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Wandering didn’t get old.
Or maybe it did. But the scenery always changed enough not to think she was wasting her time searching one biome. Though Lizzie had all the time in the world, and the patience to match, she couldn’t waste too much time searching a biome where there were no answers.
She trudged to a wet swamp, wondering if it was worth it.
It is, the voice in her mind answered. Keep going.
She had no idea what lead her to a swamp when it was so difficult to traverse. She trudged forward nonetheless – the notion of ‘not knowing’ was no stranger to her. She had woken one day without her memories, after all, in a strange place that looked dead and dried out. Having no ties, she made her way to the mainland and started walking. She wasn’t even sure when she found the note, but it had been no help. The words were hastily written down in what she recognized as her handwriting – but she had no recollection of ever writing the note. Furthermore, sentences overlapped, and it was hard to discern what she had written down, what she had seemed to want to remember.
All but two words were unreadable. Find them.
So that was what she had been up to. She never stayed too long in one place, especially when she realized they wouldn’t be able to help her. If they didn’t know her or didn’t recognize her, it would be hard to help her. She didn’t even know herself who she had to find, how many, and in what state she would find them. She just knew she had to find them.
With so little to go off of, you’d think she’d give up and settle somewhere, make new memories and build up a life.
And she planned to do so. After she found who she was supposed to find.
Lost in thought, she hadn’t realized the sun was already setting. The swamp was larger than she’d first anticipated and she would be caught in the middle of these shallow waters in the dead of night. The fireflies wouldn’t provide enough light to prevent mobs from spawning, and without any weapons bar her almost used-up axe, it would be difficult to defend herself.
Then, between the trees, she spotted a hut built on a platform a little above the water level. It was a little bigger than the witches’ hut she passed a while ago, and smoke rose from the clay chimney.
She sighed in relief. Thank goodness someone was home.
Who builds their home in a swamp?
As she approached the swamp hut, a man came out of the hut. He watched curiously while she slogged through the swampy waters. He rested his hands on the railing and waited patiently for her to come closer. He’d have to wait a while; he should know it wasn’t easy to traverse the area, until she found a small wooden walkway, also above water level, that she could use to approach the home of the swamp man.
Her shoes were all but dry, and so were her socks, some of the water still sloshing with every step she took. Somehow, this didn’t bother her as much as she believed it should. Maybe it didn’t because she was close to shelter, where she could warm her feet and dry her socks and shoes.
“Hi,” the swamp man said when she’d come close enough.
“Hello, swamp man,” she greeted him. She supposed he looked a little odd. With his green and brown clothes, he could easily blend in with the environment. His hair was a nice blonde, with pieces of slime sticking everywhere. When she saw the slime, she noticed pieces of smile were stuck all over his clothes. He must have had so many fights with slimes that he didn’t bother removing the pieces anymore. Some smaller wounds on his chin revealed he’d tried to shave but hadn’t quite succeeded in keeping the blade steady. Even now, there was some stubble. His gaze was friendly and kind, and maybe a little on edge as well.
“You look like you’re lost,” he said. “Do you need any help?”
Lizzie's stomach growled to remind her she’d last eaten at sunrise.
“I could use some food,” she said. “And some shelter.”
“Come on in,” the swamp man said and he beckoned her to come inside. “You’re lucky, dinner is almost ready.”
Maybe she shouldn’t trust a random man she found in the swamp. However, she felt like this man was harmless enough – and if he wasn’t, she still had her axe. It wasn’t like she had any other options at this point.
She followed the man inside. As the design outside suggested, the interior was also rather simple. Practical, but simple. A table, two chairs. A crude wool towel lay carelessly on the ground. A crafting bench and a furnace standing next to one another, and two chests stacked on top of one another. To the back, he’d sectioned off a part of his hut to serve as his bedroom. A fireplace illuminated the room and provided warmth – how had his hut not burned down yet? – and currently also held the plate of salmon. Their dinner, she assumed.
“You’re free to stay the night,” the swamp man said. “I don’t have a spare bedroom, unfortunately, but I do have spare sheets you can rest on next to the fire. It should be comfortable enough to sleep on.”
“Thank you,” Lizzie said, and any worries about the man melted away. She glanced around the room. “This is a nice place.”
