The Remembered

by Michael J Sanford

  Whatever this is, whatever is about to happen, he thought, staring at the small version of himself standing on the sidewalk outside the store, comic still pressed to his chest, full family at his back. Is my fault.

  Fear shook Wyatt like a ragdoll, sending shoots of pain throughout his body. Living Athena's memory with his own consciousness intact was a nightmare. He could feel her sick desperation. And he knew he was the cause. But worst of all, he knew he couldn't change anything.

  A hand wrapped around the back of Wyatt's head and smashed it into the truck's hood. Wyatt flailed, not knowing if he was even moving. The pain made it hard to focus on anything else. Athena's pain. His guilt.

  The man pulled Wyatt off the truck and swung him around. Wyatt clutched at his eyes, trying to wipe away to blood, tears, and sweat enough to see by.

  "Hey," a new voice shouted. "What are you doing?"

  The man holding Wyatt by the head shook him and growled.

  Blinking, Wyatt saw the outline of a new man, standing a few paces away, a shopping bag in one hand, his car keys jingling in the other as he gestured angrily at Wyatt's captor.

  "Let her go," the man said. He dropped the shopping bag and reached into his pocket. "I'm calling the cops."

  No, Wyatt screamed, trapped behind Athena's eyes. Her memory was his, and it raced slightly ahead of his own perception. Don't do it.

  The man fished out a cellphone from his pocket, but promptly dropped it. His hands jutted out in front of him and he began slowly backing up.

  "Hey man, take it easy," he said, the anger replaced by the same fear that held Wyatt hostage.

  A single gunshot rang out louder than any thunderclap, deafening Wyatt. He squeezed his eyes shut and retreated deep within himself, desperate to escape, but knowing his physical body couldn't leave. The pain and fear ebbed, slightly at first, but then Wyatt drove deeper into the darkness, determined to leave his body behind, longing for sanctuary. Without it, he would die.

  And then he found it. Beyond sight and sound. Without aroma or feeling. He no longer tasted blood and bile. Deep within the darkness of his mind, he discovered what he sought, what the man could never take from him. A place to hide that could never be discovered.

  Nothing. Sweet, blissful nothingness.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IT WAS STRANGE, being in that place, surrounded by pure nothingness. Wyatt examined his hands and saw them as his own, solid and real, but nothing else existed. He could move—or at least thought he could—though there was no ground he could discern. It was surreal, but peaceful.

  What was that? he wondered, thinking back to Athena's memory. Whatever happened that day, with that man, Athena had survived. Wyatt knew that, but he still couldn't shake the feeling of crippling guilt. If he hadn't stopped her at the entrance to the toy store, the man never would have caught her. And though Wyatt didn't know what happened after what he had just seen, he didn't think it was any better.

  Wyatt sat and crossed his legs. So I can move here.

  He stared at the infinite black and quickly became disoriented. He tipped, but caught sight of his own legs and centered himself. He had escaped from Athena's memory, but to where? He could recall seeking it out at some point, but now wasn't sure what had occurred to lead him to such a place. It was safe, but lonely as well. And quiet.

  "Lucy!" Wyatt yelled through cupped hands.

  He hadn't expected to be able to make any noise, but his voice echoed, growing louder with each reverberation. It lasted only a few fleeting moments before the eerie plea stopped.

  "You don't have to yell," said a voice from beside him, just above a whisper.

  Wyatt jerked around to see Lucy sitting next to him. "Lucy!" he shouted as he dove to wrap her in a fierce embrace.

  The resulting echo smashed into him as a tangible force and Wyatt had to roll away to cower against the strange cacophony.

  Lucy slapped him atop his head, and when his voice faded, said, "I told you not to yell" softly through clenched teeth.

  Wyatt sat up, moved close to her and hugged her with a single arm. "Sorry," he whispered.

  She pushed him away and scowled. "Where have you been?"

  "Me?" Wyatt asked incredulously. "Where have you been?"

  Lucy looked around for a moment. "I...I don't know. I think I was dreaming, but it was more like a nightmare."

  "You've definitely been dreaming, but that's good because it let me find you here, wherever here is, and not like I had much choice in the matter."

