Since the young man made it to the shore, several hours have passed.
All this time he gave himself up to a calm and sweet sleep. His body demanded rest from everything he had experienced right after his awakening. But it was not so much the body as the mind that begged for sleep.
According to the young man's feelings, it was his mind that was tormented the most. He still could not look away from the sight of the water serpent. This terrifying, azure serpent of gigantic size sometimes appeared to him in his dreams during those few hours.
Then he began to tremble. His face was covered with cold sweat, and his breathing quickened.
But almost immediately the image of the horrible monster vanished, being replaced by something pleasant. For example, a beautiful and cozy garden with various flowers whose names he did not remember.
The view also sometimes turned into wonderful celebrations. They were completely different: from city festivals where people laughed, played, performed and drank, to balls in palaces of varying degrees of luxury.
«Brother... Where are you, brother?..»
But besides the snake, his sleep was also disturbed by this mysterious voice. The young man didn't know whose it was. He realized he was hearing it for the first time, but for some reason he couldn't understand, he wanted to hear it again and again. And as soon as it stopped, his heart filled with unimaginable yearning, sorrow, and… pain?
Where did all these feelings toward the seemingly unfamiliar female voice come from? He had not a single hypothesis. So he simply accepted it as a given in those brief, fleeting moments of its appearance.
– Ah! – he exhaled with pain when his closed eyelids weakly"set off.
He began to awaken, but the lingering pain in his body hadn't gone away. He seemed only to have become stronger than he was at the moment of waking in the water.
– Ah! – In the next moment he sprang up sharply, looking around. Before his eyes still lingered the image of a huge snake and that mass of water in which he had been trapped. – I- I really… got out?
Not believing his eyes, the young man ran his hand over the smooth, soft green grass. He inhaled fresh air with a full breath, which made his lungs ache and a dry cough escaped from his mouth. Due to the sudden awakening his head was slightly dizzy, and his sense of balance was disturbed. The condition was not very pleasant… to say the least.
«Where am I? — he thought, just as he had at the moment of waking from the water dream. Only now he could look around more calmly, not fearing death from the monster's fangs or under the weight of the water. — Now… where have I ended up?»
"Brother!.. Brother!.."
Again, a woman's voice struck his weak and still unsteady consciousness. It was alluring, gentle, and full of anxiety, mixed with care and sincere love.
A terrible and unbearable pain pierced his brain. His body twisted, causing his filthy clothes.dark blue"The color stretched tighter, adhering more closely to the skin. He tightly grasped his head with one hand, bracing himself with the other."
Fingers dug into the hair, and a painful moan escaped from her lips. Her eyes were tightly shut. The pain still wouldn't recede. It seemed to only grow stronger.
The words spoken directly into his mind also grew louder and more frequent. There were more and more of them. The young man didn't know how to stop it.
«Brother!»
He had not a single idea who could call him that. Not a single memory of anything, even remotely resembling that person.
«What? – he figured something out here. – Ah… who am I?»
In that moment everything stopped. As soon as this thought appeared in the mind, the voices fell silent and soon completely vanished. A tomb-like silence settled, and only the sounds of nature and birdsong interrupted it.
But inside the young man there was far from silence.
«What the hell? Who am I? Name? Place? Yesterday?»
He feverishly tried to recall anything about himself… But, alas, it was all empty.
With each passing second, the boy's face took on an increasingly shocked look. He was practically overcome by also panic, just as during the surfacing. Fortunately, he has already gone through this situation, so he managed to maintain something resembling calm."
And even then, he clearly didn't look calm. Any other description would fit, but definitely not "calm."
Then, after a few minutes of fruitless attempts, he concluded: "He remembered nothing about himself. Not only about himself. About everything in general."
Yes, there was nothing in his memory. Absolute emptiness.
– How could it be?! – he shouted in despair. He understood how strange it was. And because of that, the condition was even worse.
The mere thought that someone cared about him, and that he would never know it, not only saddened him but also made him angry. Anger at his own helplessness and hopelessness.
What could he do about his memories being either erased or, for some reason, missing? Exactly nothing. The young man could do nothing about it, even if he wanted to.
