The darkness faded, and my body suddenly felt strange. Pain struck me. I couldn’t find its source, nor could I see, no matter how hard I tried.

  Then, the world snapped into focus.

  Before me, a giant man and woman appeared. The woman held me tight while the man lingered over her shoulder.

  The man looked worried. His orange eyes examined me, deep in thought. The woman, on the other hand, gazed at me with pure, unfiltered love, as if I were the most precious thing in the entire world.

  “What should we do with them?” the man uttered, his gaze fixed on the sides of my head. “They’ll notice the ears. You know what my people are like. They fear devils. Dammit! If she grows horns, she’ll—”

  “Myros, look. Our baby,” said the woman. Her voice was ragged, but she was smiling. Thick black hair ran around her face, hiding her forehead and ears while highlighting his odd gray eyes. “Isn’t she perfect?”

  “We need to do something about her ears,” said the man, Myros, hurriedly, as he ignored the woman. He fumbled with his belt and pulled out a knife. “I can shape them. She won’t remember. Maybe they’ll heal and look like mine. At least until she—”

  “No!” The woman grabbed the man’s hand. “You’d mutilate our daughter?!”

  “We can’t afford to wait! She doesn’t have hair to hide them!” Myros hissed, gripping the blade tighter. “If we want her to have the best chance at a normal life, shielded from all the dangers to come, we must do this. It’s only temporary. She won’t even remember. Please, I need to do it quickly while I still have the willpower.”

  The woman clutched me tighter to her chest, her fingers digging into the blanket wrapped around my body. Blood stained the fabric. Her body trembled, but her resolve did not. “I don’t want to hurt our baby. Her looks should be a point of pride. Don’t touch them. N-Not…not yet. Let’s…let’s enjoy this part, please. O-Our child is alive and away from that wretched island. I just want her to be happy. Like I couldn’t. She doesn’t deserve that.”

  “And I want her to live.” Myros’s voice cracked. He ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair, his jaw clenched so tightly that it shook. “Damn it, Melania!” He slumped slightly, his eyes defeated and raw. “You think I want to do this?”

  Silence.

  Melania’s gaze flicked to the knife. Her lips parted, but no words came out. Her breath snagged as she looked down at me as if studying something fragile and small. “She’s perfect,” she whispered, as if saying it aloud would make it real.

  Myros exhaled sharply. “Melania—”

  “No.” She lifted her chin, her grip tightening protectively around me.

  Myros stared at the woman holding me, the weight of their conversation pressing down on him. At last, he let out a shuddering breath and shoved the knife back into his belt. “Fine.” He swallowed hard and ran a hand down his face, exhaustion ragging at his features. Then, hesitantly, he reached out and touched my cheek. His fingers were calloused but gentle. “My beautiful girl,” he murmured.

  The room swayed vapidly, blurring my vision.

  Boxes and barrels were scattered throughout the room. The walls, ceiling, and floor were made of wood. There was an unusual curvature to everything as well. Coupled with the peculiar movements, we were clearly on a ship.

  Myros and Melania looked around, their faces etched with worry. Myros opened his mouth to speak, but—

  The ship swayed violently again, far worse than before. All three of us were thrown into the air. I broke free from the woman’s grasp as she slammed into a wall. The man struck his head against the ceiling. Hard. I flew a distance away from them and became entangled in a mesh of ropes holding back barrels.

  “Myros!” screamed the woman. She crawled over to the man once the ship had somewhat stabilized. It was easier to see her body now that I was no longer in her grasp. She was ragged and bleeding from her lower half, so much so that it stained the floor below her.

  Blood gushed out of the top of Myros’s head, exposing the inside of his skull. The reason why was right above him. The roof had splintered, and sections of the wood pointed downward. One corner was chipped and looked like it’d been splashed with red paint.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “No, no, no! Don’t leave me!” The woman’s face glistened with tears. She shook the man’s body and hugged him. “Wake up, my love! Wake up!” she cried. “I can’t do this without you.” Her voice softened. “I don’t want to do this without you…”

  My head and body ached. I wanted to throw up.

  Tears streamed down the woman’s face as she made eye contact with me. A wave of determination washed over her as the boat rocked violently again. She looked at the man one last time, brushed her fingertips against his lips, and let him go.