The man huffed. “Thanks. I wouldn’t say so, but… it’s not much, it’s a mess, but… yeah. Thanks.”
Something warm stroked past her leg. Lizzie looked down and saw a cat that she previously hadn’t spotted. It rubbed its head against her leg. She let him do so – she had no idea what to do now.
“Oh, look,” the swamp man said, his voice rising a little. “Norman likes you!”
“Norman…” she supposed the cat looked like a Norman. When Norman realized he wasn’t going to get any cuddles from Lizzie, he walked away again and lay down on the towel that belonged to him. “That’s a nice name.”
“It just fits,” the swamp man said, lovingly smiling at the cat. He turned his head to Lizzie again and stared at her for a couple of seconds. “What is your name?”
Lizzie. It had always been Lizzie. Why she’d woken up knowing her name, but nothing else, was still a mystery to her. She’d often thought it was one of those things you just know, just like she remembered how to read and write and talk. Sometimes, she wondered if it wasn’t just the first name that popped into her mind and started using it. Maybe her name wasn’t Lizzie at all.
“Lizzie. I think.”
The man crossed his arms and stared at her with newfound curiosity. “That doesn’t sound too convincing.”
Lizzie shrugged and sat down on the chair closest to the fire. “Nothing sounds convincing coming out of my mouth.”
She took off her wet shoes and socks, placing them in front of the fire. They’d dry soon. In the meantime, she placed her bare feet on the coarse planks and reminded herself not to move them around too much. He’d probably have medical supplies ready to remove any splinters, but she’d rather avoid the situation altogether.
“Do I want to know?” the swamp man asked.
“It’s a long story,” Lizzie said. Or it should be a long story. One of which she only knew the end.
The swamp man sat down on the other chair and placed his folded hands on the table.
“We have time.” He glanced at the fire. “Dinner’s not ready yet.”
Time. She had all the time in the world. But maybe the notion that they had time until dinner was ready comforted her a little bit.
“I don’t have any memories.”
Het let the news sink in for a moment and slowly nodded once. “That’s inconvenient.”
“It is.” But only when you know you ought to remember something you don’t know about. “It’s… confusing. I had a life. I must have had a life, unless I came into the world fully formed a couple of months ago. But if I did… I don’t remember it.”
The man waited a couple more seconds for her to continue. When she didn’t, he looked at her curiously.
“That’s not as long a story as I thought it’d be.”
“I guess it wasn’t.” That was the end of her story; or the beginning of a new one. Or maybe both.
She looked at him. He was watching her. Not in the way some shifty men in villages would leer, but in the most respectably curious way. With cautious hope. And a strange sense of familiarity she hadn’t felt anywhere else. Not that she was familiar with him; but he with her.
Maybe she finally found someone who knew something about her.
“Do you… see a lot of people out here?”
The swamp man shook his head. “No. It’s pretty lonely in the swamp, people tend to stay away. It’s just me, Norman, and this witch who lives a couple of hundred meters ahead. She’s real nasty. I think she hates me. Dunno why.” He shrugged and sighed, in his own thoughts for just a moment. His gaze landed on Lizzie again. “Looking for someone?”
“Yes.” She sounded certain – it was one of the few things she could be certain about. “There’s… someone. More than one someone, but I…”
She let the words hang between her and the swamp man. A stranger, she had to remind herself. He didn’t feel like a stranger.
“You don’t remember,” he finished her sentence without judgment. “Do you have any idea who they are?”
“No, but they are important.” They must have been. “I had a note – it was a mess. I could barely read it, but it is my handwriting. I tried to write down so much that almost everything got lost.” The irony never escaped her. She tried so hard to hold on to something, anything, that what she had tried to hold on to was lost.
She sighed briefly. “The note is destroyed now, but I remember it said ‘find them’. That’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since I found the note.”
And he nodded. Just once. It wasn’t a pitiful nod like she’d seen so often when she told her story – she could almost hear them say ‘you poor thing’ before offering help they couldn’t provide. This swamp man listened without judgment. With sympathy, but not in a way that belittled her.
“I’m sure you’ll find them someday,” the swamp man said quietly. “Whoever they are, wherever they may be. Maybe they’re looking for you, too.”