In his eyes the lush foliage of the trees reflected when he looked up. There, high above, the trees shielded him from the sun that was about to set beyond the horizon. The whole world turned orange and raspberry hues. Soon they will be replaced by violet, and then the darkness of night.
The foliage swayed gently and slowly under the breath of a cool breeze. He also caressed the youth's face, running his fingers through his silvery hair that glittered in the evening light.
Turning his head in different directions, he saw nothing but continuous forest and a river. A huge… a very huge crystal‑clear river. He thought it was not merely clean, but clean to such an extent that it sparkles on the surface, while beneath there lurks an evil darkness. Like that snake.
Brr!
Goosebumps ran over my body. Whether from the cold or from the memories that surfaced. So vivid, as if they had happened not a few hours ago, but a few seconds ago.
As before, sitting on the grass beneath the canopies of large trees, he was in no hurry to go anywhere. Not only because he wanted to stay in such a seemingly paradisiacal place, but also because he simply didn't know where he should go. He couldn't even understand where he was and what had happened to him then.
Why did he end up in this river? What kind of serpent was it? Whose voice constantly sounds in his head and why does it call him brother?
«Too many questions and not a single answer, ha.» – with a dejected laugh he summed up his current situation. And it… barely reached even an acceptable level.
Everything here was already foreign to him. He did not recognize the landscapes that unfolded before his eyes. Neither this river nor this forest existed in his memory.
«It's understandable. I don't even remember my own name, — he thought, lowering his gaze to his clothes. — What kind of lousy memory could I possibly have? — he left this question unanswered.
He was dressed in some uniform that resembled a cadet knight's uniform.dark blue, simple made of fabric. Without any decorations. Just a uniform for training and activities. And, moreover, she already wasbut pretty battered, not counting the events that have taken place these days… or in the morning?…
– Why did I think that this was a knight's outfit? – again unanswered questions.
He could only say that it was a kind of feeling. A familiar and dear-to-his-heart sensation, with which he had been very long and well acquainted.
«Maybe I wore it in the past? — he asked himself that question, but another one immediately arose. — But if it's on me now, doesn't that mean I was a bad student once and I'm still a cadet?»
Not only a bad memory, but also a bad student, right? Those thoughts were in his mind now. He didn't really care about time, because there was nowhere in particular for him to rush, since he didn't know where to rush. And he didn't know why either.
Now he was in a paradise, surrounded by a lush forest, a clear river, and a beautiful sunset. Looking at all of this, a warm feeling arose inside. Almost homely, but still not quite.
— Ugh, — a dissatisfied sigh escaped his mouth as he fell onto the grass, his hands folded behind his head. — What is that disgusting feeling inside?
He could clearly feel something inside him protesting against his inaction. But what could he do when he knew absolutely nothing? If he had even a hint, he could come up with something. But, unfortunately for the guy, the situation was dire.
— And what should I do now? Where to go, or at least, how to survive?
«Huh?» – here he realized something.
I understood an important thing that I hadn't noticed until now because of other distracting factors. How could he not have noticed it earlier? After all, it was a feeling completely foreign to his body. Just as it was back underwater.
Nothing. Absolute nothing. Underwater he didn't feel that he was suffocating. And it was so. He certainly didn't feel any discomfort while being underwater.
Exactly the same thing was happening now. Only instead of a lack of oxygen, they should have been pestered by hunger and thirst. But there was none. The body felt normal. There was no hunger, nor thirst. The young man had not experienced anything like that since he awoke underwater up to this moment.
— Wh-what… — his pupils trembled. With a sudden motion, he sat down and began to examine himself.
Putting his hand on that part of the chest where the heart was supposed to be, he felt through it…
Tu-dum! Tu-dum! Tu-dum!
The sound of the heart was the same as his young body remembered. But still, something didn't give him peace even in that. And that began to eat him from the inside. More and more oddities were happening to him in a single damned day!
[Rising one, would you like to receive your reward?]
Pale inscriptions rose before his eyes, which he simultaneously understood and completely did not know.