This first one is called On the Road to Forgotten Memories. It was actually inspired by a dusty trip on Roblox heheheh— It was meant to be a oneshot, but then my brain developed the plot further, and then I didn’t finish it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Waylen’s mind was completely blank.
As if the electric signals in his brain spontaneously decided to move slower than molasses or disappear altogether. His mind refused to process anything outside his immediate vicinity. He felt numb and stiff; he couldn’t feel anything. This wasn’t how a normal human being worked, he was sure. But he couldn’t remember a time when he did work normally. In fact, he couldn’t remember anything at all.
Waylen had been this way ever since he’d woken up in the old house. Even that was being modest. The structure was a shed at best. Its thin walls allowed a warm desert breeze to sweep throughout the room, creaking with each strong gust. Coarse, rocky sand covered everything from the rickety bed he sat on to the broken floorboards. Hanging in what might’ve once been a glass window were dusty rags, tattered from the harsh weather they likely had to endure. Hardly a place a normal human being would step into, much less fall asleep in.
But had he really just fallen asleep in here? Why would he crawl into some random shack only to fall asleep? That wouldn’t make any sense. Well, that was considering if Waylen was actually normal. If he wasn’t—a reality that was becoming more and more plausible—there was a variety of reasons he could be in here, ranging from simply being peculiar to the supernatural.
Despite this, Waylen began to regain some sense of normalcy. His fingers and toes regained feeling and the expanding emptiness in his stomach became more palpable. He was hungry, he realized. Like any normal human being, he couldn’t stay here forever lest he starve to death. Finding food had to be his chief priority.
But that was where his problem arose. Waylen couldn’t get up. He couldn’t seem to muster the strength within himself to move even a muscle. His mind wouldn’t even send the appropriate signals to his body to sit up straight. His mind was the root of the problem. Normal human brains weren’t blank or hazy and certainly could register more than the insignificant thoughts flowing through his mind. Normal humans had memories and could at least remotely retrace their lives from past to present. It was his mind that was broken, not him.
Waylen’s stomach growled, inducing a pain he’d never experienced before. The wind was beginning to pick up, howling and beating against the weakening structure. Everything was warning him, foreshadowing the danger posed by remaining still. But he still couldn’t force himself into motion. His mind protested any amount of movement and his vision was steadily clouding. He desperately begged for sleep, though he knew succumbing to it might prove fatal.
His world slowly leaned sideways until his head hit the shredded, dusty pillow with a soft thud. Barely able to distinguish his own thoughts from the sound of the whistling wind, he fell into a fitful sleep somewhere between alert and drowsiness. That’s when it occurred. It couldn’t have been anything else. Somewhere deep inside himself, Waylen retrieved a memory.
✵ ✵ ✵
Waylen lay, thrashing around wildly in his blue blanket-covered bed. Discarded clothes and toys were hastily strewn around the room, but he could care less for the useless items. Cool, evening sunlight poured in from his open window but did nothing to improve his condition.
He was hot and cold simultaneously. Sweating and shivering all at once. How did that even happen? He slid the covers on, he was burning. He threw the covers off, he was freezing. His stuffy nose prevented all oxygen from entering his lungs. A headache wracked his head whenever something decided to shine too bright for comfort. Sleep would help momentarily, but every five minutes he’d be awakened by nightmarish fever dreams of those horrifying monsters.
“It will work,” the doctor had said. “You’ll be fine,” he’d insisted. Another had told him, “This alone might make a difference in the world!” But all they did was press him to endure this suffering. And for what? Nothing. Waylen was completely sure of that.
“Waylie!” a soft voice called through the blur of his fever, “I brought you some food. Please sit up to eat it, okay?”
Waylen’s stomach churned at the prospect of forcing down more food. He couldn’t eat more. He just wouldn’t. He shoved the blankets over his head, instantly plunging him into the burning, stuffy darkness.
“I’m not hungry, Mom!” he cried. There was a long silence before he heard the clack of a tray being set on his dresser. Gentle hands pulled off his blankets, the air assaulting his unprotected skin with shivers. Shakily, Waylen attempted to hide back underneath the covers, willing to tolerate the sickening heat they brought on to escape her insistent commands. Instead, he found his frantic teal eyes staring into concerned brown ones.
“Waylie, I know you’re not feeling very well right now, but you need to eat something or you won’t get any better, alright? You need the nutrients.”
Waylen opened his mouth to protest yet again but closed it soon after. He knew she was right. He’d stay in this terrible, sick, feverish state forever if he didn’t get some food.
“Okay…” he mumbled, as a plate of food was handed to him. Hesitantly, he managed to choke down a few orange slices, but he already felt a little healthier. His headache had disappeared and his nose was clearing up. The food appeared increasingly more appetizing as he continued and the soft voice beside him chuckled. Maybe everything wouldn’t turn out as terribly as he once thought…
That’s the end heheh
I just got a thought to just make this into Waylen lore #1… maybe I’ll continue it later…
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This one the first chapter of The Daughter of Lightning. Yes, that one story I said I’d never write. I actually probably will now (idk random burst of inspiration ig), but I’m not sure if it’ll actually include this part anymore so might as well share it.
