Yea no I can still feel pain even if I'm just a consciousness right now. It's as if I've got a migraine mixed with ants walking on the inside of my skull. If I had a skull. Tingly dancing pain. Not great.
The upside is I've learned a lot more about basic mechanical design, weaving, and how to barter. My-Nero's parents have been doing a lot of that. It's how they make a living after all, they're crafts people, making and selling what they make. As Cal's been growing they've been having him run the storefront more often to save them time.
The additional downside however is that the memories have been speeding up. They're flooding in faster and more is being crammed inside my mind faster. Multiple birthday's by this point. Some memories stand out more than others still. It's like they're more powerfully engrained. The first working machine Nero makes, the day his brother saved him from a couple of local kids who were chasing him with rocks, his father and mother's arguments in the night as he tried to sleep. Some memories come in hard, crashing like a meteorite and leaving a burning mark in my mind. Some memories inevitably feel more faded as well. As the memories are transmitted the regular days begin to blend, some days are skipped in total, like my regular memory I suppose.
God I hope I'm not being overwritten. At the beginning of this I still had a firm grip on who I was. As it's progressed it's getting harder and harder to keep the border in my mind of who I was and who Nero is.. was?.. is. I'll go with is. I'm still living through his memories so it's still him.
I see him getting working in the shop for the first time. I see him making friends in school. Am I going to replace him? This is more than a character I made, they have a life, am I going to take that away?
Well it's not like this is something I chose. For now I guess I'll have to live with whatever happens.
I feel a swell as a memory starts again, this one is big, the void brightens again as I feel myself pulled into the moment.
Our eyes open, a sharp pain in our knee, we look at the ground and turn back to the light. Surrounded by kids from the school, bullies by what my recent memories tell me. They'd just tripped me, calling me Gr-Ass Eater and Mosshead due to the green hair combined with them being douchebag kids in general.
"Go ahead eat your greens Gr-Ass Eater!!" said Kial, one of the more prominent lackeys.
"Yea let me help you dye your hair a bit too!", Marcus sneered as he smashed some dirt and grass on top of my head. He was the one who tripped me, the veritable ring leader. He actually was an NPC I made, one of the beginning enemies in the game's start, a general thorn in Nero's side until you reached the end of one of the early quests.
I felt fine with being a fully grown human in my past life and all that, but I could feel Nero begin to tear up, too scrawny to feel good about fighting back.
Suddenly a higher pitched shout from further away,
"leeaaaveeee hIM ALONE!!"
A young girl came barging through shoving Marcus to the ground.
"Tell me how the grass tastes you slimy jerk!"
Okay I didn't make her in the game, but hell yea.
I could feel Nero's eyes widen, his heart beat grow even faster, ah okay, I see why this memory is important to him now. This wasn't the only one where he got bullied, but this is the first where he's been helped, and maybe met his first crush.
After throwing a hell of an uppercut at Kial and shoving another lackey away they gradually all left us alone, not without throwing an evil eye at both of us though.
Still in shock on the ground, I stutter out "T-Th-Thank you! No one's ever helped me before"
"My Pa always told me to help people when I can.", she grins "The fact I enjoy punching mean people definitely helps though."
Oh yea, this is definitely his first crush.
And with that thought I'm thrown back into the void and rush of memory again.