real you, and get revenge for Damian’s kid.”

Revenge? What the hell? “Did something happen to the kid?”

“Apparently you did. When did you find time to sneak away between being stuck in that hazard, training with Persephonia, and getting chased by Endra?” Inopsy asked sarcastically. “If I was a little more skeptical, I’d say you physically couldn’t have had the time to kill a kid.”

“Dee’s son is dead? Al–” I stopped myself with a cough before I could say ‘already’, then realized I’d just called ‘Damian’ Dee. Hopefully nobody caught that. “Why do you think I did it?”

“Garrett.” Annette said. “He blamed you, but Damian doesn’t believe him. A few of us don’t buy into Garrett’s verbal garbage, and we’ve been trying to make sense of why he’s bringing us here. I know he’s a chosen, but it doesn’t make sense why he’s coming to take revenge on you for something I know he didn’t do.”

“I bet it's his Embodiments.” Jun said. “If it stole Seb’s core, then maybe there’s more he wants to take.”

Annette shrugged. “I don’t know the why, just that the rest of us will be here pretty soon. And it looks like there’s some stuff going on here that won’t exactly make the city safe for us.”

“Can we circle back to Damian’s son being dead really quick? I know I didn’t kill him, and Garrett seems to think I did, so who the fuck actually killed him?” I asked angrily. “It’s only been a few months. It wasn’t….”

I grit my teeth and cut off my words. It wasn’t supposed to happen this quickly. But… why the fuck would anyone kill a kid? The armor helped with food and sickness, so that couldn’t be it. Which meant it had to be some fuckwad flexing the new powers they got from the transition. Garrett’s face popped into my mind, but I brushed it away with a thought. Nobody was stupid enough to kill a kid if they already had memories of what the world was like.

“Seb? You just trailed off.” Jun put her hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong? Is all this too much to take in?”

“Sorry, but who are you? Did you meet at wherever Sebastian got sent to?” Annette asked, and though I doubted she meant it, it sounded a little confrontational. “Are you like Inopsy?”

“If by that you mean I’m a Staura, then yes.” Jun answered easily. “But all the other stuff–no. I’m not a chosen, and I’m not immortal.”

“Not fully immortal. Just functionally.” Inopsy added helpfully. “There’s a monstrously huge difference between the two. And since Juniper hasn’t introduced herself–this is Juniper Persephonia. Sebastian’s wife.”

Annette made a sound like choking on her own spit. “Wife?! It’s been… how did you… man, I’m not sure if I should congratulate you or be a little scared. You’re taking this pretty well for someone who doesn’t have memories. And it looks like you’re really powerful for how long you’ve been here. Was the hydra a function?”

“Trade secret.” I said swiftly to cut off the line of conversation. “Back to Garrett. He’s coming here with Damian, and then what? They’re going to try and kill me to take revenge for something I didn’t do?”

“From what she’s told me, that’s about right!” Inopsy gleefully confirmed. “I thought you humans were more different from us, but it looks like we’ve all got some rot spreading underneath all the shiny veneer.”

“At least humans don’t mind-control people ‘for their own good’.” I said flatly.

“That’s not exactly true. They did give people lobotomies for no reason up until a few decades ago.” Annette pointed out, then started counting on her fingers. “And then there’s conversion camps, propaganda, residential schools… it’s not quite mind control, but it’s pretty close.”

I stared blankly at Annette while she shrugged. “Thank you, miss glow-moss, for pointing out how wrong I am. Maybe you should ask Inopsy what they did to Persephonia after they were done with her. Or Keratily what she did to all her descendants ‘for their own good’. Then take into consideration that this is mainstream among Staura, whereas all the horrible shit back on Earth was still seen as horrible shit.”

“Just pointing it out.” Annette said defensively. “I don’t know anything about… did you just call me glow-moss?”

The tension and silence ratcheted up a notch. Mostly from Annette, but Inopsy and Jun both looked like they were getting ready to fight. Of fucking course that’s how I let it slip. And there wasn’t even a good excuse I could make–the things she’d made looked nothing like moss, and the light was a little more than a glow. The only reason I knew what her core was called was because I’d ripped it out of her absolutely destroyed corpse myself.

{Was that on purpose, or was it a slip?} Jun asked tensely. I saw her fingers twitch towards her gun, and I wondered if she had the right idea here. {Whatever it was, I’m ready for your call.}