Chapter Text
[ACT I]
⧖⧗Circa Sapph⧗⧖
Red. You see red. It’s the first thing you see when your eyes peel open slowly—as if they’ve been sealed shut for hundreds of years. Red. Labored breaths escape your quivering lips, your heart beating frantically in your chest. Red. It ripples in your vision, hues deepening in color—almost sinisterly, almost like it’s mocking you. Red. It swallows your sight, strangles your throat, swamps your senses. Red. Like blood.
Suddenly you don’t think you can breathe.
You gasp, sitting up, your fingers ghosting around your neck. Immediately, a sharp abdominal pain pervades your entire body, cutting through your insides. Tears begin to prick your vision. It hurts . Something feels broken, and a newfound throbbing finds its way into your head. You wince, biting your lip to muffle a scream. Then, you freeze.
Red. It encompasses your vision again.
The air is hot and heavy, carrying the weight of death in its feeble arms. There are immobilized soldiers bundled up in white bandages seeping with crimson blood, desperate soldiers who are wailing, pointing up to the billowing red canopy of the tent and cursing or praying—you can’t tell which; and there are many soldiers who have ceased all sort of movement. You catch glimpses of their stone-cold eyes before someone drapes a white blanket over their still-warm corpses. Blood stains the dirt in ugly blots of color. And you watch, frozen, as men and women in scarlet uniforms cry for their families, their friends, their lovers.
Your fingers tangle around a chain around your neck, and it takes a lot longer for you to notice that it is not a restraining cuff but a dainty necklace with a pendant hanging from the middle. A diamond. The white jewel sparkles against your soot-covered skin, twinkling despite the blood and the gore. Something about it brings you infinitesimal comfort but it’s comfort nevertheless.
When you finally look down at your own body, you see a frail figure—bruised and battered—but in a much better state than the others. Your bandages have been freshly changed, and though you’re in pain, you feel fully cognizant enough to think: what the hell happened? How long have you been here? Where the hell are you? Asking questions is at least a step in the right direction. You stare at the red fabric of your uniform, head whirling with thousands and thousands of different theories and ideas. But in the end, the thoughts diverge to one critical conclusion: you are a soldier.
A soldier. You must be fighting for something, then. Whether it may be your honor, your nation or your loved ones, you must be a soldier for something’s sake. But it’s quite laughable. Fighting for a nation you can’t even recall. Even worse, your enemy’s face is a blank slate in your mind. How can you fight against people you don’t know at all? How can you let their blood spill on your hands when you can’t remember how they’ve wronged you and your nation? Or are you getting too ahead of yourself? What if none of your thoughts are true? How can you be sure of anything?—you can’t —not when you can’t even recall a single name other than yours.
But the more you try to desperately sift through your memories, the more you realize that you have none. Your head begins to throb again, and you clutch your necklace for moral support, hanging onto it as if it were your lifeline (and you’ll treat it that way until you figure out what the hell is going on). It doesn’t make sense. How are you a stranger in your own body?
“Your name, dear soldier?”
The deep, dulcet voice startles you nonetheless, making you shift in your cot—your body retaliates in stinging pain and you grunt, hands pressing immediately against your side.
“Oh dear, you’ve got a couple of broken ribs, so try not to press too hard on your abdomen, all right?” the voice speaks again. But this time, you catch the face of the owner: a kind-looking middle-aged man with a gentle smile on his lips. He dons a loose, taupe-colored uniform, the cotton fabric falling down over his knees and grazing his shins. His sleeves have been rolled up to battle the insufferable heat of the tent, and beads of sweat have collected on his forehead, which he quickly wipes away with the back of his surprisingly soft-looking hands. He then folds his hands delicately over each other and gazes at you with an amiable yet inquisitive look on his face. As if he’s waiting for you to reply to something he’d said.
Oh . Embarrassment washes over you when you realize he had asked you a question. Your name, dear soldier? he’d said. Huh. So you are a soldier. And after little thought, you realize you do remember something. Your hands drop from your side.
“Y/N.” It falls from your lips easily—almost too easily. “I think that’s my name.” If the man knew you before, he doesn’t make it obvious; instead, he gives you another soft smile and introduces himself.
“Well, Y/N, it’s very nice to meet you,” he says. “You were unconscious for five days so I’m happy to see you’ve finally woken up. I was getting worried that you might never… Never mind that.” He smiles again, revealing a pair of pretty imprints in his cheeks. “You know, your case was a miracle! The spirits must’ve wanted you alive.” He laughs a little at his own joke. “You were found unconscious on enemy territory with major injuries, but it looks like they spared your life. They never tend to do that. ” He trails off, his smile wavering a bit before he turns his attention back to you. “So, how are you feeling?”
