OOC ❦ Memory (5)
Sitting beneath one of the trees in the Park-he had found a map among what were supposedly his things, one that was scribbled over with notes, references to various journals, and observations-Cloud turned the strange thing called a memory crystal over in his fingers. It gave you back a memory, huh? The people he’d spoken to seemed more interested in making sure he was alright than giving him more information about it, but maybe that was all the information there was.
Now… how was he supposed to make it happen? No one had told him that… the crystal glittered as he turned it slightly, the light glinting off a facet. Well. Touching the stone was one way to at least try… if that didn’t work, he’d just ask someone again.
The spaces between the metal bars were wide enough to let him pass his fingers through. The tip of his middle finger brushed against the crystal, and blackness swallowed his consciousness almost instantly.
****
He was lying on some hard surface. The ground, probably. His eyes opened slowly, to see… darkness. Was this one of his memories, really? It didn’t seem like anything, just… darkness.
No, wait… there was a faint, golden light. His body seemed to sit upon its own, without him deciding to, and he turned to see a… a river. That was the first word that occurred to him, though a river made of light was…
No, that made sense too. His body got to its feet, his feet, carefully cupping something in his hands protectively. He stared at the light, transfixed by it-a sudden movement caught his eye, on the edge of the river. A vague, almost rat-like shadow was standing there. He realized, looking at the form, that he was afraid. Not of the creature; in fact, he moved toward it, shouting something. But it slid into the river before he could get close enough to… stop it, talk to it, whatever he wanted to do.
So this was what experiencing a memory was like. He seemed to be reliving this one, unable to influence the decisions he made whenever this had happened. That made sense.
So why couldn’t he hear anything?
He glanced up, looking across the river. There was a ring of glowing forms, rendered blurry by darkness and distance. Something crawled out of the river and joined the circle-the rat-like form? He couldn’t tell.
His eye fell on the river once more, and he could feel his fear nudging over into despair. No, the despair had always been there, it was just stronger now. He started to walk forward, toward the river, and he suddenly knew… he wasn’t expecting to go back. Not to anything. The river… he was going to walk into it, and…
Pain. From his left eye, the one that was full darkness. It was so bad it dropped him to his knees, right on the river’s edge, and he brought his hands up, along with whatever he was still cradling in them, to clutch at his eye. It felt like… something was moving around in there, squirming, trying to get away. Something was living in his eye socket, and it didn’t like the light. Tears, or maybe it was blood, something warm and wet anyway, dripped down his face from the socket. He felt himself saying something again. He appeared to be talking to himself… or maybe the things in his eye.
The sense of despair seemed to lessen suddenly, as the pain ebbed and his hands dropped into his lap. He wasn’t sure why.
He looked up. There was a pair of hands hovering there in the blackness, hands that only extended to the wrist, where they ended in a collection of squirming, wriggling… things. He stared at them. The hands waited patiently, cupped with the palms facing upwards, as if asking for something.
He felt a sense of realization, and he lifted himself up a little on his knees, reaching forward to touch the hands-his own hands looked small and soft. Young. How old was he in this memory?
He tipped whatever he’d been cradling into the disembodied hands and moved back. He could see the thing now; it appeared to be some kind of egg, but it was almost glowing where it sat in the palm of one of the hands. The other hand gestured to his right, and then both hands and egg vanished with a swirl of light. He stayed where he was, looking over at the ring of light. Was that… telling him he could go? That’s what the gesture seemed to be.
He could feel a sense of… relief? Was that it? Maybe even a little hope? Though he didn’t know why he’d been afraid and unhappy before, now it was… better. Not completely alright, but definitely better.
He remained standing at the edge of the river for a long time, turning abruptly at last for some reason. He was in a forest, as abruptly as a dream, even though he was sure this was real. A man came running from behind a tree, a vaguely familiar man. He looked worried, then relieved when he spotted Cloud-and that pretty much confirmed Cloud’s thought that he was somehow younger. The man was very tall.
And seeing him made Cloud feel… bad. Like he’d done a terrible thing, and he would have to admit it. He would have to tell him what he’d done… and the man wouldn’t like whatever it was. As he realized that, he could feel warmth sliding down his face once more, this time from his normal eye. He was crying. The man looked alarmed…
And then the memory ended.
****
Cloud found himself back in the Park, sitting in the same position he had been earlier. How much time had passed? No way to know, really… he realized, after a moment, that his face was still wet. He lifted a hand to wipe away… tears? He decided it wasn’t that surprising. After all, the memory he’d just experienced had been very emotionally powerful… and his child-self had cried, at the end. This was just a reaction to that.
He started to get up. A walk… yes, going for a walk would help him think. He could explore a little more, maybe, start figuring out how this place worked…
An odd bulkiness about his movements made him pause, and look down. He was dressed in some kind of weird costume.
No one had mentioned this kind of thing.
[[ooc- Slightly backdated to 5/6/11, in the morning. Feel free to have seen Cloud wandering around in a large, mascot style costume of this plush toy; the punishment will last for three days, so until the end of the memory loss event.]]