Oh wait, the chapter’s called “My First Storm”
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January 18, 1974, Kieran, Tatriaca
Jessie trudged home after another long day of being out in the world. Tightly, she clutched to her chest a thick book, hoping to shield it from the rain that threatened to pour at any minute. The cold, crisp air forced her to pull on the hood of her hunter-green jacket. Her small face held the biggest pout she could muster.
It definitely wasn’t the most common sight to see a six-year-old storming from the library at 7 p.m. But Jessie was far from a common sight. She stood at least three inches shorter than most girls in her town but was also twice as strong as all of them combined. She wore blue jean overalls, which was completely unorthodox for a girl her age, plus her jacket if it was cold. Occasionally, only if it were absolutely required of her, she’d wear a dress. Her long blonde, almost white, hair fell limp upon her shoulders, shimmering like tinsel in the light from the streetlamps.
But what really intrigued most people was her eyes. Big bright blue ones that either sparkled with an intelligence beyond her years or burned with a fury far less trivial than you’d think. Currently, the latter remained true. Anyone who walked past her could’ve sworn they could feel her anger crackling from a mile away.
Under her breath, she muttered a string of words about how other people shouldn’t be able to affect her.
“After all,” she murmured, “who are they to speak? They’re just stupid little silly girls who’ll never amount to anything.”
But if that were so true, why did their words make her want to curl up in a ball and cry? Why did tears come to her eyes every time she thought of those hurtful words? Sure, she was able to put on her “brave girl” facade and stand up for herself in the moment, but she was still left with that terrible, awful feeling. Like a bad aftertaste that remained, lingering in her heart, never to be removed. It took all Jessie’s willpower not to break down into sobs as she approached her little house.
Jessie’s house certainly wasn’t a large one, but it was the perfect size for her and her mother. Her whole life it’d always been just her and Mama. Surprisingly, there was never any talk about her family members, not even her father. The most Jessie had ever seen of her relatives was the small picture frame of Mama and her grandmother that sat in the front room. Whether it was that her father had died early on or his leaving was all too traumatic for Mama to speak of, Jessie never knew. But of all the questions she had, she’d never expressed a desire to learn more about her father. She was quite content without him.
Their house itself was perfectly symmetrical, which always satisfied Jessie each time she saw it. It was only one story, but the attic was large and roomy enough to be counted as an extra floor. Three windows sat facing the sidewalk: the left one looking into the kitchen, the right into the front room, and the top, the one above the door, into the attic. In the middle of it all, though, was the big red door that served as the centerpiece for the face of the house. A bold contrast to the whitewashed walls and dull grays and greens she passed by every day.
This, however, did little to comfort Jessie as she reached up to turn the knob, creaking the door open. Predictably, the door was already unlocked, indicating Mama had been waiting for her. Most mothers probably wouldn’t trust their children to let themselves inside, let alone walk the streets civilly, especially after dark. But Jessie had shown on many occasions, not only the maturity to do both, but the punctuality most kids did not possess, to do so on time. Hence why the clock read exactly 7:05 as she entered the room.
Instantly, she was struck with the warmth of a heated house and the inviting smells of Mama’s best stew drifting from the kitchen. It almost made Jessie cry again to see how oblivious her mother was to the hardships she had to deal with every day. Problems not even she could solve.
Jessie lugged her heavy book onto the dark maroon-red couch, one that matched almost every accent in the house. Just one glance around the room and you could already guess Mama’s favorite color. From the door outside, to the napkins she set at the dinner table, everything was red. Jessie always felt the color represented Mama exactly. Her unrivaled beauty, her never-ending love, and her passion to protect her daughter with her life, if necessary, was all wrapped up in a bundle of red.
Personally, Jessie preferred yellow. It didn’t characterize her as well as red did Mama; she wasn’t nearly as optimistic as the color suggested, nor did she hold the confidence and energy that radiated from it. It didn’t even look nice on her as it “conflicted with her hair color” as one of the girls had insolently commented. It seemed pretty appealing everywhere else, though. But those colors were saved for her room.
Jessie’s shuffling caused Mama to gaze up from her pot on the stove. She had always been incomparably beautiful, so much so that, like Jessie, people just stopped and stared. Her deep brown eyes elegantly complimented her naturally wavy, amber hair that gracefully cascaded down her back. Much unlike Jessie’s knots that had to be painfully combed out by her mother at the most inconvenient times.
“Hey, Jessie, dear,” Mama greeted her daughter. “How you doing?”
Jessie answered truthfully and honestly, like she always did, “Not good.”
Mama sighed and set the spoon she was holding on the counter, her eyes filled with sympathy, “Oh, Jessie, what happened?”
“Everything,” Tears prickled at the corners of Jessie’s eyes. “The girls made fun of me again.”
Hahaha the end >:3
Dw I’ll actually probably finish this at some point, you’ll get to see the rest, I promise (I think)
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(ALSO, I’M WORKING ON THAT REO STORY DW I’M ON IT AHHHHHH)
