Chapter Text
You stand in front of the vast sea, a shawl wrapped around your shoulders.
You had made the conscious decision to walk here despite being a lengthy distance away from your town. You didn't want to rouse your mare, Elektra, just to have her gallop on a path well-traversed and well-loved. A little bit of walking might do you good. Fresh air, quiet scuffling of worn boots along the gravelly path, the faint scent of the sea in your lungs and in your hair; what more could a woman want?
All of this because your mind decides to bring you torturous thoughts once more and render you to the clutches of sleeplessness. This is not the first nor the last time your mind has betrayed you like this. The nightmares that come by and fluctuate in between terrifying and unsettling come in random bursts.
You roll your eyes internally, thanks, brain.
(No one answers. No one will ever answer.)
The cold is biting, unforgiving, but you pay it no mind. You are used to the cold as the seasons pass between growth and bloom and death and reawakening. Walking along the coast often gave you peace with no one around to disturb it. Not always — sometimes, you wish that someone would be there by your side, perhaps chattering away on something they like, or just keep you company.
(But you are alone. In this vast emptiness — between the hushed screams of the water toiling underneath your feet and the scraping of sand against skin — you are alone.)
Suddenly, the cold grows uncomfortable at the thought. It seemed more foe than friend now as a gust of wind threatens to grab at your shawl and hurl it towards the other side of this world. You stop walking and grip at it tight — as tight as you have been doing for the past six months. The fabric crumples beneath your nails, and you can feel the phantom sensation of fingernails digging into the skin of your arm. You close your eyes as your hair flows wildly about, internally cursing at the missed reminder to hold it back with a bandana or a braid, at least.
The waves licking at your feet adds more to the petrifying reminder of loneliness, crushing you with a weight of a hundred moons and a thousand suns. You dare not cry. You have not cried in a long, long time.
You shouldn't cry, anyway. Despite the frequent reminders that you are safe, you are well-taken care of, you are far past the age of crying and far past the stage of grieving a life that may or may not have existed before this. What is the use of grieving something that does not exist? What is the use of tears over something that will not be there anymore to see it?
You inhale sharply. Ice prickles your throat and leaves behind a bittersweet aftertaste.
"Okay," you murmur. Only the wind knows. Only the sky knows. Only your village knows. No use crying, don't cry. Not now, not yet.
You think of your village several hills over.
You remember the day you were … brought here.
You were awoken by whispers from all around your person, their tones curious and concerned. You cannot feel your limbs nor your torso, but you can think and comprehend enough to command your fingers and toes to twitch and contract; just to feel. The tingling slowly dissipates into nothing as feeling comes back in your arms, in your legs, and climbing towards your torso.
You feel lighter, more solid; like a person.
Then, you can feel it — the grass underneath your back and your sides, clothing that felt a bit too tight and damp against your skin, and the dirt that is made mud by your sweat. You can hear, but not quite see. The sun is too bright, everyone is talking over the other in hushed tones and you don't take well to whispers that may or may not be talking about you and everything seems wrong —
Life's first breath enters your lungs. And just like an infant, you sob.
A woman, gentle-faced and firm in her voice that denotes she has entire control over the situation and knows exactly how to diffuse it (why are you taking note of this?) takes a hold of your arm and shakes it, snapping you out of your hyperventilating state with no intent of harm.
"I am would have you like run to stream cob corn?"
You blink. What.
The woman smiles, as if proud that she had caught your attention. Or rather, diverted your attention from your hurricane of panic to something more tangible. Wow, that's a great strategy to snap one out of a panic attack. Just bombard them with various strings of words and disregard discourse in the most comprehensive — why am I thinking like a scholar?
"Can you hear me? Please blink once if you do." Other than the woman, you think you hear children, you think you hear someone calling for a doctor. You blink and nod, adjusting your body to sit up. Two men help you sit up by softly grabbing your shoulders. You suck in a sharp breath and the two men backed off immediately with arms in the air. More men could be like that.