Lizzie liked that idea. She’d always assumed she had lost her memories, so whoever she had been writing about must have suffered the same fate. Maybe they had their own notes. Maybe they had better notes. Maybe they had no notes. But the thought that these people were looking for her as well… it comforted her.
“Thank you,” she said, and a smile came to her face. It made him smile as well, and they enjoyed the ensuing silence, each in their own thoughts.
But the silence couldn’t last, and the man leaned forward on the table and watched her curiously. “Would you like to hear a story?”
Lizzie frowned. “A story?”
“Dinner’s not ready yet,” the swamp man said. “And we gotta pass the time somehow. It’s not gonna cook any quicker if we just stare at it. In fact, it seems to cook even slower when we pay attention to it.”
Lizzie had to admit the man had a point.
“I’d like a story,” she said. “Is it a good one?”
“I’m not sure,” the swamp man said. “But I like it. I thought, maybe you’d like it too.” He sighed. “It’s a… a story from my childhood. At least, I think it was my childhood. My memory hasn’t been the best lately.”
Lizzie raised an eyebrow. “So you’re having trouble with your memories, too.”
The man leaned back in the chair and nodded, crossing his arms.
“I do. It’s all a bit of a mess. But I didn’t forget what my life was like before the swamp.” Yet. He didn’t say the ‘yet’ out loud. And under that smile, she could see the fear and worry flash across his face, one he quickly tucked away in favor of showing a brave face and distracting himself with this story.
“Anyway, I’ve heard this story somewhere and it might’ve been my childhood, but… here it goes.”
Norman hopped onto the man’s lap and lay down. The swamp man took a deep breath and started to tell the story he must have told himself a hundred times to keep himself company in these lonely times, petting his cat at the same time.
“Long ago, in a deep ocean, there was this big fish creature. I don’t recall the name, or what it looked like, but… I think they were supposed to be an axolotl cod hybrid thing? It’s weird, they were weird. But there’s this ocean creature and they’re swimming around, right? And they’re getting old and I’m pretty sure they were the last of their kind. They’re living a very lonely life and one day, they decided to call upon the gods and wished to not be lonely anymore. Before they knew it, they lay hundreds of eggs on the ocean floor. They weren’t gonna be alone anymore.
“Unfortunately, this creature died. Their eggs were laid, they still had to grow and hatch, and this creature just died. They never got to see their children hatch. But at least there were hundreds, so these hatchlings shouldn’t be alone. But the ocean wasn’t very kind to these eggs. There’s predators everywhere, the current sweeps a couple dozen with it, and before you know it, there weren’t a lot of fertile eggs left.
“In fact, by the time one of these eggs hatched an amphibious being, there was only one other egg left. Smaller, damaged. The only other egg. This amphibian, axolotl-like being seized the egg, as she recognized what it was, and fled to care for the egg. Hidden in a cave somewhere, she waited for another hundred years or so before it hatched. But it did hatch, and out came a cod-like being, and the axolotl wasn’t alone anymore.
“And time passes and things go well. Until they don’t, because in these types of stories, things have to go wrong. The salmon came and became a major threat to ocean life. The codboy grew ill and the big sister axolotl decided to go to land. Because if she tried everything the ocean had to offer and nothing in the ocean can make him better, then something on the surface would.”
He stopped there. As he told the story, Lizzie had noticed he had stopped looking at her, instead, glancing at the table, the salmon on the fire, his feet, Norman. Anywhere that wasn’t her, though he told her this story.
It was a deeply personal story. One that put him in a vulnerable state. One he shared with her, though he didn’t have to. And maybe, just maybe, there was more to this story.
“What happened to her?” Lizzie wondered.
The swamp man sighed absent-mindedly, unsure what to say next. He took his time to find the right words. He glanced at her, a sorry expression on his face.
“She forgot,” the swamp man said plainly, and again he dared not to stare at her for too long. “The ocean creature… I’m never sure about this part of the story, but I always believed it was ocean magic. One of their own, or something restrictive like that. But the axolotl left, came to land, and… simply forgot. She left a note, I think, but I’m not sure her brother ever saw it. If he did, he waited a long time for a return that wouldn’t come. And then he went to the surface to find her and he forgot everything, as well.”
The atmosphere had shifted. Though amicable at first, something else replaced that amiability. Something heavier, something just out of her reach – something slipping ever so slightly out of his reach, and the more he tried to hold on, the faster it would slip away.
