The earliest memory Zaki had was of his parents dying. Sickly, lying on their deathbeds. He remembered being scared as the sickness took his mother first. His father followed her a week later. He remembered praying for death and crying at their graves. But he never got sick. Pravu was only merciful to the deceased. Tears pricked his eyes everytime he recalled that bleak time. He cried himself to sleep in the quiet of his room. 

A memory so visceral it haunted his waking moments. A memory so torturous that it had no business being fake. Zaki’s parents weren’t dead. His mom kissed him good morning, and his dad read him to sleep. Hands filled with warmth and life embraced him, disciplined him, taught him, loved him. 

So, why did the faces of strangers superimpose themselves over the visages of his parents? Pale skin colored by varicose veins. Voices hoarse from coughing. Trembling fingers and cold touches. 

He told his mom and dad about what he saw, but they brushed it off. They told him to stop making up horrifying stories. When he didn’t stop, they made him stop. When other memories bubbled up from unknown depths, he was too scared to tell them. 

For the rest of his adolescence, he lived a double-life. Watching the world through a stranger’s eyes, memories intertwined until they were inseparable. Still, he tried to differentiate them. He wished he remembered in sound, so he could figure who was invading his mind. The stranger’s friends, the woman and the monster, were his first clues. 

Concentrating on their faces, he forced himself to recall all the memories he could. In the beginning, there would be glimpses of small moments. The tighter he grasped at those fleeting,/ moments the stronger the memories became. Snippets of voiceless conversations turned into entire days worth of interaction. His triumph grew the more he learned. The woman and the monster stopped being the stranger’s friends. They were his friends. 

He locked himself in his room, lost in the haze of recollection. The distance between him and his parents lengthened. He heard their knocks and calls but ignored them. He couldn’t have cared less for their anger as long as they kept feeding him. Although his life shrunk to the four walls of his room, he reached the four corners of the world. 

He never stopped exploring, even when tapping into the wrong memory rendered him breathless. The memory of tight lungs and dying words shattered him. He couldn’t lift himself from his bed for a day after that. After years of exploration, he exhausted everything he could find. The mountains and seas of the stranger’s mind became intimate, an innate knowledge. There was nothing to differentiate anymore. 

Now, he was restless. Loneliness gripped his heart, and the walls of his room became suffocating. So, when he was eighteen, he left. His parents were sleeping, and a simple note told them he was going to explore himself. Stolen money was stuffed wherever it would fit. The outside, unfamiliar in its familiarity, greeted him with open arms. Confidence strengthened him with each step away from his old house.

He found himself on a ship heading to Minastav. People eyed him strangely. The gaunt boy that walked with only the clothes on his back. He ignored their judgment as he was accustomed to. He kept to himself the entire ride and was the first one off when they arrived at Hadugrad. The roaring city was different to his sleepy town, but he wasn’t scared or overwhelmed. He’d been here before.

It wasn’t the same as his memories, but it was close enough. The creep of urbanization into the countryside and the train that puffed steam into the air were new. Hopping onto the first train to the south, he watched the landscape change through the tiny window by his seat. He compared what he knew to the new reality. 

When he arrived at his destination, he wasn’t surprised to see the crumbling temple just as he remembered it to be. There was still reverence for sacred sites. Or, was it lingering fear of the demigod that lived there? Whatever it was, the building was untouched. The crystal clear waters of the lake lapped at the banks. The sun reflected off the surface into his eyes.

He walked into the temple, a small twinge of fear running down his spine. This would be the first time he would meet one of friends in person. He passed fragmented walls and broken roofs, looking for the monster in the rubble. Hearing the clang of metal hitting the ground, he whirled around. 

The monster stood before him. His skin was a deeper blue than expected. The translucency more apparent as it stretched over muscles. However, he could still see the monster’s veins and organs shift beneath the skin. Manacles were clasped over the monster’s wrists, a long chain winding behind him. Symbols etched into the metal glowed in time with the monster’s heartbeat. 

The monster grinned, “What a pleasant surprise.”

“You know who I am?” The monster moved closer to him until they were face to face. He felt the monster’s breath hit his face. 

A hand ruffled his hair, “How could I forget?”

Joy like he had never known before filled him. He smiled up at the monster and replied, “I hope I didn’t make you wait long.”

“I would’ve waited an eternity for you.”

Suddenly, a name sprung to his mind. The nameless monster became whole. “You don’t mean that, Veloda.”

“Oh, Severin, you have no idea how much I mean that.”

His name was Zaki.