Most of the people had stepped back to give you space, and you are very much sobbing in gratitude. Except the sobbing is only internal and you're now fish-gaping at everyone.
What year is this? Why are they dressed like they're from a rural village?
Your eyes look around, taking in more of the surroundings. They wore simple outfits and not flashy ones that you might see in the city. The scenery is foreign, but the amount of greenery has calmed you down. There are no large builds of looming gray skyscrapers or any monuments to give names and history out to tourists and citizens alike; just simply huts and houses. You can hear cattle graze and pigs snorting in a farm not so far from your current location.
Of course, you are in a rural village.
You resist the urge to cry and beg for any Divine Power to just end your life this instant out of embarrassment.
The woman hands you a towel, cool and damp, and places a gourd of water near your arm. "What is your name?"
You immediately introduce yourself, startling yourself with how smooth and fluid your speech is for someone who looked as if they took a bath in the swamp. You expected hoarseness, you expected wheezing and immense difficulty in speaking. The woman in front of you seemed not to mind, only nodded as she spoke to someone near her. Something about spare clothing.
You look down at yourself. You're wearing what seems to look like a hospital gown.
(Something gnaws at your mind, scrambling at the walls and claws at it with desperate howls to be acknowledged, to be seen; a memory begging to be released.
But none emerged. None cared enough to heed its call. None answer.)
"Hey," the woman from earlier speaks once more. You take a closer look at her. Her hair is cropped short to her shoulders and she has the gentlest smile you have ever seen. You felt the need to cry.
"You are safe here," she slowly puts a hand on your bicep, as if to let you know you have the power to shun physical touch away if you so wish — no one wants to be coddled by and touched suddenly by a stranger. "Come with me?"
That day, you know her as Thalia, a gentle woman who mothered a gentler daughter, Minerva.
The next few days are torturous.
You are in a world that you are sure is not your own. Worse, you have not gained any more memories from the past life no matter how you tried. There are flashes, but those merely last a second and it disappears the fast as it comes, and those are the days where you are at your lowest. Try as you might, you cannot find any more.
You are lost.
You are not sure what to make of the woman who took you in. She is endlessly kind and patient with you, urging you to eat meals with her and her daughter. Even when you weakly ask her that you are more comfortable eating in your room (that you know did not deserve because you are a bumbling, lumping parasite—) she tells you with a tender smile that you should pace yourself in ways you know how.
I will be right here if you need company, or an ear that listens, she once said the night you spent in the room. You were wearing a white nightgown draped with a beige house coat that one can tie at the front for easier removal. Even wearing clothes that are not yours made you feel absolutely abysmal.
This continued on for several nights.
On the eleventh night, she sits beside you on the bed, her eyes trailing over the tray of pasta and bread and chamomile tea that went untouched and cold. Thalia only smiles, understands, and calls for one of her house-helpers to take the food to be reheated down in the kitchen. She does not berate you nor scold you. She does not say anything, but offers her silent company.
You broke.
Loud sobs, uglier and wet and utterly guttural fill the halls of the house. Thalia holds you, an anchor within the storm of your befuddled mind that finally processed everything.
You are lost.
(Within the moment, you think of your life before waking up. You think of the life you have left behind.)
You think you are apologizing in between wails and sobs and breathes. You think Thalia brushes your hair back tenderly, like how a mother should, and it only made you cry louder. You think Minerva climbed into bed with you and her mother (when did you get cradled and brought back into the sheets?) and settled in between you and the other woman, offering soft squeezes of consolation and her stuffed rabbit.
He makes my nightmares go bye-bye, she says. She is only seven years old. You can have him for tonight, okay?
Clutching the worn out plush animal, you feel calmer; grounded. Thalia smiles and rubs your arm.
(Calmer, quieter. Maybe when the fog in your mind recedes to completion and reaches acceptance; maybe you will get those memories. One by one.)
The world seems less grayer.
(You'll remember. I'll remember.)