It had taken hours before he was allowed to return home with his parents.
After Kel had separated Nyiko from his parents the government agent made a few calls to HQ. It didn't take long for Nyiko to be in a room surrounded by government employees and spell tech devices. They worked tirelessly to confirm his identity; from interrogating his incredible memory, to hooking him up to strange machines, and even bringing a seer.
'How did they even get one on such short notice? Aren't they supposed to be rare?'
By the end of it all they managed to confirm that Nyiko was indeed who he said he was and brought the evidence to his parents. Now Nyiko was in his family's PTV, looking out the vehicle's window to see the bright lights of the WQSC. The ride was quiet even before Nyiko put on his headphones, likely because his parents couldn't quite accept the fact that he was Nyiko yet.
If they ever would.
Laying his head against the small pane of glass, Nyiko gave all his attention to the RnB track playing in his ears*.
'I'd probably fit into one of those high production lyric videos right about now' He smirked to himself at the thought.
Nyiko drifted off, not into sleep but into the frozen charcoal landscape of his soul. Standing on the frozen waves Nyiko looked to the small orbs of light that orbited his soul core and willed one of them to float towards him. With just a thought he made the memory take shape, white sparks reshaping itself into an owl mask.
Nyiko then summoned the runes of the memory:
[Fury's Facade]:
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Type: Tool
Memory description: [She was never good at defending her blind spot, whether it was from an attack from behind or the betrayal of her first friend. In her dying moments, did she feel anger at the betrayal, despair that her short life was coming to its end? No, it was frustration that she choked on, along with her blood, because she knew she had failed the teachings of both of her tutors.]
He stared at the description long and hard before he dismissed it and the memory. He made his seat among the waves and hugged his knees. He let out a shaky breath.
"Did I, did I have to do that?'' The sound of his voice was hollow and low but inside his empty space it travelled far and wide.
"Why did I do it? I mean, there was no reason for me to think that she would do anything to hurt me. Right? Right?"
Nothing answered.
Just like in the PTV, his soul sea was dead quiet.
******
Nyiko thought he'd be happy being home to be somewhere safe and familiar, but entering the large house stirred nothing inside him. No, that wasn't true. There was something that did come out of him.
A sense of nostalgia.
'How strange…'
He had been gone for no more than three months, yet it felt like a lifetime had passed, as though he was visiting an old childhood home of his. Well, technically he was, but he had been living here until just recently, so that label didn't feel right.
Entering the house only made that feeling stronger, details new and old started jumping into the forefront of his mind.
The cool blues and whites that made up each piece of the living room, the stainless-steel kitchen constructed in such a way that it would fit right into a slot for the cooking channel. In fact:
'Dead Gods, why am I only noticing now?' He lamented
The kitchen bore a striking resemblance to one specific kitchen he had seen before, the kitchen from niche celebrity Toliver Nooke's overrated tv show, "The Bare-bodies Chef".
'How did they get such a name through the censor's!'
The more he stared at each piece that made up the whole that was his house, the more Nyiko understood the reasoning behind the decision, and with that came the old memories associated with these pieces.
From the beaded bull's head that hung just above the living room to which he and his sister endlessly theorized on why their parents even brought such a thing, to the marble countertop where the siblings bantered about whatever nonsense they each saw on the net that day. Well, it was mostly the eldest and the youngest arguing while he would interject at times, whether the interjection was helpful was a matter of opinion.
The nostalgia trip ended when his eyes fell on a painting of the moon.
"Hey, are you alright?" A voice asked as a handheld his shoulder. Nyiko jerked away and turned to see his mother, her expression much more still than he had seen earlier in the day.
The tension in his shoulders loosened but his gaze fell in shame.
'Gods Nyiko, that's your mother you just shirked off.'
"I'm fine mom, just… I'm sorry."
Her expression didn't really change, she just quietly took the duffel bag from his hand and moved towards the stairs, but not before looking back to give him a smile. Nyiko sometimes wondered if he inherited his inability to put on a smile from someone, and now, that did appear to be the case.
The two of them parted in front of his room with silent niceties, leaving Nyiko to confront what lay before him. Opening the door, he was greeted to the sight of his room, which looked just as he left it.
He frowned at that, which was strange. Shouldn't he be glad that nothing changed? After all, if it did wouldn't that have meant that his family had given up on him?
Nyiko dropped the train of thought as he plopped down on the side of his bed, the soft cushioning beneath coaxing out his exhaustion. Awakened or not, that didn't change the fact that his body would prefer to replace the memories of sleeping on hammocks and earth with ones of his comfortable bed.
He drifted off into something akin to sleep, but something kept his mind active. Just beyond the dark veil did glimpse the movement of figures. Under the currents of silence did sound seem to dip in and out.
Something familiar lay beyond the sable veil, something he either knew or had known but before that anything could be realized a knock on his door woke him up.
'That was…strange. Aren't sleepers incapable of having dreams?'
He pushed the thought away, an action that was becoming a worrying habit, as he heard another knock.
Nyiko opened the door to see a girl two years his junior who shared his complexion, eye shape and hair texture. The only real differences between him and his sister was where his were slightly rounder hers bore a sharpness that was passed down from their mother.
Lysa gave him the once over, skepticism spelled out on her face as clear as day.