“That’s not a happy story,” Lizzie remarked.
“That’s not where it ends,” the swamp man said. He didn’t sound too excited to continue, but did so anyway. “They would meet each other again, later. She’d returned to the ocean – or just went to the ocean, she didn’t know she was returning to anything – and became Queen of the Ocean Empire. And her brother remained on land, in a swamp much like this one, and he became the Codfather, leader of the Cod Empire.” He paused and stared off into the distance again. he didn’t have the energy to summon a smile to his face. “They didn’t recognize one another. But they got on incredibly well. She married his best friend. They became a tight alliance, through thick and thin. And eventually, they found the evidence. They finally recognized what they were to each other.”
“And they lived happily ever after?” Lizzie asked.
The swamp man shrugged. “I guess so.”
“You don’t sound so certain.”
The swamp man sighed deeply. The cat on his lap decided he wanted to rest somewhere else and jumped off. The swamp man watched Norman walk through the opened door to the bedroom, to rest on the semi-comfortable bed that waited in the other room.
He shook his head, his eyes fixated on the door Norman disappeared behind.
“The story is set in the part of the world that was recently destroyed,” the swamp man revealed. “If they do exist, I’m not sure they’d be living so happily. I mean, the water receded. The ocean is gone. Drained. And if they forgot each other the first time in absence of the ocean…”
The ocean had indeed drained. Only after a few weeks, Lizzie realized the strange land she’d walked away from had once been the ocean. She didn’t think to go back – there was nothing left, and anyone who’d tried to stay already vacated the area. The empires that used to thrive in proximity of the ocean had also suffered.
She didn’t like the implications. Nobody told her finding out the truth and regaining some memories – or hearing about her life – could make her uncomfortable.
“Why do you have to ruin a good story?”
“Because it wouldn’t be complete without that detail,” the swamp man said. “That’s the nature of ocean stories, I guess. They never really end.”
“Can’t we say it ended when they found each other?” Lizzie suggested. “They lived happily near the ocean; the axolotl, her husband, and the cod.”
After a couple of seconds of silence, the swamp man nodded to himself.
“We… could do that,” he said, more to himself than to her. “We could do that.”
In the silence, they were reminded that the salmon was almost burning. The swamp man salvaged the salmon from the fire and served it on crude wooden plates with wooden eating utensils. Though one side was a little black and burned, it still tasted pretty good.
And Lizzie glanced at the swamp man. She felt good in his company, though she didn’t know why. While they ate, she glanced at the man from time to time and thought about his story; thought how it was deeply personal and though she didn’t recognize it, she couldn’t help but draw parallels between herself and this ocean queen who lost her memories. Maybe he told her the story because of her amnesia. Maybe he just wanted her to feel better, that she was going to find who she was looking for.
But then why did he add that final detail, that the Queen forgot when the ocean drained, if he wanted to make her feel better?
“How’s the salmon?” he asked her.
“Delicious.” She looked at him. “You know, I never caught your name.”
“Jimmy.”
He threw it out there; quickly, maybe a little too quickly. Almost afraid that if he’d wait too long, he may not have that answer ready. And he stared at her, somewhat expectantly, waiting for her response.
She slowly nodded. “I like that name.”
“Thanks,” Jimmy responded. “It’s the only one I have.”
Lizzie slept pretty well, all things considered. The floor was hard, but that was mitigated by the sheets and blankets on the ground. She had slept in worse conditions, anyway. The fire had gone out at night, but the smoldering ashes had been enough to keep her warm. Her shoes and socks had become dry again, and Jimmy – once he’d woken up – had pointed out a safe way to get out of the swamp. It was also the driest way out of the swamp, so she could continue her search.
He seemed nervous. More nervous than he had been last night. In the morning sun, he fumbled over his words as he wished her a good journey.
“Can I…” he cleared his throat. “I have a question. It’s, I wouldn’t say personal, but it does relate to personal experiences and--”
“Jimmy.” She didn’t need him to ramble. “What you do want to know?”
He opened his mouth but closed it again. He tried to find the courage to ask the question, and Lizzie waited patiently; though she shouldn’t wait too long – in case she didn’t find the path he’d pointed out to her, she didn’t want to be stuck in the swamp for another evening.
