Ah, where to begin. My life before I became the Scribe was. . .mediocre at best. I was born to a lower middle-class family who cared for me very deeply. I had a lot of cousins, but no siblings. I had never gotten below a B in any of my studies and in my teenage years I worked various jobs while considering various paths for my future despite my past of trauma.
My dad had worked as a security guard in a museum in Minneapolis' Institute of Art in a time when there were a multitude of problems. One day, he was going out for lunch when he got caught in the middle of a riot and was trampled to death. At least, that's what the report said.
I knew the truth though, the shoe prints on his face and the gashes and other wounds made it quite evident that he had been intentionally killed. Thinking back on it, it was not long after that I made one of the worst mistakes of my life. It was also when I first realized I was different than other people.
I remember thinking something along the lines of "those idiots thought they had the right to curb stomp my dad's head. That means they're prepared to face the consequences, right?"
So, with that in mind, I hunted them down. Don't ask me how. It was a lot of work, hacking into the police system and sneaking peeks at evidence when no one else was watching. And I found them too. Every single one of them. There were twelve in total, and as luck would have it, I found them all at the same time.
I managed to get them to admit to what they had done, and then I tried to fight them. I lost, obviously, there were twelve of them. At least, I lost initially.
After they curb stomped my face in the same way they had my dad, I stood back up. My face and skull broken and bent. I felt it all snapping back together. My skin sewing itself to form a scarless head again. Yes, that's when I discovered my immortality.
I remembered the looks on their faces, the looks of terror and disgust as my blood flowed back into me. And then I kicked their butts. One by one I crushed their skulls. Brutally. My adrenaline was pumping, and all of my limiters were off. I did some very gruesome things without a care for the consequence upon my body. I pulled my muscles off of the bone in order to punish them with what I deemed to be enough brutality.
Before the sun had risen that morning, I was standing beside a pile of their corpses crying. Partially because of physical pain, but also from a mixture of guilt and emotional pain. I knew I shouldn't have felt good about doing what I did, but I did anyway. It had felt so good to kill the people who had murdered my dad.
I went back home that morning before my mom had awoken, threw my clothes in a trash bag and then into the garbage outside as they were covered in blood. And took a shower. I was fourteen.
Two years would pass, the police either didn't suspect me of the killings, or didn't feel the need to arrest me. After all, even if they did suspect a fourteen - now sixteen - year-old boy of killing twelve grown men who were known to have killed his father, they would know that said boy was probably not going to kill anyone else.
In the summer of my sixteenth year, my mom had a seizure. After arriving at the hospital, they found that my mom had a brain tumor, and it was beyond the point of recovery.
I was angry. There had been scans, we had known for a while now that there was a small mass on her brain, I had said that we should get it checked out, but the doctors never listened. One doctor never listened.
I remembered his cries of pain as I killed him.
When I was seventeen, we received a time frame. No longer than six months.
My knees hit the floor and I cried. I cried so hard.
My mom had comforted me saying that God had a plan, and sometimes that meant we would be tested.
I remembered wondering how she could be so calm, knowing that she was going to die.
We moved to Virginia that summer. Closer to family. Family was all that mattered to me at that point. I shunned anyone who came to me with condolences and "I know what you're going through"s. No they didn't.
Then, I met Carmen. We met at the church my mother and I had been attending with our family. I don't know what it was about Carmen, but she had a way of getting me to say exactly what I was feeling, even if I didn't want to.
I was quickly attached to Carmen, even if she couldn't diminish my anger and hate, she could definitely bring out the little good remaining within me.
Six months came and went, and despite all of the praying we did, and all of the treatments that I had worked so hard to provide the funding for, my mother still lied there on her deathbed.
I remembered her last words so well. They had stuck with me since then.
"Nierix," she whispered, taking my hand. "You have a power, Nierix, a power to help others around you, or to hurt them." She said to me. "But that power isn't what makes you, you are what makes that power. And whatever you decide to do with it from now on, know that I am so, so proud of the man you have become. Live the rest of your life as a man that you can be proud of too."
I remembered her hand slip out of mine. I remembered the monitor flatline. I remembered how silent the room was as I stood, expressionless, the last of my immediate family pulled away from me.
It was silent for all of about twenty seconds, then I slammed the metal bar on the side of her bed so hard, it broke. Then I screamed. There were a few people in the room who heard the absolutely heartbroken cry that flew past my teeth. The cry was so heart-wrenching even now I feel the loneliness that it emitted.