How are you feeling? If only words could describe the panic, the confusion in your mind. How did you survive? Who is this enemy that supposedly spared your life? Why can’t you remember anything?
“I… don’t know.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” the man says with good nature. “You’re in great shape. Your injuries are healing quite nicely. In fact—”
“No, no it’s not that,” you say, shaking your head slowly. “I… I don’t know anything. I can’t remember a single thing from my past.”
The man’s smile flatlines. “Oh dear,” he says. “The concussion must have been worse than I thought.” He looks grim for a few moments as if to mourn the loss of his own memories and not yours—an empathetic man in an unsympathetic place. But he seems to grab a hold on himself because, in a few seconds, his grim look is replaced with a bright smile and a reassuring nod. “Don’t worry, though. Most soldiers want to forget. Here.”
Your eyes widen when you see a spherical bubble of water levitating just above his palm. It’s such a perfect little shape, and the man seems to be entirely in control of it. “You’re so dehydrated that I can feel it without my wielding,” he laughs, jutting out his hand.
Everything’s so fast-paced.
While you were asleep, everyone must have collectively run two laps around the whole nation, learned new things, fought new battles and developed a new sort of jargon impossible for you to discern.
You’re still trying to process what he said before. Most soldiers want to forget . You assume most soldiers would want to forget the contents of the battles, but you doubt they would want to forget about their husbands and wives, their children, their friends and their partners. You doubt they would want to forget the core memories that make up who they really are. The memories that provide them a reason to live when they’re trapped in this stuffy tent, where all they can see and smell is blood. Most soldiers want to forget. But you want to remember. Because without your memories, dammit, you know yourself as much as the person on the cot next to you.
Who even are you?
But to hell with that train of thought because now you’re processing newer information—information that puzzles you even more. “Wielding?”
“Oh dear,” the man says. “Here, take the water drop and I’ll explain.”
Take it? It won’t splash in your face the moment he lets go of it? There’s something especially spellbinding about this. A phenomenon you can’t quite explain. The man watches as you daintily pick up the bite-size bubble, and you stare curiously at it as if you don’t know what to do with it. It feels smooth, malleable and cool to the touch. The water reflects the little light in the tent, shining pastel rainbows on the palm of your hand. For a moment, you wonder what would happen if you poked it. Mess up its beautiful equilibrium. Would it splatter and lose its magnificent shine? Lose its form as a perfect sphere, lose its shape and memory?
You don’t ever want to ruin something as beautiful as that.
“Pop it in your mouth,” the healer says. “I enhanced it with some minerals that you might need. But you know, when I checked your blood four days ago, you’re actually exceedingly healthier than the average soldier. Sufficient levels in everything except vitamin D.”
Good to know, at least. Though a soldier missing their vitamin D sounds a little preposterous. But you’re sad to see the bubble go, wishing you could hold it in your hands just a small while longer. Yet your thirst wins over your childish desire. You do as your healer says, carefully slipping the water drop in your mouth to satiate your dry throat. Gingerly, you bite down on it, only for the water to burst on your tongue. It tastes like nothing, but the chilled liquid sweetens the inside of your mouth. The droplets soothe your palate and wash down your throat in seconds, leaving you feeling empty yet not so parched anymore. You chase after the feeling, hand crawling up to grasp the necklace resting by your neck.
“You don’t happen to remember your last name, do you?” the man asks. “I can ask one of the officers to check the records and see which sector you’re from. Maybe then we can figure out if you worked with other elements besides fire. You know, since all of our soldiers are fire mediums.”
“No, I don’t remember.” You didn’t even know you could wield fire. You didn’t know anyone could possibly wield the elements. But here this man is, a water ‘medium,’ claiming that you’re a fire medium. With this little knowledge, how could he possibly expect you to remember your surname? You’re still trying to process the fact that you can wield fire in the first place.
Fire . The word echoes in your head, over and over again. And for a moment, you swear you can feel the heat. You suppose it’s warm. Tender flames and ambient lights, a cozy spark in the cold of the night, a cardinal red glow accompanied by flickers of yellow and orange… Yes. You must be connected to fire in some way. The warmth swells inside you, consoles you, solaces your mind.