  Lucy fidgeted with her hands. "I remember Ms. Abagail singing to me..." she said slowly, each word seeming like a monumental task. "Then I was dreaming. Lots of dreams. Or maybe memories, but they weren't mine. I don't think. They were scary. But not scary like what the Bad Man shows me. Different scary. So I had to keep running."

  "Well, you found me," Wyatt said with a grin. He squeezed her shoulder.

  Lucy shook her head. "That's not why I was running."

  "You didn't want to find me?"

  Lucy pushed him away again. "Of course I did. But I was running from the four-armed things and the flying fire men."

  Wyatt straightened up and looked around them. "The Regents have been following you? Are they here?"

  "I don't think so. I don't think even the Bad Man can find us here."

  Wyatt forced out a deep breath. "But they are following you? Even through whatever dreams or memories you came through to get here?"

  "Uh huh."

  Wyatt groaned. "How can they be following you? I mean, they came through your memory of meeting me at Greenwood, but that wasn't even you. It was the Bad Man that let them through..."

  "They followed us to Greenwood when we were on the roof in the rain. And then they followed us to Sanctuary. And then into my dreams and memories."

  Wyatt felt the air vanish from his body. "They're never going to stop following you, huh? And ever since I gave the Bad Man my power, there's nothing to stop them..."

  Lucy didn't say anything. She stared at her hands in her lap, still as stone.

  "But we're safe here," Wyatt said.

  "We are," Lucy said. "But I don't want to stay here. It's lonely."

  For a moment, Wyatt thought he saw the distant shape of Rozen walk through the darkness. Or was it Athena? Wyatt shook his head, knowing it was his mind conjuring guilt-ridden apparitions.

  "Well, can we get back to Sanctuary?" Wyatt asked. "That's what I've been trying to do all along—find you and bring you back."

  "I don't know. Maybe."

  Wyatt slid across a floor that didn't exist to position himself in front of Lucy. He grabbed her hands, squeezing tightly to stop them from shaking. "We can do it. Together."

  Lucy looked up at him, but her eyes seemed distant. Wyatt didn't know if what he was saying were true, but he wasn't sure Lucy's magical power had a limit.

  "I can't," she said.

  "Yes, you can."

  Lucy shook her head. "I mean I won't."

  Wyatt was taken aback. "You said yourself you don't want to stay. So let's go back to Sanctuary. Just think really hard about it, or whatever it is you do. Think of Ms. Abagail. And we found Maia and Athena, too. You were still sick when we found them, but you'll like them. Maia knows a lot of—"

  Wyatt stopped, seeing Lucy begin to cry. She remained still, staring straight at him, unseeing. "They'll follow."

  "The Regents? You don't know that. And what does it matter? I came to get you back. We're a family."

  "I'm tired," Lucy said. "I'm tired of the dreams and the memories. I don't want to run anymore."

  Wyatt grabbed the side of her face, fracturing the glazed look in her eyes enough that she focused on his face. "I'm not running anymore, either. So take us back to Sanctuary and let the Regents come. No more running," Wyatt said, feeling tears slide down his face. "From now on, we fight. We fight the Regency. We fight the Bad Man. And we fight the memories."

  "I'm scared."

  "Me too."

>   Lucy wiped at her face. "Okay."

  Wyatt smiled. "Yeah? So you'll try to get us back?"

  "I already did."

  Light illuminated Lucy's face, transforming her eyes into brilliant emeralds lined with diamond tears. Wyatt spun around and climbed to his feet. A doorway had been opened in the infinite darkness, showing the same small library Wyatt had left from. He turned back to Lucy and tugged her upright.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "For what? You did it? I don't know how, but you did it."

  A crack of lightning split the strange realm of nothingness, obliterating the shadows. The darkness fell away to reveal the rest of the study in Sanctuary. Books littered the ground from Wyatt's tantrum, but he hardly had time to think on it as his eyes went to the window and the building storm beyond. Streaks of lightning crossed over one another and thunder choreographed a symphony.

  "They're coming, aren't they?" Wyatt asked. "The Regents."

  Lucy grabbed Wyatt's hand. "And our memories."

  Wyatt and Lucy ran through the stone hallways of Sanctuary as quickly as they could. Wyatt could no longer see the magical storm outside the castle, but each thunderclap shook the mountains and sent aftershocks up his legs.

