Kai's Memories

Always, they leave. They leave her deposited on the edge of the ocean, walking alone down the lonely northward road. Sitting in an empty field shivering despite the sunlight, cold green robes clutched in her shaking hands.

She doesn't like to think about it. It's just natural, those people coming and going and paying her little mind. They leave little tributes behind. A pat on the head, food for a day, a lesson on fighting with knives. But the people themselves, they always go.

At first, she didn't think much of it, not being by herself anymore. But it started to matter more. At some point, going back to that old wandering life, alone, was no longer an option. There was nothing more she could have wanted than this, with these two by her side.

Standing there in the fog, all she can see is him. Big and brave and undefeatable, unkillable, because he promised to protect them. And so he could never leave.

But something is gathering, more power than can be stopped. And she's screaming, trying to warn him, but he's only staring at her as the budding energy ruptures. And then everything goes white.

They made it out, some of them, but only pieces of him. She knows the green cloth is soft. She's felt it before, tugging on it to get his attention, bunching it over her and Dezzy's heads, memories that feel so incredibly far away. But right now her arms are numb and all she can feel is its weight, too heavy, sinking her arms to the grass.

The shadow protecting her from the sunlight recedes, and she lifts her head immediately, but it's like hours have passed in the span of that moment. A tiny shadow disappears into the darkening sun, and then the light is so blinding that she can't see.

Her arm lifts unbidden, but the light between her fingers can't be captured, can't be caught.

They all walk away. All of them, eventually, they all go away.

Something calls to her, something that doesn't leave, and this time it's darkness that fills her and sinks her into its depths.

The ocean, always shifting but never changing, the sparkling surface growing further and further away. And below her, its presence calling out to her, reaching further, drawing her in. A thousand eyes watching as she reaches back. The one thing that will never leave her.

When she jolts awake, the room is quiet but for the others' breathing, the stone walls still surrounding her. He's there, still breathing, miraculously still breathing. But Dezzy is gone. And though she knows she must just be pacing outside the room, the sinking pit takes its place in her stomach and keeps her awake through the rest of the night.

No matter what happens and no matter where they go, she'll always be afraid of her running away.