“This is..”.

Once again, Peck appears in a vast black room. This time he was not alone.

Leben, mimicking Peck's appearance, stood off to one side.

Peck realised they were in his mind.

Suddenly, shards of crystal began to appear around him. Something was happening inside each shard. Each one held a memory unknown to Peck. They replayed the carnage Peck had caused when he was possessed by Leben.

“Why? So many dead...”

Peck walked along, looking to the sides. He only found moments when he hurt someone or when he was hurt. As he walked further and further back, he went into the past, remembering his life. Little by little, everything that had happened came into his mind. Every detail, every battle was remembered, every battle Leben fought to learn.  

But there were too many crystals to pay attention to them all at once, and each one was difficult to look at because of the intensity of the memory. The only thing he knew was that if he kept going, he could reach the moment of his birth, and then he would surely see his parents.

“Stay there”.

Leben grabbed Peck's shoulder to stop him.

“I can't let you remember what happened before you came to Batoru”.

“I want to see Mum and Dad”.

“They're gone”.

Leben grabbed Peck's head and smashed it against one of the nearby fragments. This way they entered one of the memories.

There was a sound of shattering glass as they entered the memory, and as if they had jumped from the top, they fell heavily to the ground.

The memory they entered was in the orphanage.

A pained Peck looked up, he was in his old room. There he watched as the other children cast offensive spells on him, causing cuts and burns.

He heard himself screaming, crying, begging for help. Where no one came to save him.

“I guess I don't want to remember this, but...”

“Do you understand now? And what do you think happened to those children? I got rid of them. They won't be able to bother you again unless they get out of hell”.

“I don't understand, if you were sealed, why did my magic continue to make them hate me?”

“Your friend's no-good master didn't finish his seal properly”.

“Why?”

“I won't tell you”.

Peck got up and went to his old self who was still a child, but when he reached him the images faded. He tried to comfort himself.

“Even though you're here, it's too late to save your past self”.

“But I can save my present self”.

Peck looked at Leben.

Peck's face was not full of determination, there was fear in his eyes. Yet he showed hope in himself.

Leben looked at his creator in confusion, questioning the reason for such a sudden change.

“Has being with her changed you so much?”

“Not only that...”

Though frightened, Peck was also annoyed.

“It is that I can think without you manipulating my emotions. I think that courage has always been in me. Besides, I feel like someone said those words to me”.

Peck was already back on his feet, walking along, leaning against a wall as he took it all in.

Peck looked down for a moment, trying to remember where he had heard it. As he turned to face Leben again, he noticed that he was moving quickly towards him.

Leben grabbed Peck's face and slammed him against a wall, they walked through it and took a trip into another memory. Again they heard the sound of breaking glass and appeared in another place.

This time they were in a narrow street. A time when Peck had left the orphanage and was wandering the streets.

Little Peck stood near a pile of rubbish, hugging himself against the cold.

People passed by without noticing him.

The Peck of the present stopped in front of his little self. He looked at him carefully, saw how needy he was.

Then, from behind, came Leben, stepping on Peck's back and holding him down.

“No one came to your rescue. All of them?” He pointed at the passers-by. “None of them cared about you”.

Peck tried to look up, in vain.

“But..." Peck said, "someone came along who did help me... and I met Sen...”

This frustrated Leben and he stepped on Peck's back. He screamed in pain.

“Again with that?!”

“I told you... that I could think better now that you weren't manipulating me... but... it's also the fact that I could finally make some good memories...”

Leben stomped on Peck's head, not hiding his anger at his creator's words.

“You are a fool! You talk like that because you don't yet know how cruel this world is! You haven't seen how darkness can consume the noblest! If you knew what I'm hiding from you, you'd be corrupted too!”

Peck tried to defend himself.

“You haven't let me try yet" Peck said.

“Are you still at it?”

The next time Leben stepped on Peck's back, he sent him crashing through the ground into a pit.

This caused them both to fall into a new memory.

But this time, what Peck would see would be different. He tried to get up, but could only stay on his knees. In front of him was the moment when Sen reached out to pull him out of the river. For the first time, he couldn't help but feel a slight sense of relief.

“It wasn't all bad...”

Peck said.

