Wamillust

  Isran groaned as she was shaken awake, her head throbbed and her face—beneath her nose and mouth—was wet.

  A frantic-looking Alden was on top of her, performing CPR.

  “Isran! Isran wake up!”

  Isran could hear others. Their feet, their voices. She could feel more hands, a warm heat, she was being healed.

  Then she was out again.

  When Isran woke up again she was not in the barracks. The room was reminiscent of a hospital room, an image of a non-moving bloody child fshed before her eyes.

  “Isran?”

  Isran looked up at the woman that had entered the room. She wore robes Isran recognized from the temples in the religious district.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  Isran looked around, there were no windows in the room, she was in a comfortable but small bed, a table with a covered pte sat beside it.

  Isran shook her head no.

  The woman hummed, her fox ears and tail drew Isran’s eyes. A furry.

  Isran blinked at that thought.

  “God being into furries isn’t weird.”

  A memory… had she said that?

  “Isran?”

  Isran looked up at the woman. When had she lowered her head?

  “What’s going on?”

  The woman, whom Isran assumed was a healer came closer. “You were brought here during the Kestin games. Bleeding.”

  Isran remembered Alden calling out her name, shaking her. He sounded worried… maybe even scared.

  “Isran you get back here right now!”

  “Mom?” Isran blinked, her mother was standing a few feet away from her, syrup in her hair. Isran’s questioning call had not been heard. Her mouth moved on its own.

  “It was just a joke Mom.” There was humor in her voice.

  “Isran?”

  Isran blinked up at the fox woman, she was even closer than before. She could feel tears coming to her eyes, her heart rate increasing and her chest closing in. “I—I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “I know I’ve not been the best with this news, but I love you, no matter who you love.”

  Isran’s father was smiling at her, his rosary clutched in his hand and tears in his eyes. Isran could feel herself crying as well.

  “I know it will take some time for you to forgive me and I am ready to wait.”

  Isran’s breath shuddered, he looked so real, the smell of her childhood home was a comforting embrace. But she wasn’t in her childhood home. She was in a room on Neos with a fox woman.

  “Can I touch your head Isran?”

  Isran blinked up at the woman. She was lying down again.

  “Yeah.” She mumbled out, her confusion still present.

  As the woman id her hands on her head she slowly found herself succumbing to darkness.

  ==

  Isran blinked as she looked around, she knew the pce she was in.

  “Oh dear, you're breaking.”

  She jumped and turned around to see Sephia. Her head hurt.

  Vycor was behind her.

  “Isran!”

  “Mom!”

  Isran blinked.

  Her memories. They had given them back. She hadn’t even been given the headspace to think about the fact that they had taken them in the first pce.

  “Why me?” She hated how her voice broke.

  “You had such a persistent soul.” Sephia smiled. “I won’t lie to you, you weren’t our first choice but you were special.”

  “First choice for what?” Isran blinked.

  Vycor spoke but their mouth never opened. Their words going straight into Isran brain. They had no voice and every voice, it unsettled Isran.

  “Your memories were too heavy for your soul to carry, so much pain from two lives. We wanted your third life to be better. Easier.”

  “Third life?”

  Sephia pouted with a frown and turned around to hit Vycor in the chest. “You weren’t supposed to say that.”

  Vycor shrugged and to Isran’s surprise, she could still hear her in her head.

  “What happened to telling her the truth?”

  “Some truths are better kept secret.”

  Isran interrupted them. “This is my third life?”

  “Doesn’t look like it will be for long.”

  “Vycor!”

  The being of creation shrugged.

  “So… my time is up?”

  “Oh of course not sweetheart.”

  Isran blinked, a blush appearing on her cheeks at the compliment. Sephia truly was beautiful.

  “We want to give you a choice. You asked us to return your memories and it almost killed you.”

  Her prayer.

  “So do you want them back? We will leave you alone. No more memory loss, no more manipution of your emotions. We will leave you to do what you want how you want it.”

  “It might kill you.”

  Sephia nodded. “It was the reason we took them away before.”

  “The second choice is things continuing the way they are?”

  Both gods nodded.

  Isran took in a deep breath. Three lives. She hadn’t seen any memories from her supposed second life.

  But if she didn’t survive she would lose everything she had. Elysi, Phaedra, Calliope, Red, Morgana, Leopold even. She had just made a friend too.

  Isran shut her eyes tightly. But would it be fair to herself and even them that she wasn’t her complete self? Who was she without her core memories?

  “I take it you want them?”

  “Don’t rush her Vycor.”

  Vycor was right. “I want them.”

  The being of creation in their androgynous beauty was in front of her in a fsh. Isran stared up into her eyes, the feeling was surreal.

  She was floating, the universe and all its secrets buried in the eyes of the creator.

  “I truly hope you survive this.”

  “I hope so too,” Isran whispered back.