“Is it scary?” he eventually blurted out. “I mean… one day, you just woke up without your memories. Without anything at all. Is it scary?”
That… was an interesting question. Something she hadn’t given much thought before. Something that always ‘is’. Of course she thought of who she had been before, but she never considered how her former self would have felt if she knew what was happening to her.
“It’s weird,” Lizzie said. “It’s also hard to explain. I… yes, you wake up without anything. And you’re not sure what to feel because, at that moment, you don’t really feel anything. You just wake in this new and strange world and you try to make the best of it. It only started to become weird when I found the note…”
And only when she found the note did she start to worry about what happened in the past she couldn’t remember. She supposed she always had been that way – ready to move on and let the past be the past.
“So you weren’t afraid when you woke up?” Jimmy wondered out loud, his voice quieter. He looked at her weirdly – they were strangers, they’d only met yesterday, and still he looked at her as if searching for guidance. Didn’t he say yesterday that his memories were a mess? Maybe he wanted reassurance. But not for the feeling of losing everything – somehow, it seemed he already coped with that in some way. He needed guidance for what came after.
“Not really,” she told him. “I think I was calm. I woke up and took it one day at a time. Let it happen. Moved on.”
Jimmy nodded. Maybe it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, because he remained awfully quiet. She didn’t like his silence.
“Do you think you could’ve done more?” he asked her. “To preserve some memories?”
She thought of the note and shook her head. “I don’t think I could have.”
“Okay. Okay,” Jimmy said. He nodded, more to himself than Lizzie, and then looked at her again. “But you tried, right? To preserve them?”
The way he looked at her – she hadn’t seen such desperation since she found some people at what used to be the shore of the Ocean Empire. Some clung to her, asked her weird questions. She’d shrugged them off. his desperation was harder to shrug off. Maybe because he was alone. Maybe because he was in the same boat as her, though in a completely different stage.
He was shaking, too.
She reached out her hand, to put on his shoulder. “Jimmy?”
He took a step backward, away from her.
“I’m fine! I’m fine.” He clearly wasn’t fine. “You just… go out. Find who you’re looking for. And when you’ve found them, you can come back, if you’d like. I’ll still be here. Hopefully.” He motioned to the hut behind him and the swarm all around. “Maybe… maybe you wanna try going west, though. Across the hole that used to be the ocean. I heard Mezalea’s still doing pretty well.” He nodded to himself and shrugged. “Then again, that’s news from months ago. I-I hope Joel’s okay.”
Lizzie listened to his ramble and looked at him – really looked at him – for the first time, though he tried to hide his face. The story from last night suddenly didn’t feel like a story anymore; not in the same way, anyway. And it felt like he’d lived through some of it. She remembered the pride with which he said ‘Codfather’. She’d brushed it off as him imagining the codboy being proud of such a title, but that pride could have been his own. And didn’t he say he just had the one name now?
The pieces clicked together, and she wasn’t sure if she liked where this was going. Because if he presented this as a story – if he purposely took the distance between them and kept it intact – why would he do that? What had he to gain from "protecting" her like this?
Now, she had no idea who this ‘Joel’ was, but he mattered to Jimmy. And Jimmy implored her to go to him, so she assumed he must’ve been important to her, too.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
He’d lifted his head to face her. Tears started to bim in his eyes – tears he tried to fight, but couldn’t.
And something in her changed. She watched him, saw him, not as a stranger, not as the swamp man who helped her out, but as Jimmy. That meant something. That… used to mean something. Something almost motherly. Definitely familial.
“Jimmy.”
His eyes widened – not because he recognized her. He must’ve known it was her from the moment she walked onto his lawn. Because her tone was familiar, protective. It was the first time in months he’d heard someone say his name in such a caring way. He never thought that was possible with her level of amnesia. And maybe, when an unspecified amount of time passed, he would be stuck with the same level of amnesia, and the thought that he’d forget her right as she was starting to remember him scared him.
He couldn’t fight back the tears anymore.
Lizzie instinctively opened her arms when Jimmy approached her. He almost fell into her arms and he held her. He trembled from head to toe, sniffled, and cried on her shoulder.
“I don’t want to lose you, too,” he said between the sobs. “I don’t want to lose you.”
She didn’t know what to say, but she held him in a way that felt oddly familiar and comfortable and let him cry.