Los Angeles - Milo

As I floated back into consciousness, I looked up and saw I was back at home with my dad. He’d covered me in my favorite blanket, and I had been left to sleep in peace on our couch. He was cooking something with a smell that made my nose tingle, and I looked behind the couch to see him stirring a hot pot.

He heard me get up, and he waved me to relax.

“Chicken noodle soup,” he explained, pulling out a bowl from a shelf in a loud clatter of glass and plastic. He slowly poured the steaming soup into the bowl, and carefully carried it to me.

“I saw online that this soup helps with sick children,” he said, placing the bowl on a desk next to me. I took a spoon from his hand a took a sip of the broth, a smile creeping in my face at the warmth of the broth.

“Thanks, dad” I whispered. “Am I sick?”

“Yeah, kiddo.” He said, taking a seat on the other side of the couch, touching something in his pocket occasionally. “I’m taking you out of school for a little bit, just until this flu goes away.”

“Well, that’s good.” I joked. He laughed, but it felt different. I looked at him and didn’t see the same smile as yesterday, or the day before that made me remember how much he loved me. I saw something different - still a smile, but it felt acted, even forced.

Ring!

- -

Liz

The door opened to Milo’s house, and I saw a different man. Of course, it was only Mr. Waler, Milo’s dad, but I knew who it really was now: Trem. The other man who went through the portal from Aereth. It’s a little poetic how the one man destined to kill Milo and end my world also inhabited the body of his adversary’s dad when he went through.

“Oh, hello Liz.” He said, blocking off the door so I couldn’t see inside. “I’m sorry, but Milo has the flu right now-”

I interrupted him, saying “I don’t care, Mr. Walker. I’d like to see him.”

He looked down at me, and I realized how tall of a man he had become in this world. Or maybe it was just from a six-year-old’s perspective.

“Follow me.” He said, waving me on, “We need to talk.”

We walked down a blankly decorated hallway, and eventually went inside what looked like a small library - a sign on the wall titled it “Daddy’s study”. He closed the door slowly and quietly, then turned around to face me (Well, kneel down and face me).

“You look different, Elaine,” Trem teased, mocking an examination. “Get a new haircut?”

“Give me the bracelet,” I demanded, offering a hand for it. “You don’t know the power it possesses-”

“Actually, I know exactly the kind of power it has.” He patted his pocket with an evil grin. “You know, things really couldn’t have turned out more in my favor. You a tiny toddler that can’t fight me if you tried, I’m now a relative to Milo that has him all to myself, and he still has no memory of his previous lives you put him through.”

He stood up, “Oh, and it was nice to get my memories back from that bracelet. When I shook your hand, I got a little taste of who I once was in a flashback, and I knew instantly where it had come from. Now, I have it all to myself. Of course, our powers will return over time,”

He held out his and I could see black veins that flowed through his palm and wrist. Signs that Trem’s sorcery was flooding, like a dam to a sea finally breaking.

“Oh, and millions of memories where I kill Milo… that was interesting to see.” I knew he was just trying to get in my head, but when he looked at Milo out the glass door of the study…

“It won’t happen another time,” I said through closed teeth.

“Oh, won’t it?” He turned back to me, the evil grin replaced by simple curiosity. “The ancients are in pieces, all that remains are two six-year-olds, and only you know the danger that I’m bringing.”

“What exactly am I to fear?”

I tried my best to look up at him in confidence. Despite the fact that he was twice my size even when kneeling, and he had all advantages on his side, and I was alone in this world besides a lost hero, I tried to stand my ground. Eventually, I dropped my head and shrugged in defeat.

“I don’t know.”

Trem scoffed in an act of disappointment, avoiding eye contact as he opened the door in a gesture for me to leave.

"It's nice to see you again, Liz, but I do need to help Milo," he said, raising his voice so Milo could hear his facade. "He’s sick right now…” He smiled back at me and bent down to whisper something to me.

“So sick he doesn’t know who he is.”