I awoke to the same wooden patchwork ceiling I had awoken to, for what I now know, was almost a century. Just as I did every morning.

But today was different.

Today… I was awake, and I was aware.

That things, for the second time in my life, were turned on their head.

Looking up at the ceiling, a well familiar sight, now instead of indifference evoked a disgust from me that I had long forgotten the feeling of.

Spurred by this I sprung up quickly and out of the shelter as fast as I could to escape the rubble and trash that surrounded me, so I could get out into some fresh air. But that wasn’t what happened.

I had seen clearly yesterday, seen what I was, what I had become.

And today was no different. Just that today, where I was was finally becoming apparent.

I had forgotten what my life had become and how I lived through my days, but not any more. I remembered now. The trash and grime I had lived oblivious to unaware and unseeing was now as clear as crystal.

There was no not seeing it now.

I could see the dirt, the mud, the trash, the rot, the shit and all the depressing mishmash of miserable colours. I could hear the shuffling of rats, the distant barking of feral dogs and the shrieking of alley cats above all the other smaller vermin whose crawling wriggled around the edges of my hearing.

And the smell.

How had I not realized the smell, the foul odour of rot and sulphur that poured up my nose and into my mouth. The vileness of it.

Seeing it all, hearing it all, smelling it all as if I was standing here in this… filth... for the first time… I thought of Elde.

I had avoided the thought of him for so long, the agony of it, but now there was something besides the pain and the guilt. For the first time, there was a fondness and a nostalgia for the times we had had. But that too was soon overshadowed by a fresh wave of shame. Because with my remembrance of Elde came the memories of the last moment we had shared together, in conjunction with the promises I had made.

With the swell of all these things that I had left forgotten and buried away, came something I had lost long ago along with Elde too but was now hardening, crystallizing, inside of me again.

Resolve.

I had upheld the first promise… and now, It was time to uphold the second.

Clenching my grotty fists once again, now filled with long forgotten conviction, I turn back to my shelter and start tearing it apart.

Away comes the bits of wood, the strings that tied it together and all the other bits and pieces that had found their way intertwined into it over the years until I eventually got to the centre. I’m confronted afresh by all the junk I have found and collected, the dirty stinking piles of it, but I waste no time diving into it all and pulling out everything that has remained intact over the years.

The sun has long risen by the time I have gone through everything I have and I’ve luckily found some still reasonably wearable clothes and boots that I can make use of plus a few odds and ends. But most importantly, I have found what I had buried beneath a pile of bloody rags a long time ago. Elde’s flask... and our purse.

The flask has remained the same, but the purse has not. The fabric is all dirty and is crumbling away in my hands but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the pile of dirty coins that lay in the middle of it all.

I picked up a coin, expecting to see some remains of the slimy sludge that had been leftover from the puddles of blood Elde left behind when he last held it. But all I find is a dry dirt that comes away as I run my thumb over the coin.

All that was left of Elde… gone at last.

I take my moment but that doesn’t stop me. I collect the coins and all the other bits and bobs I have and pile them into a spare pouch from my collection. Everything sorted, I set off back to the river.

But not before I make a quick detour.

It had been maybe eight decades (probably longer in Earth years given the more hours in the day here) but there was something I had hidden away, buried for safe keeping, a long time ago. I don’t even know if it’s still there but it’s time, time to collect the money the wizard had given me when he threw me out of his tower. It was time to collect my due.

I had to make my way through some bushes and shrubs and I got turned around a few times trying to figure out where everything used to be but I found it in the end, the tree I had slept in all those years ago. Where I stared up at the night sky in this strange world for the first time, looking for familiar sights in the strange new moons and unfamiliar constellations.

Surprisingly, or maybe it should be unsurprisingly, the tree was dead. It had grown larger than I last remembered it but that hadn’t spared it from the passage of time.

When I approached it I raised my hand and felt the dry dead wood that was all that was left of the tree, the leaves and most of the branches long gone. I try to see the tree how I remembered it, but it’s futile. I knew with certainty that this was the tree but it was long past recognizable. With this sobering comparison came only one option for me if I wanted my money.

I was going to have to dig up this tree.

I had buried the money beside its roots all those years ago but the tree had clearly grown larger and now, I couldn’t distinguish one side of the tree from the next. Unfettered though, I start digging into the dirt with my own two hands.

I’m getting my money.

Regardless of how long it takes.

***************************************************************************************************************

It was two hours until sunset when I finally found my buried treasure. Sure, I felt elated when I found it but having now gone two days without food and spending the majority of this one digging through dirt, hunger and exhaustion dampened most of it.

But the day wasn’t over yet and so after walking back over to the river and going over my body and giving it a thorough scrubbing everywhere I could reach, I finally got myself together and walked back to town.

The pouch, though dirty, was still in top notch condition so I transferred most of my coin into it and then stuck it down my pants, an action I had long become familiar with living on the streets.

It would have been quicker going through the slums like always but I wasn’t having any of that. I spent a lifetime in those slums and I wasn’t going to spend another second in there if I could avoid it. So instead, I walked around it on the beach side until I got back into town and onto the docks again.

I knew I needed an inn for the next few nights and I knew a decent enough one for my needs. So only when the sun was truly set and after making my way through the darkening streets did I find myself at the Red Clam Inn.

When I pushed the door open and went inside it was clear to me from the barkeep's face after he took one look at me that I was not going to be staying the night. It was only when I put down 2 Cobits on the counter in front of him that he finally budged on his position and allowed me to stay.

With as little fuss as possible I had him have a bath drawn while I ate the chef special for the night, something equivalent to lamb shanks inside a vegetable stew.

By God… it hit the spot.

Dinner finished, I hopped in my first warm bath in decades and only after I had made sure to thoroughly enjoy it did I get to work washing away all the dirt that had found its way into the cracks I had missed in the river over the years.

Fed. Watered. Cleaned. And Exhausted. I fell into a long awaited mattress with soft pillows and clean sheets.

I had things I had to figure out and things I had to decide but that could wait till tomorrow. All that mattered was that, though it had taken me much longer than anticipated.

I had kept my promise.

I was out.