Chapter Text
“I take full responsibility for what I’ve done.”
You wake up, and your eyes open.
Correction: your eye opens. Just one. Eyes come in pairs, and as such, they move in parallel. Synchronous harmony, natural symmetry. However, even though both sets of your eyelid muscles contract and attempt to draw away from one another, only the left succeeds. Your right eyelids are tangled together, inseparable.
You raise a hand to examine your right eye but stop halfway. Are you seeing your hand for the first time? Because… it’s in quite a state. Instead of a hand, your arm ends in a cocoon, wrapped thoroughly in stiff, unyielding bandages.
Hmm, how curious.
Trying to move the fingers inside the cocoon causes discomfort, and you frown a bit at how little leeway you have in your binds. It must have been in pain before, but now, it’s just… heavy. Unwieldy. Unsuited to investigating the state of your eye.
You lower your right hand back down to the mattress and try your left instead. Three of your fingers on this hand are taped, but none seem broken. Overall, it’s in better shape than your right, so you go ahead and check on your eye with it.
Your fingers meet a starburst of scar tissue, webbed and woven, like intricate lace made of strips of leather, sealed and sunken over a hollow socket.
Strange. A scar is an old wound, an old friend. A detail you would certainly remember about yourself and yet—
A slow, almost cautious movement to your left catches your eye, so naturally, you turn to try to get a better look. Unfortunately, whoever or whatever is approaching was blocking light from a lamp, and so, when it moves, you’re suddenly bathed in a much too bright light, shone straight in the only functioning eye you seem to have.
You flinch, turning your head away as your eye squints shut. The sound of footsteps receding, of extinguishing a lantern’s flame. The room darkens, and so you open your eye again, peeking out into the gloom.
“My apologies. It was not my intention to blind you.”
Judging by the voice, the figure is a man.
“I believe it was the light that blinded me, not you,” you say with what you hope is a charming, winsome smile. One that projects a confidence you don’t actually feel.
Now shrouded in shadow, the figure stills for a moment before he again approaches your bedside. He sits on the edge of the mattress, keeping a respectful distance, and now that he’s closer to you, you come to yet another realization about yourself: your eyesight isn’t the best, is it? Perhaps the darkness isn’t helping, but you can’t quite make out any of his facial features.
Sitting up might help—
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
You decide not to sit up. Examining this man’s bedside manner might help fill in the context you seem to lack.
“A bit confused, I suppose,” you answer. Having adjusted to the low light, you look around and find that, just like the man, your surroundings are indiscernible. Nothing more than vague shapes and mottled shadows that seem to undulate along plain walls. Maybe you wear glasses—or perhaps more fittingly, a monocle?
You can’t remember ever wearing either.
“Was I involved in some sort of… incident?”
It’s a good question. Missing memories and old scars notwithstanding, something must have shattered your dominant hand and done so recently enough that you’re still recovering from it.
“What do you remember?” the man asks.
“A bit rude to answer a question with a question, wouldn’t you say?”
“My apologies.”
“Still, I’ll humor you.”
So, what do you remember? The answer is…
“Not much.” You’ve been scraping around the corners of your mind for answers since waking up, and all you’ve found are holes. This man might be able to offer the pieces necessary to fill those holes in. “Then, something did happen to me. Something fairly catastrophic, I suppose.”
The man nods. “You may experience some confusion for a time, but… your memories might yet resurface.”
“Personally, I think you’re spot on with the former. With some luck, you’ll be right about the latter as well.”
The man is quiet, sullen. Perhaps he was hoping you would remember more and is concerned that you don’t.
“Sorry,” you say, placing the word down with care. “I didn’t mean to sound flippant.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” So he says, but he still seems rather despondent.
“In that case, consider it a preemptive apology for my next question: might I ask your name?”
The man bows his head slightly and says nothing.
You thought it might be, but it seems that question was a stab to his heart. If the two of you had been close, realizing that you don’t remember him would be quite the blow.
“Forgive me, but I… I would like to refrain from giving you my name. For now.”
“To see if I’ll remember on my own?”
“Yes,” and after a pause, he looks up at you and adds, “if that’s alright with you.”
“I shall try my best to remember then.”
The smile you feel on your lips is much more natural than the one you constructed before, and his eyes soften at the sight. Perhaps this is an expression he’s seen before, one that proves that even without your memories, you’re still you.
You are still—
Um.
You are still drawing a blank.
“May I inquire as to my own name? Or is that yet another thing I should strive to remember on my own?”
Another man’s stoicism might have broken; a smile might have cleared his expression. But this is a dour man in a dour situation, and he took your joke as a gravely serious question.
“I would not withhold such information from you.”
“I-I didn’t mean to imply you would! Twas a jest, nothing more.”
His eyes search yours. What is he looking for?
“It’s alright,” you say. “I’ll take it on as my own personal challenge: to see if I can remember either of our names—or any others—on my own.”
“Know that you need only ask, and I will provide.”
He stands, finally breaking eye contact. So intense was his gaze that even though you’ve yet to raise your head from your pillow, it feels as though you too break the surface and can breathe freely at last.
“Use the rooms within these chambers as you see fit.”
“Are you leaving?”
It seems a foolish question to ask as you watch him gather a crimson cloak and hat from their place beside the door, but he answers you all the same.
“Yes. I have work.”
“Ah,” you detect a bit of disappointment in your own voice. “Of course.”
He pauses. “The kitchen is well-stocked. Help yourself.”
“Thank you.”
You hear the doorknob begin to turn, and the question tucked under your tongue can stay itself no longer.
“What exactly are you taking full responsibility for?”
The door creaks open and freezes in place. He doesn’t turn to look at you as he answers.
“Worry not over such things. That is my burden to bear.”
“I thought you said I need only ask, and you would provide. Was I mistaken?”
You wish that he was facing you so that you could see him as more than a crimson blur surrounded by shadows.
“I will provide all you need.”
The door closes behind him.
But who is he to decide what you need?