I plummeted through waterfalls of crimson blood. Incoherent voices, both whispers and shouts rang in my ears, both near and far away. Echoes came from everywhere and nowhere, surrounding me, behind me, underneath me. I fell and picked up speed when suddenly the floor rose to meet my feet.

I was no longer in the warehouse, the lair of the Dearg Due. I was somewhere familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. As I took my first steps the world around me felt strange. After a few moments I realized what it was. My movements were making no sound there, wherever there was.

A wolf’s howl pierced the silence.

I turned in every direction, ready to fight whatever monsters lay in wait for me.

Then I saw him stumbling towards me, looking right at me. My father, Geralt O’Farrell.

For a moment I stood frozen where I was, too shocked to move. Then I ran to embrace him.

“Dad, it’s me Sean!”

He was beaten. Cuts laced his clothes and skin. He didn’t react. He must not have heard me. I put my arms out to help him up but he passed right through me like I was Casper the ghost. I turned around and saw him still walking. Confused, I tried again.

“Dad? Dad?”

And then Nehemiah was there. “I’m sorry,” he said to my dad.

In a flash, he summoned Bad Luck through his staff and shouted at my dad. My dad tried to dodge out of the way, but didn’t expect the attack coming from a friend. My dad fell to his knees crying out in agony.

I realized where I was. “I’m in a memory.”

I thought of how the Dearg Due had used Nehemiah’s blood in the basin. This was one of the wizard’s memories of my father. Possibly the last memory of my father before he died.

From the shadows the Dearg Due emerged. Aside from a slightly different hairstyle and dress, she looked exactly the same as a few moments ago when I was fighting her.

“What is your choice wizard?”

My dad begged Nehemiah in a whisper as blood dripped from his lips. “Don’t do this Lewis. There’s another way. I know this seems like the only option now but—”

The Dear Due backhanded my dad.

Nehemiah did nothing to defend my dad, but he shed a single tear.

The vampire queen hissed at Nehemiah. “Is this who you choose to exchange?”

“How could you do this to me?” screamed my dad. “You betrayed me! I’ve got kids too.”

“Silence!” said the Dearg Due and cast a rune binding Dad’s mouth shut. Then she rose to her full height and snarled at Nehemiah. “I ask you this third and final time. You want me to take his life in exchange for your son’s?”

“Yes,” said Nehemiah.

The Dearg Due smiled. “Long have you been a thorn in my side, Gearld O’Farrell. No longer. Children!”

My dad unleashed wordless shouts as children of the Dearg Due rushed in from all sides of the memory and subdued him. They wrestled him out of the edges of the memory while Nehemiah stood there, head sagging, letting them take my father to his execution.

The wizard turned on the Dearg Due, eyes bloodshot, face soaked in tears. His voice cracked. “Now give me my son.”

She cut him off. “I’ll set him free later. Once we finish with O’Farrell.”

I left their argument and sprinted after my dad, yelling at the vampires.

But of course there was nothing I could do to change history. This was a memory after all.

As I ran to the edge of the vision an invisible force yanked me as if I were a puppet pulled by strings. I was flung upward, faster and faster. Above me a small circle grew larger and I could see someone looking down into the circle at me. It was myself staring into the basin, into the memory. I collided with my own face and was one with myself again.