I was broken for weeks, and it never would have ended if not for that one night.
It was cool in the beginning of autumn. I was kneeling in the grass outside of my house, crying silently as I blamed God for what had happened.
It was that night, that I lifted my head up to the sky defiantly and shouted something along the lines of, "this isn't love!"
Not long after I said that, a soft glow descended over the area. I looked up but was stopped by an unseen force.
"There is more to this world than you and your wishes." I didn't recognize the voice, but it carried such power.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Someone you haven't met yet," they answered. "Someone you will meet, but not for a long time."
"You're not God?" I asked.
A pair of shoes stepped into view, and they weren't particularly Godlike. Just a pair of sneakers.
"No," he answered. "My name is of little importance. I just have a question for you."
I was silent.
"If you had the option, would you call your parents back from the dead?" He asked.
"Ye-"
"Think," he ordered, interrupting my answer.
I did. I thought for a moment and came to a different conclusion.
"No," I corrected myself.
"Why?" He asked.
"There's more in this world than myself."
The invisible force lifted, and I was able to lift my head. I looked up at the man standing in front of me. He was only twenty or so with short, dark blonde hair and kind brown eyes.
He smiled down at me. "God, doesn't want you to suffer, Nierix," he told me. He then offered me his hand. "It was just that your parents had done their jobs and it was time for them to go home."
I accepted his offer, and he helped me up. He then reached over and grabbed a small white orb that glowed faintly. He handed it to me. It was from there that I became acquainted with the Rift, even though I never met the man again. Over the course of the next year, I fought enemy after enemy, gaining combat knowledge and skills that made me quite formidable. I fought in the Second Great Inter-Dimensional War and helped our side to defeat Lato. Then I forged my weapons, met Silky, and - until nine months ago - lived relatively peacefully until about nine months ago when the Arch dragon Rotuseax attacked my home world. I sent all of my friends and loved ones away and fought the dragon, but as I was fighting it, just as I was about to deal the killing blow, I heard someone whisper behind me, "I wonder what happens when. . .?" And then I lost my head and woke up in that village.
All of these memories, and more, flew into my brain when I saw Carmen.
"Nierix," she said my name again as we stood on the sidewalk.
After a few minutes, she pulled away and I looked her in the eye, trying to find the words.
She wiped a tear from her eye and laughed a little. "I finally caught you," she said. "Ever since they first started talking about you on the news, I started hunting you down."
I raised an eyebrow. "I'd rather not get caught," I told her. "I'm trying to steer clear of the news."
"You have made that abundantly clear."
"Sorry to interrupt," Silky interjected. "But we should get off the sidewalk, the more of a scene you make, the more attention you draw."
I conceded the point and took Carmen's hand as well as Silky's and warped us away.
-
We all landed in front of Carmen's house.
She ripped her hand out of mine and hugged her stomach.
"Oh, sorry," I apologized.
She slapped me across the face. "'Oh sorry,' doesn't cut it," she said angrily. "Especially when you say it in such a casual tone. You were gone for nine months. Nine, Nierix! Then you show up and one of the first things you do is teleport us and you know I hate teleporting. I can't-"
She proceeded to throw up in the grass. I looked away while she finished.
She stood back up.
"So, you're not happy to see me then," I assumed.
"I am happy to see you, but I am also angry."
"About what?"
"I literally just told you," she said.
"I lost my memory," I explained.
"What?"
I told her what happened after I woke up in the village.
"You're telling me that none of your companions know your name?" She said, astonished. "Even the ones you fought beside in the last War?"
"Yes," I confirmed. "Not a single soul knew my name, not even Silky."
"I'm still calling you Scribbles by the way," Silky interjected.
"Whatever."
Carmen brushed the grass off of her knees. "Well, as far as excuses go, it's not bad."
"Bruh."
"So what now?" Carmen asked.
"I reckon I'm going to focus solely on helping Silky find her home," I thought out loud.
"That would be nice," Silky admitted. "No offense, but it will be nice to have your undivided attention moving forward."
"Don't make it sound weird."
"I see," Carmen said, sounding a little disappointed. "I understand you still have work to do. But I still insist that you stay here for the night at least."
"Okay," I conceded. "I don't mind. I do miss that couch."
She rolled her eyes. "Titus will be happy to see you too."
I chuckled and followed her inside.