Page 2 of Hell-Bound

During her six weeks on the merchant ship, she’d spent hours imagining how she’d gotten the scar. Had she fallen as a child? Did she get accosted by two ruffians in a back alley? Perhaps she had dropped a knife while making dinner for her lover, Nephele, a person she had also forgotten.

The nightmare began several months ago in the small town of Vergessen.

She had awoken to a stranger lying half-naked in the bed beside her.

Renata recalled her horror and screams for help as the male Elf, who she now knew as Nephele, tried to explain that he was her partner, that they lived together, and that they were in love.

True, he wasn’t entirely unfamiliar—with his long dark hair, blue eyes, and pointed ears—yet she could not place them. The space where those memories should have been was blank. He was like a character she might have seen in a play.

It didn’t take long to figure out that something was terribly wrong. Renata had forgotten her life. But not quite everything. She could still remember faces and names, yet there was no meaning behind them—no memory attached. She could still remember how to do daily rituals. Her fingers immediately knew the proper rhythms when she pulled at the strands of her hair to plait it—she didn’t need to think about tying her boots. It just happened as if her habits had been burned into her body rather than her mind.

She recognized her mother, Clara, by sight but not by recollection—no memories to prompt any emotional connection—nothing to tie her to this wizened Elven female with a kind face. While it felt right to call her Mother, there was nothing else. The same was true for her father, Atlas. Yet Renata was undeniably theirs—with her mother’s silver hair and her father’s dark Human eyes.

She visited her parents one last time before she left Vergessen. She sat at the small kitchen table, dissociating as she watched the steam rise from her tea cup. Her mother was crying, and her father, much like her, refused to say much.

“You still can’t remember…anything?” her mom said again.

Renata finally looked up, forcing herself to meet the lovely female’s eyes.

“I…no. I mean—not really. I know who you are. I remember people, I somehow recognize them—but none of our…interactions. If that makes sense?”

“No, Renata…it…it doesn’t!” Clara stammered, anguish in her wet eyes.

Atlas just shook his head wordlessly. His eyes were creased on both sides, looking much older than his wife’s.

The older woman reached across the table to hold Renata’s hands. As skin touched skin, Renata’s first instinct was to pull her hand back, not yet used to physical contact. But they felt warm, comforting even.

She held her mother’s gaze.

“You can fix it. Say you can fix it.”

Renata’s jaw worked. “Mother. I don’t know what this is. I…don’t know what happened.”

She felt, in that moment, that she should be sadder. That she should be heartbroken, like these two. That she should feel something for them besides pity. A flicker of affectionate feeling. But she was blank. She knew they had been close, or that’s what they’d told her. Stories of her chasing bees 30-something years ago and playing a small piccolo in the gardento the plants so they would grow faster.

Clara continued to desperately share these moments to trigger some sort of recognition rather than the ever-present frustration.

“And Nephele? Have you seen Nephele?” she asked, sniffling.

“Not yet.”

The weeks that followed were a cacophony of tortuous interactions. Everyone was so upset that she couldn’t remember.

“But surely,me?We see each other every fortnight!”

“Don’t you remember? I’ve known you since we were youngsters.”

“Be serious, Renata. You order the same thing every week!”

And Nephele, most of all.

The last time she had seen him was at a quiet tavern near dusk. She had avoided the encounter, but as she was leaving in the morning, she couldn’t put it off any longer.

Nephele’s eyes were bloodshot shadowed with tiny purple curves underneath.

Renata sat silently, as she’d learned to do in many circumstances lately.

“Renata…” he started, breathing out a shaky breath. “I heard you’re taking the ship out tomorrow. To…Ataria?”