"Nyiko…." She said his name slowly, as if trying to fit the name to the person in front of her.
"That is my name, same as your brother's, who is me."
"Yeah dude, keep talking like that. I'm sure she'll believe you eventually"
Lysa's face didn't change, her gaze staying hard and rigid as she spoke:
"Prove it, tell me something that the both of us would remember"
Nyiko froze at the sudden request, but didn't waste any more time to answer.
"Well, there was this one time when dad was driving us back home from school. I remember telling you about how we all die one day and how, if we were lucky, our parents would die before us and if we were not, well we would die before turning eighteen."
Her eyes began to widen as she listened to him reminisce.
"Seriously? You chose that one out of 14 years of memories?"
Nyiko shrugged.
"It's one of the most memorable ones. It and what happens right after it. That conversation with mom was some of the most harrowing things I've experienced, and I'm saying that after facing a rainstorm of dormant beasts. At least I think I can call it that, I don't think they were coming from an actual storm."
Lysa's mouth dropped, only slightly though.
"A storm of dormant bea- you know what, it's not important and quite frankly I cannot get myself to care about that right now."
She pushed past him to enter his room, casually sitting on his bed without a care for its main occupant.
'I guess I can always count on Lysa to make herself at home when I can't.' Nyiko mused as he pushed the memory of that day aside, images of his mom on her bed in the dark flashed by.
Such memories used to be so much hazier.
Nyiko pulled a bean bag towards his little sister, positioning himself across from her. A silence settled between them, Nyiko waiting for whatever Lysa had left to say, and Lysa simply holding her elbows as she stared into the walls. The only thing that wasn't still about was her heel that continuously struck the floor.
Eventually, she spoke.
"You know I didn't want him… you, to die. I'm sorry I didn't say something that."
Nyiko wrung his hands together, unsure how to respond.
"No prob bob,"
Lysa stared at him incredulously before letting her head fall into her hands.
"Gods you're so fucking weird" Her voice broke when she said this.
"And not like how Nyiko was, he was my weird older brother that was still a lovable guy. He was familiar and comfortable, dependable when I needed him. I don't see him when I look at you. You're just…"
Her hands moved around the air as if trying to grasp the right thing to say, till she found it.
"...off-putting"
Her whole body seemed to slump over after she said what she wanted to say, like she expended all her energy expressing her thoughts aloud leaving her to return to her previous position of holding her elbows, slouched over. The only difference being her wet eyes.
Nyiko sat quietly in his chair, his throat feeling closed up.
What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say?
'I hate this, I hate this so much'
"I'm sorry". She said faintly, but still loud enough that it broke the silence between. She stood up from his bed and stepped towards his door, only looking back at Nyiko once near the door frame before ultimately leaving. Nyiko was once again alone in his room, only this time he actually felt alone.
Probably the most alone he felt in his life.
***
The feeling never left him as the days passed. He was a guest in his own home, someone who was simply being housed until they could leave and be never seen again. That's how it felt like anyway.
Every conversation was a short one, always ending in an awkward silence before someone excused themselves to do something else. Family dinners were unbearable, not because they didn't address him but because they seemed to be hyper aware of his presence unlike before where he could simply blend into the backgrounds. Then there were times where he'd bump into someone and they'd be temporarily shocked and confused about who he was and why he was there, before he had to remind them.
Eventually, Nyiko couldn't bring himself to come to those family dinners. In fact, during the final days of his stay he stopped leaving his room altogether, only doing so to eat something.
Finally, the day came he was supposed to leave for the NQSC.
For the Awakened Academy.
Nyiko made a request to Awakened Kel to have his transportation come around at an earlier time. He couldn't bear the thought of having his family send him off with a confused, awkward goodbye.
'This is better,' He told himself as he quietly made his way down the stairs, holding the bannister for dear life.
'It's better for me and them that I leave like this' Wearing Fury's Facade made it a strange comfort in this moment, he felt like the mask allowed to disassociate himself from his problems. The enchantment though, as he discovered from putting the owl mask on, was a little disorienting. Fury's Facade expanded his field of vision, allowing him to see from all directions.
That was why he stopped at a tapestry of the moon. Nyiko could see behind him a figure at the top of the stairs, obscured by darkness and Nyiko knew who it was.
"I thought you would be leaving later?" He heard his mother question through the darkness.
Nyiko leaned against the wall for balance.
"I rescheduled it," He stated honestly, there was no need to lie after all.
"I see…"
Nyiko waited for her to really grill into him, to interrogate on why he thought this was right of him to do. Why did he think he had the right to make this decision, but she didn't.
She only made a request:
"Could I at least pray for you, Sleeper?"
Nyiko didn't answer immediately, letting his focus rest on the Lunar tapestry beside him.
"No, I don't need it"
He didn't wait for a response, exiting through front door so quickly that he lost balance and fell on his face.
With a sigh he lifted the owl mask from his face, dismissing its enchantment and allowing him to see normally again. Lifting himself up, he saw his ride waiting for him.
Nyiko looked back at his home for what could be the last time, whether he survived the winter solstice or not Nyiko didn't imagine himself returning here.
'Goodbye, everyone. Sorry for being a crappy son and brother'
Nyiko turned his back on his home, his old life and those old memories, and moved into the unknown future. Or so he would like to believe.
[End of part 1: A very Long Nightmare]