  Lucy didn't say how or where the Regents would enter back into the Realms, but Wyatt had seen enough impossible things to hedge his bets on the worst possible outcome. He had once thought he could run from them—the Regents and his memories—but that now seemed embarrassingly futile. Ignorance was bliss, or at least better than all Wyatt had experienced so far, but it was still that—ignorance.

  The farther they ran, the more violent the hidden storm became, and the more panicked the inhabitants of Sanctuary appeared as the siblings raced by. They found a staircase and darted up it, nearly bowling over a line of women and children running downward. There was no time to ascertain their condition—Wyatt hardly had the presence of mind to wonder at their hasty departure from the direction Lucy and Wyatt were headed. Nothing would have stopped them, in any case. In that place of nothingness, in a moment so small, Wyatt and Lucy had formed an ironclad bond. And while victory still seemed a lofty dream, Wyatt knew they were far stronger together than they were apart.

  "They should be up in the Observatory," Wyatt said between gasps as they passed another floor. He couldn't remember how high the towers of Sanctuary went—all he knew was to keep climbing.

  "We don't know what day it is," Lucy said over her shoulder.

  Lucy was always a step ahead of him, both figuratively and literally. He said nothing, instead choosing to focus on his steps. Lucy hadn't questioned him when they had first set out from the study. Neither of them knew what was happening or what would happen, but Wyatt's instinct was to find his friends. His family.

  Lucy cleared the next landing and pivoted to the side, brushing against the wall and narrowly avoiding a collision with a young woman. Wyatt tried the same maneuver, but caught the woman's knee with his own. The woman stumbled, steadied herself on the curving wall, and continued down the stairs. Wyatt lost his footing completely, bounced off the opposite wall, and fell at Lucy's feet.

  Lucy snared his arm and was pulling him up before Wyatt had even stopped falling, but he was too heavy for her and they both went down.

  "Come on," Lucy urged.

  Wyatt didn't know what urgency drove at Lucy, but she seemed far older in that moment. She was still injured, Wyatt knew, though he hadn't spoken of it since their reunion. Her shirt was stained, and torn in so many places it was hardly a shirt anymore, and though she favored her right arm, her face showed nothing of pain. Wyatt couldn't imagine what she had gone through. Even asleep, Lucy couldn't find peace. Even dreams became real for her, and memories became living nightmares.

  Something exploded above them, the sound echoing down the tight stairwell. Loose stone and dust poured down the stone steps a moment later, forcing Wyatt and Lucy to dance out of the tower and into a broad hallway. The falling stone stopped, but a plume of gray dust continued forward, blossoming out of the narrow doorway. Wyatt and Lucy grabbed at each other as they retreated to fresh air, coughing and swiping at the dust as they did.

  They found reprieve against the far wall of the large hallway they had happened upon. It was far more crowded than any other place in Sanctuary they had passed through. People were running every which way, bumping into each other in their haste. A small child was shouldered to the ground as a larger teen ran by her. Wyatt was still frozen by the mayhem, but Lucy moved like a viper, striking out from the wall to snare the child and roll aside, just avoiding a stampede of adults.

  Wyatt pressed his back to the wall as they thundered by, their footsteps competing with the throb of the thunderstorm that had seemed to swallow Sanctuary whole. Once the bulk of the crowd had gone, Wyatt went to Lucy and the small girl she had saved. As soon as the girl could extricate herself from beneath Lucy, she was off and running again.

  Wyatt knelt at Lucy's side. "Are you all right? That was awesome."

  Lucy grimaced as she fought to bring herself to her knees. She pressed a hand to her shoulder and whimpered. Her hand shone brilliant with fresh blood as she examined it.

  "Your wound," Wyatt said. "You must have torn it open again."

  Lucy wiped her hand on what remained of her shirt and shakily stood. Wyatt rushed to put an arm around her, fighting to keep his own limbs from shaking as he held her tightly against his side.

  "Come on," Wyatt said. "We can find another stairwell."

  The sound of screeching metal pierced the deep ripples of thunder and forced Wyatt to wrench around to face the far end of the hallway, spinning Lucy along with him.