But then, your thoughts begin to wander. You begin to wonder what being a fire medium entailed: if you could conjure up bonfires with a flick of your hand, if you could boil water just by holding a container, if you could walk barefoot on hot coals with flames settled in your eyes. Did you cook using your own fires? Could you even cook? Have you ever accidentally burned someone else you didn’t mean to? But one thought leads to another, and naturally, you begin to wonder how you used fire to fight.
Your gut coils.
You glance at your palms, turning them over and scrutinizing them. As pretty as fire can be, you realize it is just as destructive. How many people have you burned with these very hands? How many have you scorched to death? How many have you killed?
Your blood runs cold.
“Um…” Your healer clears his throat, breaking you from your spiraling thoughts. “I just, uh, I wanted to let you know, though…” His face contorts. “There’s a chance you might have lost your connection with fire… If you didn’t even remember that you were a fire medium, then the chances are… I mean, you can always relearn but…” he trails off. “Memory loss tends to cut off the connection. It’s usually temporary.”
Usually. Something inside you breaks. Fire had been a part of your identity, and you thought you knew it. You swore you’d felt it within you.
“I’m sorry.”
Your face visibly falls. What does this mean? Are they going to kick you out of the tent as soon as you heal? Are you exempt from fighting in the war now? Or are they going to force you to mend your connections with your element?
“I’m sorry,” he says again as he watches your face distort. “I feel like I’m not explaining anything. You’re confused, huh? You know what?” A pause. “I’ll start from the beginning then. Um, how to start, how to start… Well, you see, the spirits shared the elements with us a long, long time ago: fire, water, earth and air,” he explains slowly. “Do the others happen to ring a bell?”
Another shake of your head.
“Oh no worries,” he says quickly, trying to assure you. “Well, dear, we’re in Solaria. Others call us the land of nature and nurtured, and it makes a lot of sense since we all work with one or more of the elements. I don’t really see ourselves as magicians, though, but other nations do. At least that’s what they thought the last time we opened up our trade. Circas and circas ago.” He shrugs. “We’re just mediums. Vessels that the elements use so we can be in close harmony with nature.”
Vessels. Harmony. Nature. You try to digest his every word, try to reach in the back of your head to see if any of it is familiar.
It isn’t. But you try your best to catch up on the things you’ve lost. “So you’re a water medium.”
“Most healers are,” he says. “But I dabble in earth too. Actually, I picked it up from living in Elu, and it comes in pretty handy whenever.”
Before you can even ask what or where Elu is, your healer moves on, pointing at the necklace you’ve been nervously twisting the whole time. “Oh my, what a pretty necklace!”
You nod in agreement, feeling the edges of the gem with the pads of your fingers. “Oh, thank you.” Your eyebrows twist. “I can’t remember where I got it, but it feels important. I think… I’m not sure, but I think someone important gave it to me.” It’s a slow, steady gut feeling. And at that moment, you can almost feel the warm fingers of another dancing behind your neck, clasping your necklace for you. But it’s probably just your imagination.
“Maybe a significant other?” he suggests.
You really wish you could say those words triggered some sort of memory hidden deep within you, but it doesn’t. “It could be.”
“Then why don’t we put your necklace in this case and hide it away under your cot?” he says, figuring a dirt-made container with the flick of his hand. You watch in awe as delicate leaf engravings crawl up the hardening case. With a flourish of shimmery mist, a perfectly circular knob configures itself on top of the lid. Soft brown and deceivingly smooth-looking like silk, the box rests against his palm, waiting patiently to encase your necklace. “Something as precious as that? You might lose it around here, dear.”
He helps you unclasp the chain from your neck, and you watch the shimmery jewel become enclosed in the pretty, engraved case. The moment the last of the golden chain leaves your fingertips, you feel a cold chill wash over your body. It has nothing to do with the pain in your abdomen, and it’s not necessarily painful—just an unpleasant feeling. The moment the necklace is out of view, you begin to regret taking it off. Why do you feel so heavy without it? So… empty? Lost, even.
The necklace was a sign from your past—the present that would lead you back to your past. Whoever gave it to you—if someone gave it to you at all—would want to see it around your neck the next time you meet them. What if they can’t identify you without it? What if this necklace was a part of your identity? But that’s not a question of ‘what if.’ Because really, this necklace is the only clue connecting back to your past. No one is born with a sparkling diamond necklace around their neck. So where the hell did you get yours? What does it mean?—if it even means anything at all? Should you keep it on you at all times to help jog your memory? Should you refuse to hide it away?
No.
