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Mariana shot up from his bed and clutched his heart. Every bone in his body ached and screamed in agony. He could feel them shift beneath his skin, a beyond uncomfortable feeling.
It felt like a part of him had just died.
He sluggishly sat up, his body creaking and squeaking in protest as he stumbled to the bathroom. He proceeded to hurl directly into the toilet, quivering hands holding the rim of the seat.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
Mariana’s knees dug into the cold bathroom tiles as he sat there hacking into the toilet. All the contents in his stomach were long gone, yet he couldn’t stop, his coughs echoing in the bowl.
His brain was screaming at him. Get up. Get up. Get up get up get up– pick yourself up and go. Get out.
Get out of where? Where the fuck was he again?
The soft yellow walls of his bathroom melted in an almost cartoonish way, dissolving and morphing into bricked stone. Look down, his brain shouted, and so he did. His hands, once a nice tan, were covered in crimson liquid, dripping from his fingertips. Blood coated his suit– when was he wearing a suit?
Get up! You can’t leave him, not when he needs you!
Who the fuck was him?
Mariana had no one waiting for him. No one to hug or kiss or please. He had no one, and that’s the way he had lived– and would live– for a long time.
“Mariana, please you can make it,”
Mariana could hear himself speaking somewhere, it was very distant and it sounded painful, like each breath shot an arrow through his lungs.
He gripped the sink and tried to stand, legs wobbling as he fell back down. His calves burned as if he had run a marathon, and with the way he was dripping with sweat, he might as well have.
“I am sure in another life we will collide each other again because- I believe we are the souls assigned to live together.”
That was him speaking, he knew that for a fact– but as he lifted a hand to his oddly sore throat, he felt no vibrations tingling through his skin, no adam’s apple bobbing, nothing. Who was he talking to? He was speaking but his lips weren’t moving.
Through a shaky breath, he looked back down.
Yup. Still covered in blood.
At this point, the slow dripping of his bathroom had turned into a constant waterfall. He was no longer in the comfort of his own home. He was in a castle, soaked with his own blood. It was cold. It was so unbearably cold.
He looked up from his hands to forest green eyes, glimmering with wet tears. He could feel warm and loving arms holding him close as he choked through death.
“Never forget I love you.”
A few days later and Mariana still cannot shake the dream from his head– at least he called it a dream, he refused to believe it was anything but. He wasn’t hallucinating, he wasn’t teleported to some other realm, it wasn’t a memory, he was dreaming. Mariana was sure of it.
But Mariana was also a fool.
He was trudging through the long blades of grass feeling them across his fingertips. It had been awhile since he had felt so at peace. Despite the memory– dream, he corrected himself– he was okay. He was relaxed and content, nothing but the sounds of birds and bugs in his ears.
He liked this calming alone time. He had only been on the island for about a week now, but the majority of that time was spent building his house or talking to Roier, which was neither calming or alone. Don’t get him wrong, he loved his friend, but there was nothing about him that screamed calm.
And it was almost as if the mention of Roier had set off a little censor in his brain, for the next second Mariana heard a shout from behind him.
“¡Ay perra! ¡Ahí estás! Te he estado buscando todo el día. [Ay bitch! There you are! I've been looking for you all day.]”
Mariana huffed and turned to face the intruder of his peace.
“Puta madre! ¿Qué queréis? Estoy ocupado– [Motherfucker! What do you want? I’m busy–”
His sentence trailed off as he took note of the second figure standing beside Roier.
Mariana felt like he had died all over again. Those same eyes. Those same fucking eyes.
Those forest green eyes.
His head pounded and his vision spun. He felt sick to his stomach.
“I missed you,”
“I missed you too.”
He couldn’t breathe. His world began to warp back into his memory.
Memory. It was a memory.
Suits. Royal suits. Little royal dresses and lush royal sheets.
Hands. Soft hands. Soft royal hands.
Giggles. Little giggles. Royal little giggles.
Royal. He was royal.
“...Hello?” His voice. His voice was the same as the one in his memory. A hushed melody that sang a tune in his ears. Soft brown hair and slimy accents.
A treasure. A royal treasure.
Mariana stuck out his hand for the man to shake as it trembled, sweat building up in his palms. He took it graciously, a look of astonishment on his face. “Charlie. I’m– I’m Charlie.”
“Mariana, I am Mariana.”
Charlie smiled, a hint of recognition on his face. “I feel like I knew that already.”
Mariana didn’t need to wonder what that meant, he knew what that feeling felt like. He was experiencing it at that very moment.
“Yo también. [Me too.]”
Mariana didn’t remember Charlie, he didn’t remember the love they felt for each other, the moments they shared, the daughter they raised together, and neither did Charlie.
And while the two may not have remembered each other, they knew that they were important, that something, some spectral being was pulling them together by a string– a string of fate.
They may not have remembered each other, but on Quesadilla Island, they could make new memories. A new life.
A royally beautiful new beginning.