“This is the worst!”

Leben appeared at Peck's side and kicked him. Leben's kick sent Peck crashing into a tree, and the crash broke the tree, causing them to move on to another memory.

Now they came to a street in Batoru where a giant spider made of slimy material was attacking dozens of men in uniform. This was the day Peck arrived in Batoru.

“This... why do I remember it in such detail?“

Leben behind Peck would answer:

“One of the wizards I killed told me that the Earth had a memory of its own, and that it would always remember our sins to punish us”.

“What does that mean?”

“I don't know exactly... I think there is a source of magical power that stores everything that happens in this world. Spells to stimulate memory must connect to that source”.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because now that I have answered your question, you owe me a debt of gratitude, so do me the favour of dying”.

Leben grabbed Peck's head and smashed it against the wall, Peck broke through the wall and crossed to the other side.

Once again they were in a street. In this memory, Leben possessed Peck's body to fight a man with a black sword.

“That man...”

Leben paused to remember.

“There is something strange about him”.

“What?”

Peck was confused when Leben stopped attacking him to look at the man with the sword.

He was a tall man, with black hair, silver eyes and very pale skin. He was probably about six feet tall. He was dressed in a blue trench coat with gold trim around the shoulders and other parts of the suit. He was wearing black trousers and shoes, but his gloves were white. He looked very young.

“Who is he, Leben?”

“That's... that's Milán. The bastard who claims to be the foster brother of your despicable friend Sen”.

“Is that him? But... but you and him... did you kill him?”

“No... because he's a strange person. Stranger than us. I don't know what he is...”

Leben then realised that he was wasting his time.

“Enough of this”.

He tried to hit Peck, tried to punch him in the face, but Peck defended himself and caught Leben's fist.

“Take me to a memory where Mum and Dad are!”

“No!”

Although surprised by Peck's defence, he had a job to do.

“Yes!”

Peck demanded, but Leben pushed him away. Peck went through another wall and this time they came to a familiar scene.

They came to a place with many trees, near the bush where Peck used to sleep.

There they witnessed a fight between Leben and Sen. It was the first time they had fought each other.

Peck was amazed at how easily Sen managed to defeat Leben. It was really nothing to her.

An embarrassed Leben could not bear to witness such humiliation any longer, so he kicked Peck; Peck broke another tree, and that led to another memory… As if fate played a joke on Leben they came to more memories where he lost.

But each change of scenery meant that Peck was hurt: time after time, unable to resist, completely outclassed, he could do nothing but take and take.

The last stage they came to was the one where they met; in the rain, in that puddle, and Peck could see himself as a little boy.

“This is where it all began for you, and this is where it will end" said Leben. “It's time for you to sleep, Peck”.

He tried to get up. Blood dripped from his mouth. His whole body ached, even if they were on a mental level, he could feel an unimaginable amount of pain. His head ached, the memories that suddenly came back were causing him real pain.

And most of them were terrible memories.

The only ones of peace were the ones he shared with Sen. Leben had not allowed him to see beyond that.

But Peck had a wish.

Unable to get up, Peck crawled towards his smaller self in the puddle. Leben chased after him, taking all the time in the world.

It was then that the little Peck of the memory spoke:

“Mum and Dad... didn't they love me?”

Peck had to find out.

“I need to know the truth”.

“No, you don't” replied Leben. “Your duty is to die so you can avenge them”.

“No, I want to know!”

Peck tried to stand, but the pain overwhelmed him. Still, he kept trying. Leben no longer bothered to answer him.

He kept saying the same thing:

“I want to see them, I want to see them, I want to see them, I want to see them!”

More desperately than before.

“Enough”.

“Give me back my mum and dad!”

But Peck's insistence, manifested in a scream, created an echo that distorted the surroundings. Everything changed and they appeared on a new stage.

Leben itself was confused by such an event. The most unusual thing was what happened next.

A scene that did not seem close to Batoru, one that Peck had never seen where he now lived.

The two of them appeared in a garden. A garden filled with children's play equipment surrounding a wooden house. In the centre of the playground was a swing.

And on that swing was a brown-haired man with his little boy... a boy with freckles.

---

Next chapter arrives on Monday!