No, your healer’s right. Solaria is in a gruesome war. It’s best to hide your important belongings away, where there will be no chance of you losing them.
“Ah, young love,” your healer sighs. “It’s a pity we’re in a devastating war. For over a hundred years, I tell you. They’ll come back for you, though. Your lover. They’ll search for you until they finally find you again. I’d do that for my partner too. You know, I actually gave him a necklace—kind of like yours—except it was made of green jade. Spent 50 solarins on it, too. You know, I’ve never seen such a pure white gem like yours. It must be very rare.” He offers you another kind smile. “My husband’s waiting back in Elu, fixing up his little tea shop with our two cats.”
Your healer is quite talkative, and you bless him for that; the silence reminds you of your pain, but with Namjoon—he finally slipped in his name after an hour of talking—constantly filling up the quiet spaces, you’re kept well-distracted. You learn that he lived in the capital sector Elu until the soldiers came and asked for volunteers to work in the medical tents. He parted with his husband and his two precious kittens to make a living from the never-ending war. As he put it, ‘to heal so soldiers can, unfortunately, fight again.’ The pay is good, and he sends what he can back home. ‘We want to move out of the city and back to where we’re both from—Ara. We’re trying to save up for it. And maybe when this war is finally over, we’ll be able to do it.’ So he went headfirst into the medical tent, with no prior medical experience and just as little knowledge of the enemies.
“They’re magic folk too,” he says, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Darlaeans, from Darlae. We call it the Forgotten Kingdom. But supposedly their magic is older than ours, which is strange because you’d think working with the elements is as ancient as you can get.”
With Joon—he insists you call him that—on a generous three-hour break after pulling two twenty-hour shifts to treat the soldiers who came in after a particularly violent battle, he fills you in on as many things as he possibly can. You insist that he gets some rest, but as your healer, you’re only obligated to listen to him and not the other way around.
“I’ve been waiting and tending for you for five days, Y/N. I’d rather get to know you,” he keeps saying. Though there’s really not a lot about you to know. Namjoon seems to know that too, deep inside. So he tells you stories of his past. Whether it’s about the bubbling brooks and frozen lakes he grew up with in Ara or the warm, bustling capital sector of Elu, he always has something to say, something to paint a picture in your mind. Slowly, you feel less and less empty. Like his stories are your own and you’re taking them away to store forever.
“We have other sectors too, but I just think you can’t compare them to Ara. You know, during the wintertime, it gets so cold that you can see the frost that gathers at the tips of the plants. You should see the colors—lilac and pale blue and it’s just…” he sighs. “It’s beautiful.
“I miss it,” he admits. “But working here isn’t too bad, either.”
It seems as though things have calmed down in the medical tent. The brunt of the pain and death has passed, leaving the healers to catch their breaths and the soldiers in their cots to rest and wait for their bodies to recuperate. The air is heavy with sweat and musk but not so much with death anymore. Or you’ve just grown accustomed to it.
The red drapings of the tent don’t bother you as much. It had felt foreign at first, but now you realize this is the color you’ve probably seen countless times as a Solarian soldier. It is a color that proves you are alive . That every time you open your eyes, you’re still in this world getting treated on your cot and not wandering off to the unknown. The high ceiling of the tent gives you something to stare at, something to exercise your mind and keep you occupied. Outside, the wind caresses the red curtains, letting them flow gently—like a stream of blood.
But it isn’t too bad. It could be much worse.
“There are busier hours, you know, mostly right after one of the bigger battles led by our General. But it’s not too bad right now,” Namjoon says. “I like talking to the soldiers a lot. You learn so much about Solaria and the different sectors that make up our nation. Once you start asking, soldiers never really stop talking about their homesectors. I mean, our homesectors are our roots. It’s just like how I’m proud to be from Ara, you know? It’s really nice to hear that so many of us have something to fight for.”
He probably didn’t mean to, but his words deflate you. Something to fight for… Yet you can’t remember why you volunteered to fight for Solaria. Maybe you promised a lover back home. Maybe you promised a dying mother, a dead sibling. Or you wanted a fresh start to your life; maybe you were naïve and thought going to war would place meaning in your existence. Something to fight for.
You’ll have to fight for yourself. Fight to live, maybe. Fight for a nation you barely remember; fight against a nation you barely hate. When you can’t remember anyone else who has impacted your life, aren’t you the only one you can trust? But can you trust yourself when you don’t even know who you are?
Namjoon’s eyes soften as he watches your face contort with thought. “It’s best not to remember,” he says softly. “I meant it when I said most soldiers want to forget.”