  The woman’s body shook as she tried to stand, but her legs buckled beneath her, collapsing like broken twigs. A strangled sob left her lips, but she did not stop. She crawled forward, dragging herself across the bloodstained wood, her fingers clawing against the ship’s splintered floorboards. She didn’t look at her wounds. She didn’t look at the body behind her. She only looked at me.

  Her hands trembled as she reached out.

  “I’ve got you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around my tiny body. The warmth of her skin burned against mine, her grip tightening as she tried desperately to shield me from the tragedy happening around us. “I’ve got you.”

  A sudden, violent lurch twisted the ship, throwing debris into the air. A barrel crashed somewhere behind us. Wood split and groaned, the whole world screaming apart at the seams.

  Water burst through the walls. It was freezing, suffocating. It surged up, swallowing the floor, drenching everything in its path.

  The woman’s arm squeezed me tighter. She was shaking—but not from fear. She held my gaze as the ship shattered around us, her lips parting as if she wanted to say something.

  But she never got the chance.

  The sea took us.

  ?

  I woke with a sharp, gasping inhale—like I had been drowning and only now breached the surface.

  Sunlight stabbed through my eyelids, blinding me. My breath felt painful and ragged, sliding through my throat and past my lips. Something coarse and grainy pressed against my cheek, sticking to my skin.

  Sand?

  I tried to move. My limbs twitched, but they were sluggish and unresponsive. I willed my fingers to flex, but they barely obeyed, curling in weak, pathetic motions.

  A heavy weight pressed against my tiny, fragile body, warm yet unmoving. My breathing came faster, more erratic. Panic coiled in my stomach.

  Where am I?

  I forced my eyes open.

  Bodies were sprawled across the shore like discarded dolls, limbs twisted unnaturally, with faces frozen and empty. No rising chest. No shifting fingers. No signs of life.

  Only me.

  My heart lurched.

  Agitated, I tried to move again, but my body refused. I was weak, unnaturally so, as if I’d lost something important I’d taken for granted. My limbs felt…wrong. Small. Soft. Unfamiliar.

  Something was holding me.

  My sluggish, trembling fingers brushed against what was pinning me. I turned my head. The effort was excruciatingly slow, like pushing through a thick fog.

  And then I saw her.

  The woman from the ship. Her long, dark hair spilled around her face, veiling her features like a mourning shroud. Her eyes—hollow, glassy, lifeless—stared down at me.

  She wasn’t breathing, much like everyone else around me.

  Fragments of memory from the boat swirled in my head, slipping between my thoughts.

  The woman. The man. Their voices. Their desperation. They mentioned a ‘daughter,’ didn’t they?

  I swallowed, my throat tightening as the scene from before replayed in my mind. Realization hit me as I put the pieces together, now alone and stuck in silence.

  My limbs twitched, the weight of exhaustion still pressing down on me. Slowly—so painfully slow—I focused my gaze downward.

  Tiny.

  My hands…weren’t mine. Whatever that meant, that’s how I felt immediately. They were small, fragile, no longer the fingers of someone who had lived a long life. My fingers barely curled when I willed them to move.

  A tremor ran through my chest. My brain, finally catching up and accepting reality, forced me to realize who I was.

  This body was new. This life was new.

  It wasn’t me anymore.

  Baby.

  I was a baby.

  Not just reborn—reset.

  Those people were my parents. They must have been.

  The knowledge sat heavy in my head, pressing into my mind like a presence that didn’t belong. Everything before this moment—whatever life I once had, whatever name I once carried—was nothing but lost fragments I could no longer touch.

  I was empty. A being made of echoes, filled with knowledge without a past to ground it.

  I remembered falling out a window, a bird cage, a Goddess of some sort, a giant hand, and then…I was here. But I didn’t recall anything before that. There should have been something—people, places, a face I could call my own. But there was nothing. Only fragments of knowledge with no shape or meaning.

  I knew things. I could understand language. I knew the names of things, their significance, science, math, and so much more. But I couldn’t remember why.

  I had no name. No history.

  Just a body too small in a world too large to fathom.

  My head started to hurt, so I stopped thinking.

  Instead, I looked up at the corpse of my…mother. I barely knew her, but I was still struck with a profound emptiness as I gazed into her cloudy eyes.

  She never let go.