(This is now also being posted on my profile under the post titled "The Brink of Oblivion")

I lifted the steaming liquid to my lips and sipped it lightly. It was absolutely disgusting, bitter and thick. I pulled it away making a face and shook my head.

“Blegh!”

“What were you expecting?” Klara said with a knowing smile, “Hot coco?”

“No,” I said, eyeing the muddy brown water as a leaf floated through it. “I just don’t understand how drinking mud will help.” Klara’s eyes softened. It was kind but it was irritating. Everyone was treating me like I was helpless and naive. It was maddening when everyone but you seemed to know what was going on.

“It’s an antidote of sorts,” Klara explained, “Jennifer is very powerful and she has trapped you in a kind of… labyrinth of the mind. She has been separating your mind and body from itself in the hopes that she can just peel you like an onion until she eventually finds what she’s looking for.”

Klara eyed me playfully, a strain of her golden hair tumbling across her eyes. She was radiant in the sunlight. But she would be radiant even in a place void of all light. Something about her illuminated the entire room and made me feel whole. I relaxed slightly as I allowed myself a second to believe that she loved me.

Me!

“But I know you.” Klara continued, a laugh behind her eyes, “And you knew she was coming for you. I suspect you hid the information she seeks somewhere deep inside yourself, maybe somewhere so deep you wouldn’t be able to access it either.”

“Am I really that clever?” I said. Klara leaned forwards, placing her elbows on her kees. Her light purple dress fluttered around her, illuminating the fabric around her shoulders like a halo.

“Ammon,” she said, “You are the most obnoxiously clever man I have ever met. You think everything through, it drives me insane sometimes. You never take a move that is not already fully calculated. You are a scientific man, deeply fond of data and observation. But I suspect you know this already. Tell me,” she cocked her eyebrow, “has there been a step you’ve taken today that wasn’t fully thought out? A decision you made where you didn’t weight all the sides you could think of, even in your broken state? Could you describe any of your actions as ‘impulsive?’”

“Well,” I said, leaning back with my hand on Odin’s head. “You could argue that attacking Claudia was pretty damn impulsive.”

“She attacked you first,” Klara pointed out and then smirked,“I’m right aren’t I?”

“Sure,” I said, “I like to think about things before I act. But how do I know any of this is even real?”I motioned to the house. “How can I be sure that I’m not just losing whatever is left of my mind?”

Klara nodded to the liquid.

“That should help,” she said, “I hoped that it would bring back some more memories. Like the one where you remembered that spell. Clearly your desperation allowed you to access a powerful memory and I’m hoping to recreate that with less pain and, uh, threat of death. It should also help us sever her link to you. Jennifer works for what they call a ‘police department’ in this reality. It’s like our Renoke Warriors, but with the advanced technology of this time and place behind them. This mostly means that she has access to lots of information and power in this world. We can’t let her find you.”

I grimaced and started to sip the brew. It had cooled and that wasn’t helping. I took a few big gulps, telling myself that it would be over soon, and only let myself bring the bowl away from my lips when I’d consumed every last drop. I chewed on the leaf as I handed the bowl back to a rather happy Klara.

“Okay,” she said, “It should start helping in a few minutes.”

I laid down on the couch and closed my eyes. Her home was comfortable and, despite my stomach groaning in protest, I was feeling relaxed. There was a gentle breeze floating through the open window and I smelled the fragrant flowers.

Lilies.

I was a little boy with jet black hair playing in a garden full of different colored lilies.

I shifted my weight and opened my eyes. Was that me? The world was spinning. What was in that awful brew? I felt like I was suddenly not in control of my mind and where it took me, I was just along for the ride.

Threads.

My vision became consumed with thin red threads. They cycled and twisted, pulling me through them. I saw flickers. A man standing in a stone-walled room, bowing to a woman dressed in a velvet purple robe. An open field surrounded by razor sharp ridged mountains that shot out from the ground like spikes. A book full of oddly shaped letters and other symbols I felt I knew but couldn’t remember.

A woman with bright blue eyes. No, ocean eyes. Swimming with blue, green, and gold. She beckoned me closer.

Klara.

I tossed and turned, unable to control myself. A scream erupted from my chest.

A red beam hitting my body. Pain surging through my veins.

Lava.

I moaned. The woman with yellow eyes sneered. She struck me again.

A prison. A black walled room. A man with long black hair hangs forwards, his bowed head encompassed with a red ball of light. Geometric bars surround his head. His body is thin, weak, frail. His beard is long and unkempt.

Man I look like a common thief.

I.

Me.

It was as if a lost fragment of myself fit suddenly into place and I felt… well it was hard to describe even to myself. It was as if a severed connection was rewired and this feeling of self consumed me. It was still very much not complete, and I knew I was still very lost, but one shard was back.

Spells, names of the Universe, and other important information crashed into my mind, colliding with each other and setting off fireworks behind my closed eyes.

Then, it was over. The silence returned. I sat up on my elbows and met Klara’s ocean-blue eyes. She looked at me, curious and expecting. My chest fluttered. “It”, that feeling of love, that bond that can only be forged by lovers, was suddenly present in me when I looked at her.

“I think I love you.” was all I could say. Klara jumped with a sudden burst of ecstatic energy and wrapped her arms around me tightly.

“I need you,” she said as sirens began to echo from far off.

“I feel a little more… me-like?”

She kissed my cheek and then looked deeply into my eyes.

“Good,” she said, “Because I’m going to need ‘Ruthless Ammon’. There is no way we’re getting out of here without a huge fight.”

“How are we getting out of here?”

Klara stood up and walked to the window, pulling back the curtains only a little.

“Shelia and I have found an exit of sorts.” she said, “It opens at the peak of a full moon which, fortunately, happens tonight at midnight. You have to disconnect your mind from Jennifer’s prison a certain amount before we will be able to free your mind through the portal. Following me?”

“I think,” I said.

“Once you’re out of here and back in your own body, the real hard part begins.”

“Why?”

“You’re still physically restrained. Shelia and I are working to get into Jennifyiar’s hiding place but, it’s rather difficult.”

-End Part 8