In a way, he’s right. Not remembering gives you a chance to rebrand yourself. Create a new you. It erases your traumas—if you had any—does away with past pains and catastrophes and allows you to begin a new life. But…
“Do you know of any other soldiers who came back from the battlefield five days ago? Maybe I was friends with some of them. Maybe I—”
You just want to know who you are. Is it so bad to be curious? The pain, the suffering—you don’t care if it’ll hurt you again. Because those experiences were what made you your own person. Without them, you might as well be a newborn baby trapped in an adult’s body.
“Oh.” Namjoon interrupts, and for a moment, you think you’ve pissed him off with your persistence. In reality, however, with his eyebrows twisted together and lips pressed into a thin line, he looks worried. “It’s hard to keep track of all the soldiers who come in and out of this tent,” he says. He’s avoiding eye contact, but you don’t relent, staring at the side of his face until he looks up, hesitantly. Your eyes meet, his soft brown ones connecting with your own wide, hopeful ones. He fidgets. “Not… not a lot of soldiers survived that battle,” he says. He fidgets again. “Oh, for Sahn’s sake. It… it was a bloodbath. The Darlaeans were especially brutal that day. It was a miracle that you survived—a mystery even— and on enemy territory at that.” He looks up to gauge your crumbling expression, mirroring your forlorn look with his own countenance.
The last bit of hope within you melts away. What was the point of surviving when you don’t even remember the reason that you’re fighting? What was the point of being brought back to life when you’ll have to fight in a war you don’t care about? You may have been a Solarian, but you have as much attachment to your nation as a fruit fly might have for a bear cub.
You take a breath.
But it’s not that bad. It’s not.
You have your necklace—somehow the only evidence that you had some sort of a past. You have Namjoon, who seems friendly enough to help you get back on your feet. You have yourself. You were once lucky enough to be spared on the enemy’s territory; you’ll wait for another serendipitous window to get your memories back. The hope is seeping back in.
You’ll take time for yourself, heal, fight if you have to. But your ultimate goal will always be to find out who you are.
⨰⨰⨰
Soon, Namjoon leaves your side to tend the other soldiers, and it leaves you by yourself. With your back propped up against the headboard of your cot, you survey the tent. It’s calmed down quite a lot. Most soldiers are asleep now, their pains momentarily forgotten during their slumber. You watch the few soldiers who are awake. They look shaken, bloodshot eyes rapidly moving left and right as if an enemy soldier were going to ambush them at any minute. If you hadn’t lost your memories, you might be one of them.
But you’re calm. In fact, there’s no reason for you to panic. Not when you can’t recall what you should even panic about. Instead, you ruminate about other things. Things that don’t have to do with the war.
You long to step outside of this tent. You wonder what it looks like out there. Wonder what it feels like to smell something other than blood and sweat. Wonder what it feels like to wake up and not see red. Wonder if it’s beautiful out there, just like the way Namjoon described his homesector. Your eyes begin to flutter shut as your thoughts lull you to sleep.
Then, there’s a jerk of the red curtains. You get a short glimpse of an azure sky, golden sunlight, verdant grass, shedding trees getting ready for full-blown autumn, and you inhale a whiff of fresh air—pine, a hint of something oaky—but it’s all gone before you can react. Everything becomes hidden away by the drapes. It’s all red again.
When you blink, you realize someone had walked in—no, stormed—into the tent. A man. He has a slightly shorter-than-average stature with a surprisingly slumped posture, yet somehow, he radiates authority and strict business. It’s just something about his eyes—his charcoal pupils lost in the tenebrosity of his irises—eyes squinted ever so slightly as his vision sweeps cynically across the tent. When he blinks, a trail of wet blood rolls down over his eyelid, but he makes no move to wipe it off. Instead, he clasps his hands behind his back, and the action makes his chest jut forward. The motion draws your attention to the middle of his uniform, where a circular golden emblem rests so proudly. Your eyes begin to drift down to the aureate cords that dangle out of a silky sash tightly knotted around his tapered waist. His uniform is smeared with what looks like a mixture of fresh blood and dirt, which implies he’d just come out of a battle, but it doesn’t stop him from looking absolutely regal. For a moment, you wonder if he actually is royalty.
Whoever he is though, the atmosphere in the tent had shifted ever since he had walked in.
The barely conscious soldiers are now alert, gazing at the man with emotional looks on their tired faces. You recognize hope, admiration and faith . Even all of the healers had stopped what they were doing, bowing down with respect.
