?????? ??????

  My first memory that I can recall of my existence was one of beauty.

  The heavens above were alive.

  They swirled with colors beyond imagination, soft and radiant hues folding into one another like painted glass caught in motion. Lightning bloomed across the sky, arcing with brilliance, every color of the spectrum flashing in grand arcs as waves below rose and fell in rhythmic splendor.

  Even the crashing of the sea felt vast and awe-inspiring, as though the world itself was breathing.

  I clutched my sister as we watched, unaware that the tightness in my chest was fear. To me, it was simply part of the moment, something large and important I did not yet have the words to name.

  Within this breathtaking scenery lay the remnants of a glorious battle.

  A man, broad-shouldered and regal even in stillness, knelt upon the broken earth. A magnificent blade rested near his grasp, dulled only by the end it had reached. At first, he appeared merely tired, as though he had paused to rest beneath the storm-lit sky. Only when I looked closer did I notice the hollow carved through his chest.

  Even then, his face was calm. His powerful eyes still burned with warmth and purpose, shimmering defiantly as though refusing to dim, no matter how violently the world twisted around him.

  Beside him lay a smiling face that no longer belonged to a body.

  Her expression was gentle, almost peaceful, her kind eyes reflecting the colors above as if she were still admiring them. Her body lay pinned to the ground by a blade not her own, her staff fallen nearby, beautiful even in its silence, a reminder of the wondrous power she had once wielded.

  Then I saw her.

  The one who had slain them both.

  Shimmering black ichor flowed from the older woman’s form, slipping away like a veil caught in a gentle breeze. It did not stain the ground so much as fade from her, peeling back madness layer by layer. As it fell away, her eyes cleared, revealing naked anguish and unbearable regret beneath.

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  She collapsed trembling — small beneath the sky, no longer obscured within for what she had done.

  That was my first, and last, crystal-clear memory of my original parents.

  And the first time I truly looked upon my future mother.

  ***

  ?????? ??????

  My first memory I can recall of my existence is one of horror.

  Despair took root even within my underdeveloped heart as I beheld destruction stretching endlessly in every direction. Lightning of a wrong, hateful color split the sky, burning the air it passed through and leaving it screaming in its wake. Waves rose like walls, tearing apart what remained of a fleet and pulverizing the shoreline until nothing recognizable endured.

  This was not the joy that someone as young as me should have seen.

  This was a disaster.

  At the center of it lay death.

  My father knelt upon the ground, his body convulsing violently as electricity ravaged him from within. His chest had been blown apart, flesh charred and torn beyond recognition.

  At his feet lay my mother’s severed head, her expression frozen in shock. I do not know when it happened. I blinked, and it was already done. Her body lay farther away, discarded and lifeless.

  Then the butcher noticed me and my brother.

  The older woman before us collapsed into herself, her body writhing as if her own existence had turned against her. Thick, black sludge poured from her form, sloughing off in heavy, nauseating strands as the madness that had driven her began to break apart.

  Her screams were raw-feral. Filled with such agony and despair that it paralyzed me.

  I was so consumed by the sound of her wailing—by how violently she shook—that I did not notice her missing right arm at first. Nor the ruined remains of her leg on the same side, torn free and lying near us in the debris.

  I think that is why she came closer.

  She saw us only after she had already fallen.

  That was my first memory I can recall.

  And the first time I met my foster mother.

  ***

  ????? ????????

  My first memory after awakening was the moment I understood that I should not exist.

  The weight of it crushed something fragile inside me. Something that never healed.

  That was the last time myself, as I knew it, was shattered and was made anew.