Memories (ForthBeam fanfic)

Chapter 4 - Ghosts

Tae's POV

Do you believe in ghosts?
I did. Not anymore.

I used to be scared of the unseen, but my Memory helped me overcome this fear.

It was on my second life, roughly 120 years after the first one. This time, on an island in the Pacific.

This second life was uneventful in many ways, but in my mind it was extraordinary. The first I was able to recall the Memory.

As soon as i was old enough to think, or old enough to remember thoughts,  - I thought of the boy who was saved in the flood. I thought of his older self. I saw his face in my dreams.

Mostly it was smiles and laughter, like he was happy and enjoying whatever he was doing.

At first it was always blurry, just his pale face. Later i saw the happiness in his eyes. But also the pain. The blood beneath his ribs. I understood he was dying.

I thought of him everytime i closed my eyes. I screamed at night. I cried in my dreams, i cried in my bed.

Soon after, i began to think of him in daytime too. I was probably four or five years old and not old enough to understand the sadness and loss i felt or the significance of his face to me. But i experienced it almost everyday, like it was happening to me.

I began to see glimpses of him playing outside the door. Running around in all smiles.

I saw the older him mix his own concoction of herbs tirelessly. He may have been a healer. I wasn't sure.

He was there in front of me. But somewhere else.

He was with me. But he was not.

I had a kind hearted mother in that life, but even she got tired of me. She didn't understand. I lived in a different world. I couldn't let it go.

The kind of memory I have was extreme, but many people has some small degree of it.

I once knew another boy in this second life. He lived a few doors down from mine. An only child, aged five or so, while I was on my late teens. He used to play outside his house. Always looking at me.

I thought the kid, Markus, was weird, with all the strange looks he'd throw my way. Until one day, when he finally came up to me asking "He's alive, right?".

I didn't know what he was talking about. He saw my confusion and wanted very badly to make me understand, then he added another question, "He survived the flood, right?". To which i got more confused.

Alive? Survived? Flood? Who?

"Tell me i did not die for nothing" he said sadly. Tears creeping out of his eyes.

"I saved him, right? I still have the scar from that fence post outside his house by the river" he added. He lifted his cloth and showed me a birthmark on his right chest.

Save? Fence? By the river? These are all familiar to me.

"Not now, when i was big" he kept saying, holding up his arms to make a point. "When I was big. Tell me he survived."

Needless to say, i was very much fascinated and astonished by all this. I thought i had discovered a kindred mind. Someone like me.

I bombarded him with questions after questions. To which he couldn't answer. That was all his young mind could remember.

I met him a few years later, he was older then. I asked him again about his Memory, in hopes he'd remember more. This time it was me who was desperate to convince him.

He shook his head, "Did I really tell you all of that?". He laughed at me before leaving me more confused than before.

I've learned since then that it was not very unusual for children to remember memories of past lives.

Children typically express old memories as soon as they can talk and keep pressing them for a couple years. As time passes, they get farther away from their old selves, and their parents get spooked or just fed up.

Memories fade, and they put them aside. New experiences fill in.

By the age of reason, at seven or eight, all but a few have forgotten and moved on.

This is fairly well documented. There are scientists who have compiled thousands of interviews and case studies of this kind. But the good ones are naturally reluctant to say what it really means.

And who can blame them? I, of all people, know how futile it is to try to make rational people believe.

A/N: do you believe this guys? I saw a documentary once about this.

My case was different. As i grew older my memory grew stronger and filled in. The more capable of reason i become, the more i remember. Little things and big things, places, names, sights and smells.

It was though may death was just a long deep sleep. And when i woke up and reorient myself, it all comes back.

I didn't remember these things as happening to someone else. I remembered them happening to me. I remembered what i said, what i felt. I remembered myself.

Mostly i feel sorry that people don't remember the way i do. I wonder if they had old lives to remember, or if it was only me who comes back.

I wondered if i was an error of God's planning that would be fixed at the end of my life. I guess i still feel like an error.

I'm still waiting to be fixed.

Sometimes i wonder if i'd live forever. Endlessly dying and living. People come and go, and i am left behind. I'm the constant. Isolated. Alone. Forever lingering on this earth.

I wonder if i was the ghost.

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"Ghost? You believe in ghosts?" a familiar voice pulled me out of my reverie.

It's him! Tee. My Tee.

"Ah-- i --i" I couldn't form a single word. It really is him.

"Sorry" he said "i heard you talking something about ghost" he explained in all smiles. That smile. He placed a cup of drink on my table.

"Just wanna return the favor. Hot chocolate for you. It was you, right?" he sounded unsure. "Please tell me it was you" he asked again, somewhat pleading.

A short yes was all i could mumble. He's here. Talking with me. No. Talking to me. This is not how i planned our first conversation. What's happening? Why is he here? Does he remember me?

"Thanks by the way, for the drink. It's my new favorite now" why is he smiling?

After hesitating for a moment, he sat across me, and extended his hand to me. "I'm Beam".

A/N: how is it so far guys? Is it too slow? Please do tell me.

I knew they had to meet sooner than later, so here it goes. Let's see what happens next 😁😁.

Next chapters will have cameos of our PhaYo couple. I hope you'll like what i wrote about them too.

Votes and comments please. Suggestions. Pointers. Hehehe

Thanks a bunch!