The man raises his eyebrows. “For the love of Sahn, stand up,” he sighs. “There’s no need to bow in my presence. I’m not your king.” His voice is surprisingly quiet, his tone soft like silk but also low and melodious. It’s not something you would’ve expected from his demeanor. But the healers obey him immediately, straightening their backs, and though they’re not bowed anymore, you can still see how much they respect this man. All sorts of murmurs, cries of pain have dwindled down to silence just to listen to his next words. He raises a hand. “We have men and women out there who are severely injured. Make room for them. Clear out the cots, call extra healers on duty. We need everyone we can get. You have two minutes. I’m warning you in advance.” He pauses for a second, eyes surveying everyone in the tent. For a moment, you think your eyes are going to meet, but just before they can, he turns swiftly and walks out of the tent.
“Two minutes!” a healer yells.
“Can someone get me some water around here?”
“Help me make some space, please!”
“For Sooht’s sake, get the extra bandages!”
“Do you think it was a bad one?”
“It must be. General’s bleeding.”
“I hope he lets us treat that.”
“You know, he refuses any sort of treatment until the last soldier’s gotten treated.”
The last healer had been Namjoon. After listening to him talk for nearly three hours, you’d be surprised if you couldn’t identify his voice. “The last few battles have been pretty bad,” he says.
“I’m not sure how much more our soldiers can take,” a healer replies.
“I’m not sure how much more we can take,” another says. There are nods of agreement but no one answers verbally.
It’s chaos after that.
The General with his jet black hair storms in again, carrying a passed-out soldier on each shoulder. A slew of others rush in after him, all lugging injured soldiers over their backs. It doesn’t stop.
The General barks orders. Your eyes follow him everywhere as he makes his rounds around the tent, assisting the healers who call for help. He’s the beacon of light for dying soldiers, and they request to see him in their last, declining breaths.
“Thank you,” he tells them, clasping their hands—or what’s left of them. “Thank you so much.” He waits by their side until the lights dim from their eyes, until their head grows limp and their breaths cease.
Most of the time, though, he’s demanding.
“You! You there, she’s vomiting blood— do something!”
“What in Sooht’s name are you waiting for??? Someone’s life is on the line!”
“Make room for more! Kindly shove over, she’s holding boiling water!”
“Quicken the pace! We don’t have all day!”
The smell of blood stings your nose again. But nothing breaks your focus on the Solarian General. As intimidating as he is, he’s got a fascinating aura—the kind where you can’t possibly look away. But maybe you should have minded your own business.
His sharp eyes meet yours.
The black dots of his pupils narrow, and the blood caked around his left eye makes him look more menacing than you’d like to see from your superior. Until you realize it isn’t the blood that makes you feel uncomfortable. It’s his deep glare.
Oh . Oh, shit. He’s glaring at you.
Within seconds, he marches up by your cot, never breaking eye contact. He seems to be sizing you up, looking up and down at your disheveled figure. It’s a little embarrassing. Both of you had fought in the war, but how does he retain his elegance and you cannot? How can he stare at you with so much contempt when you’ve bled your own blood fighting for him?
With his thin lips drawn into a tight line, it hits you that he might just never strike a conversation. But then he opens his mouth and speaks a line you never expected to come out of his mouth.
“I’ve never seen you before.”
His voice is quiet, and if you hadn’t been staring straight at him, you wouldn’t even have heard him. But he uses a dangerously soft voice. A voice that closely resembles a toxic viper warning his unfortunate victim before making a lethal strike.
I haven’t seen you before either , you want to say. But your throat becomes dry as sandpaper, so you opt to stay silent, cocking your head and watching his expression shift from puzzlement to suspicion.
“G-General,” a healer stutters awkwardly, diffusing the taught tension that had roped your necks together. “S-Sir—” He points at the trail of blood running from over the General’s eye down to the collar of his scarlet uniform. The single droplet blends in with his fabric, disappearing under the seams—the only proof of its existence is the red line it’d left behind. “You’re bleeding.”
“Yes, I know that,” he replies curtly. “I assure you that I’m fine. Her on the other hand…” His eyes narrow even more. “State your name, homesector and your mediums, soldier,” he barks.
Why hasn’t he seen you before? Does he expect to remember all of his soldiers? Why is he singling you out?
“Y/N, sir,” you say, swallowing a growing lump in your throat. “That’s about all I know, though… sir.”
He scowls. “What in Sooht’s name do you mean, that’s about all you know?”
