Defying Equilibrium: Book II

Interlude V

A few weeks ago

They couldn't believe that he had returned. Their son. It had only been a few months since he disappeared, that dark night on the road. The long road to the safety of the city. And they had thought him lost, they had grieved for him, and yet here he was, flesh and blood. He had found them again. He had returned.

His mother had embraced him, in tears, offering the kind of comfort that only mothers can. In her way, she noticed that he'd grown thinner. She wondered and worried about the horrors he had seen, her only son. But she did not ask, not because she feared his answer but because she worried that he feared answering. So instead she just cried and hugged him.

"Riess," she said, and that was all that needed to be said. His name.

He was so scared. Riess had forgotten everything that he had once known about himself, about his power and about who he was. He couldn't remember anything other than he was gone, and now he was back. That one simple truth was what kept his mind from turning to panic. He knew that he was home now, and whatever happened in the past was the past, no more. Maybe he would come to remember, in time, but at the present moment the repression of these memories was more of a comfort than truth would have been.

When he lay his head down to sleep, a small finger poked him in the face, as if to check if he was solid. Real. He opened his eyes to see his sister, Ella, staring at him with a mixture of hope and uncertainty. Her brother had been gone. Mother and Father had said that he was gone. And yet here he was.

He smiled at her and her light brown eyes, so similar to his own, lit up. Her returned smile was the greatest thing he had ever seen. It was a child's grin, unabashed and pure. He hugged her and as he did, he gazed over her shoulder at the other sleeping form. His other sister, Shari. Exhaustion had gotten the better of her. No matter. He would talk to her in the morning. He fell into a dreamless sleep, unaware of what he had returned from. His imprisonment forgotten, amnesia had taken his waking mind. Ignorance is bliss, so they say. But whoever said that must have been blissfully ignorant of what it truly means to live a lie.

Silas didn't sleep. As soon as Riess closed his eyes, Silas opened his. And he opened them to a world of panic and confusion, of dread and fear. It had only been a mere day or two since Riess had attempted the impossible, and only a day or two was not enough for Silas to make peace with this world. Confused and dark thoughts swam through his mind blindingly fast and blindingly painful, and even here he couldn't feel safe.

Who was he? He was himself, and yet not. He could tell that he wasn't Riess anymore. The name felt like it belonged to someone else, someone from his past. The name didn't fit him anymore, he couldn't call himself by the same name when he was no longer the same person. He was no longer the boy he had been only days ago. If he was sure of nothing else, he was sure of that.

But below all of these thoughts, deeper than his panic, there was a deep-seated fear in his mind. Something he had only just remembered. Something that Riess didn't know, something that made Silas sit bolt upright. They were coming for him.

When he had fled the forges, he didn't escape unnoticed. He had no idea how he had been freed, or even who had freed him. It had happened suddenly, his door had opened and someone had dragged him to his feet. They had yelled at him to run, and he did. Riess might have stayed to help free others, but Silas didn't. He ran for his life and didn't look back. He heard footsteps behind him, so he ran faster. And then all of a sudden, he was outside. He didn't even know the way to the door, but he had found it, somehow. And he kept running, it was all he could do.

But they caught up to him. They never quite caught him, he had always been adept at hiding, but they were right on his heels as he tried to find his way home. Well, where home once was. He didn't know if his family would still even be there, or whether they had continued their journey to the city without him. He knew that his pursuers were dangerous, deadly people, and he knew they wouldn't hesitate to kill him when they found him, and anyone else with him. And yet he led them straight to his family.