  An enormous set of wooden doors, dozens of feet high and nearly just as wide, were slowly swinging inward on rusted hinges. Wyatt expected to see a storm of Regents, but instead of four-armed behemoths, he saw a wave of new citizens pouring into the hallway as soon as the doors were open wide enough to admit them. They rushed in like a river, cutting a wide path down the center of the hallway. Some were yelling, others were busy dragging children along, while a couple of larger men carried elders over broad shoulders.

  Wyatt barely had time to move back to the wall to avoid them. Lucy leaned heavily against him, and he could see her shoulder slowly weeping blood.

  "Might be a good idea to follow their lead," Wyatt said as the last stragglers passed them and disappeared around a corner.

  He made to do just that, but Lucy resisted his pull. Panic seized him, thinking she had fainted, but as he looked at her he saw her eyes were clear and focused, rooted on a handful of people still at the large doors, trying desperately to close them again. A horn sounded from somewhere beyond the giant portal, closely followed by the glint of sharpened steel and polished plate armor.

  "We can't," Wyatt said, knowing Lucy was trying to drag him to their aid. She would be no help in barring the giant doors, and Wyatt little more.

  "We can't leave them," Lucy said. She thrust a palm into Wyatt's chest and twisted her body away, breaking his hold. She fell to a knee, but quickly began running toward the doors.

  "Lucy!" Wyatt shouted, taking after her.

  Lucy was moving at only a fraction of her normal speed, and panic drove Wyatt's limbs. He caught up to her halfway to the door and lashed both arms around her slight body, picking her up and spinning back around in the same motion.

  She kicked against his shins with her heels. "We can't leave them!" she shouted.

  Wyatt struggled against her opposition, fighting to flee with her intact.

  "Wyatt!"

  Both Wyatt and Lucy froze at the voice, just barely audible over the din of storm and steel. Wyatt dropped Lucy and looked toward the call. Half a dozen people were still fighting to close the doors, making little progress. All were focused on the task, save one looking over her shoulder, a shock of pink hair shining like a beacon.

  If Wyatt ever cursed, he would have done so, but the impossible decision at hand had tur
ned his tongue to stone. He could see unending ranks of Regency soldiers through the gap in the doors. Thankfully, he couldn't spot any Draygans overhead, but he still didn't think there was enough time to secure the doors before the enemy was upon them. But how could he choose to abandon Ms. Abagail, even if it meant risking his and Lucy's lives?

  Lucy was already moving for Ms. Abagail, leaving drops of crimson in her wake. Ms. Abagail shouted Lucy's name and waved a hand at them before turning back to the door. Wyatt could have tried to drag Lucy away again, or even fled himself, but he wasn't going to leave anyone behind.

  Wyatt reached the door just ahead of Lucy and slammed into it with all his weight. Lucy leaned against it and groaned, whether from exertion or pain wasn't readily apparent.

  "What are you doing here?" Ms. Abagail asked.

  Wyatt could hear the clash of Regency steel, sounding like a choir of cymbals. It sounded as if it were mere feet away. The two doors were nearing each other, only a small gap showing, but if they couldn't get it shut completely and barred, the Regency would just throw it open again.

  "Saving the day," Wyatt said.

  Lucy coughed a laugh. "Yeah, it's what we do."

  Someone screamed, and the two people closest to the opening turned and fled. The others all stopped pushing at that and looked at one another before running away as well.

  "Oh shit," Ms. Abagail said, turning from the door.

  Wyatt lowered his stance and pushed harder at the door. "Don't give up now," he said.

  Ms. Abagail grabbed his shoulder and wrapped an arm around Lucy as the doors shuddered. "Too late," she said.

  Before they could flee with the others, the twin doors shook and swung quickly inward, scraping against the stone floor and letting in the full howl of an innumerable army. The stout timber struck Ms. Abagail, Lucy, and Wyatt and swept them into the nearest corner as the Regents marched in.

  Wyatt made to move, but Ms. Abagail curled an arm around the back of his head and slapped her hand over his mouth. She pulled them deeper into the corner and dragged all three to the ground. The doors were open wide enough that the one in front of them almost completely blocked out the view of the larger hallway. The gap between wall and door edge was only a couple of feet, and the trio was shrouded in shadows.