“I lost my memories, sir.”
A pause.
“Bullshit.”
“S-Sir?” Your eyes widen as the General leans in, searching your face for clues. He must think you’re hiding something. He’s suspicious. But who does he think you are? And how can you answer when you don’t even know?
He gives you no warning when his fingers grab the collar of your uniform, lifting you up from your seat. You wince in pain, eyes squeezing shut momentarily.
“You’re lying,” he says. His voice is lower than before. “Tell the truth now and I may allow mercy.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
The General drops his hold on you, and you fall back on the cot, grimacing. On cue, two grim-faced soldiers show up behind him—how the General called them over, you have no idea. “Very well,” he says. He doesn’t turn away from you, but it’s obvious his next words are directed towards his two soldiers. “We’re taking her to the interrogation room.”
Interrogation room? What have you done wrong? What are they going to do to you? Did you commit a crime and lose all your memories about it?
It feels like daggers are ripping through your insides as the soldiers drag you away from your cot. In fact, you swear you hear a rip at your sides. You feel it, too. Your eyes sting with tears, but your throat is so dry that it’s difficult to make any noise. Instead, you bite down on your tongue hard—so much so that you taste the iron. And just when you think you’re about to pass out from the tortuous pain, a familiar voice cries:
“S-Stop!”
The soldiers halt. You’re given a moment’s rest. Your lips let out shivering breaths, your heart beating rapidly in your ears, your head whirling from the lack of oxygen.
“Namjoon,” the General says. “Try not to make a scene. I’ll be back quickly.”
“Sir, she’s in pain!” Namjoon’s jaw is slack, eyes wide open in horror. “She’s hurt! Where are you taking her? She needs to rest!”
“She’s a spy,” the General replies. “We have to question her to see what she knows.”
“Me?” the word tumbles out of you before you can stop it. Your world seems to shatter. All this time, you’d built a fantasy that you were, indeed, a Solarian soldier. That this was your land, your nation that you were fighting for. It never occurred to you that you would be otherwise. But hell, even if you were a Darlaean spy, how the hell would you know?
“I remember every soldier who has graced their presence in my army. I know a fake when I see one,” the General says.
“But sir, you ripped her stitches!” Namjoon exclaims, pointing at the blossoming red blood on the bandages around your stomach. Ah, that must be where your pain was coming from. “Sir, I don’t mean to object, but she’s human before anything else.”
“The Darlaeans don’t treat us as humans, so why should we treat them as such?”
“With all due respect, sir, she lost her memories.”
“And how do you know she isn’t bluffing?”
“I just—”
“Sir, I couldn’t detect it,” the soldier who had held onto you says with an obscene amount of duty.
“Detect what?” Namjoon asks, visibly and audibly distressed.
“You couldn’t?” The General pauses for just a moment. You can almost see the calculations flying through his head. “Did you double-check?” he asks the other soldier. She nods. He whips around to glare at you. “This one could be dangerous. They’ve never done something like this before.” His stare deepens. “Lost memories.” He scoffs. “Fucking bullshit. I don’t have time for this.”
“Sir, if there’s no evidence that she’s a spy, then she must be innocent,” Namjoon pleads. “Oh, dear, her stitches…” He tries to reach out for you but freezes when his General begins to speak.
“Namjoon, you’re too kind,” the General tells the healer. “This is war. People would do anything to win. Darlaeans would do anything to win.” He looks at you with scrutiny again. “You’re not a talker, are you? Perfect for flying under the radar. I don’t think you’re faking the pain, though. Self-inflicted, perhaps…” he trails off, eyebrows furrowing as he thinks. Then, his charcoal eyes scan your own—meticulously—as if your eyes hold the key to all of your deepest, darkest secrets. It feels like some twisted staring contest; one wrong move and you’ll be sentenced to doom. But while your eyes begin to water, the General’s remain dark and focused. You try to occupy yourself with something else—anything else to keep you from blinking. In your head, you trace the curve of his lash line, delineate the sharp curve of his inner corner, count his long lashes, feel lost in the swirling black pools of his pupils… The insides of your mouth suddenly become very dry.
Finally, finally , though, the General blinks and steps back, clearing his throat. Did he see something that you missed? Something that tells him that he can trust you momentarily? “Keep an eye out on her.” His two soldiers nod resolutely. “If she really did lose her memories, we’ll proceed with the necessary actions once she gets them back.”
You don’t know what to say. Or do for that matter. But you feel like you need to say something . Something to alleviate the tension. Something to prove that you’re innocent. “I’m… I’m sorry,” you say. “I didn’t mean to raise suspicion.” You mean it. There’s a part of you that wants to scream how unfair it was for the General to cause you so much pain—just because he couldn’t remember your face. But another part of you understands him. It’s a war . People cheat, lie and trick. He’s just looking out for his own soldiers—that’s his job as the General. He’d rather be safe than sorry.
The General raises his eyebrows at your words. You’re not sure if you imagined it, but you think his hard eyes soften ever so slightly. And for a moment, he’s silent, as if he’s fighting between accepting your apology or rejecting it. He does the latter, however. “An apology won’t help anything.” A pause. He clears his throat. “However, I do apologize.” Your eyes widen. “You’ll have to bandage her up again, Namjoon. I know how busy you are, and I’ll trust your perception of her for the time being.” You deflate. He’d apologized to your healer; the fact that you thought otherwise is somewhat humiliating.
He glares at you one more time, daring you to try anything. The General doesn’t need to speak for you to feel threatened. His piercing gaze alone chills you to the core. “Get her back to her cot,” he orders his two soldiers before he turns and swiftly walks away. You stare at his backside, intrigued and a little frightened by his demeanor.
Namjoon lets out a deep sigh once you’re comfortably situated on your cot again, wounds cleaned and restitched. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he says. “How are you feeling?”
And this time, you have an answer other than ‘I don’t know.’
“Just a tad bit terrified.”
Namjoon snorts. “I meant physically, but emotionally’s great too. Don’t worry, though,” he says. “I know that the General can come off as an intimidating man. But he’s fair.”
Fair? He tried to march you off—open stitches and all—to interrogate you with little to no evidence that you were in the wrong. Is that really being fair?
On second thought, however, he’d spared you a chance. The General didn’t have to listen to Namjoon, but he did. He chose to heed the healer’s suggestion when he had the authority to do what he wanted to do. So you suppose he is fair. Or at least somewhat sympathetic.
“He’s been overworking himself, you know? He’s a medium for all four elements, so he’s got a lot of pressure to perform four times the number of tasks that others do. Plus, he’s the General. All eyes are on him,” Namjoon explains. “Though I’m not exactly saying sacrificing your health for the sake of interrogation was a good call… But then again, I don’t think he’s slept for three days, so we should maybe possibly excuse him if his judgment is skewed.”
“No, no, I really don’t have anything against the General,” you say. “I know where he’s coming from. It just… it bothers me that he didn’t recognize me.” Did you really have that little of an impact in the army that the General who remembers everyone can’t recall your face? It feels horrible to wake up, memoryless, and not have anyone claim that they know you. In fact, they can’t even recognize you—as if you turned up in this camp overnight and didn’t previously give up your life for your nation. What if you never meant anything to anyone around here?
“Don’t take it personally.” Namjoon places a reassuring hand on your shoulder. “He could’ve easily missed you in the crowd. Maybe he accidentally skipped over your papers. He’s just tired and was being hyper-aware. That’s what fighting does to a person. Makes them suspicious of every little thing.”
“…Yeah.”
“The General’s very merciful to his soldiers,” Namjoon says. “But he does take a while to warm up to people. I remember when I first met him, I thought he hated me. He’d give me some particularly unwelcoming side-eyes, and I always thought I’d get kicked out of here because of it. Turns out he tends to give everyone the side-eye. You know, he even privately told me that he likes that I can personally connect with the soldiers who I take care of.
“He’s a good man, our General.” The healer looks proud, smiling wistfully. The memories keep him in a trance. For a moment, he looks lost in the depths of his past, eyes glossed over and lips parted ever so slightly.
A pang of jealousy resonates within you. It’s a greedy feeling, tumbling out and reaching to grab at memories that aren’t yours to keep. The feeling grows, gnarling inside of the pits of your stomach and threatening to burst out of your throat. Yet one look at the kind healer with his soft eyes and gentle smile and it dissipates.
“Yeah… He must be.”
Joon’s memories are his to keep, and yours should come in time. One look at the kind man with his even kinder eyes makes you feel guilty that you ever felt jealous in the first place.
“Well, you should sleep, dear.” He smiles at you. “Your eyes are drooping.”
He’s not wrong. A strange tiredness suddenly washes over you—a fatigue you’d been ignoring since the moment you woke up, really. The heaviness spreads through your aching body, up to your throbbing head. And the last thing you see before your eyes flutter shut is red.
But red is your home now.