EPISODE XI

May You Never be Forgotten

It was blacker than night, yet had a sheen that could compete with the stars themselves.

It sat on a rather undignified pedestal: a rotting wooden crate covered in sand.

It remained perfectly clean despite this, not a trace of dust or rot on it.

It was a cube.

A door opened, bathing the cellar in the light of evening. The cube grew no brighter, remaining its dark yet somehow glistening self in defiance of the direct sunlight.

Nervous footsteps rang out in the silence, crushing the sand out of the way. The visitor raised a gloved hand, placing all the digits on the cube’s corner. Retreating back, the visitor removed the glove, placing a bare hand on the cube.

It reacted immediately. White lines appeared on the six faces, dividing the squares into smaller squares and then even smaller ones until the entire cube was white. It levitated into the air, pulsating the very space around it like reality was a mere pond.

There was a pained scream.

~~~

The sun was an uncaring master that baked the very earth until it begged for mercy with cries that were not heeded. The vast expanse of sand dunes rippled in the heat while the various cacti that dotted the landscape browned under the onslaught. A large rock jutted out of one of the largest dune, locally known as the “Egg Frying Rock” since it regularly got hot enough to fry an egg. At the moment, no one was up there, but it was definitely hot enough to live up to its name.

In the shadow of the “Egg Frying Rock” was a small oasis produced from groundwater. The cactuses flourished here, but there were few other kinds of plants since they would have to be imported from elsewhere. There was a town there by the name of Mican, but it was a small place populated by worn wooden buildings and tired people constantly under the merciless power of the sun. None of the buildings were impressive, and there was no central government to speak of. It was almost a lawless place.

The only location in Mican with any commotion was the local saloon, populated largely by grizzled men in wide-brimmed hats and pistols on their hips that wanted nothing more than to sit quietly and drink whatever alcoholic beverage was on offer that day. They generally didn’t care what it was, so long as it could provide a buzz.

It was somewhat common for the saloons’ patrons to barge in by kicking the swinging doors, so none of the patrons were all that surprised when exactly that happened. What surprised them was who walked in. Strangers weren’t exactly unheard of in town, but strangers who were young girls with massive backpacks, a bow, and a snake resting atop a wide-brimmed hat were so unheard of it made most of the patrons slack-jawed.

Amaris took the facial wrap and goggles off her face, cleaning them of the various bits of caked sand that came from traveling in the desert. She took a nonchalant sip from her thermos and waltzed up to the bar like it was the easiest thing in the world.

The bartender was a large, bald, beardless man with a glass eye. He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Don’t worry, just get me some root beer,” she said, dropping some gold coins on the countertop. “And however much water that’ll buy. Can’t hurt to top off my supplies.”

The bartender was no fool; he took the money and gave her a mug of root beer before disappearing around back to get enough water.

Amaris took out her GameBrick and started playing a game on it. Absolutely none of the patrons had ever seen such a device, and they continued to stare at the strange root-beer drinking girl with the snake. She even fed the thing with some of the root beer’s froth!

It was just too much for one of the younger men; specifically, the one in the cleanest, whitest suit in the entire saloon. He stood up, making sure his chair made as loud of a screech on the ground as possible in order to draw Amaris’ attention.

She didn’t lift her head up from her GameBrick.

The man took this as a direct insult to his pride and strode over. “Where’re your folks, girl?”

“Dunno,” Amaris said, barely glancing up at him.

“What would they say if they saw you here?”

“Probably commend me for making sure my water reserves are continually replenished.” Still, no more than a glance at him.

He bared his teeth. “Look, girl, clearly you don’t know anything about how things work in these pa—“

“Only men are allowed in saloons except for making particular purchases when no man is available, which is precisely what I am doing. Furthermore, you are a member of the White Hats, the self-declared ‘peacekeepers’ of Mican.” She set her GameBrick down and finally looked him in the eyes. “I know precisely what I am doing, sir, and I would rather you let me conclude my business in peace rather than try to run me out with threats.”

He huffed. “You think yourself an aristocrat, do ya? Some kind of educated namby-pamby?” He slammed his fist on the countertop. “I don’t give a bile gopher’s left tooth what you think is or is not legitimate. What I say goes, and I say whatever kind of freak you are ain’t welcome here.”

“I shall leave as soon as my water is delivered,” Amaris said. Pitch hissed in agreement.

“I don’t think you understood… I said you ain’t welcome here.”

Amaris raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to give me a refund then? It hardly seems fair t—“

The White Hat whipped out his gun. Amaris twirled around on her stool and kicked the gun right out of his hand, sending it spinning unceremoniously onto the floor. Long after the sounds of the clattering gun had ceased, the man continued to stare at his empty hand in disbelief. Amaris, for her part, locked eyes with him and took a long, loud sip of her root beer.

“Nobody comes into my town and gets away with that…” the White Hat hissed. “Get h—“

Amaris was moving before he even gave the order. She twisted out of her stool, leaving her backpack on the ground so she could leap through the air. The two men that had been sitting closest to the White Hat were in the midst of standing up when she kicked the table up, smashing into both of their foreheads. Twirling out of this motion, she strung her bow and aimed it right at the only other person who was getting up to defend the White Hat.

“Don’t,” Amaris said.

He didn’t listen. He reached for his gun. Amaris let the arrow fly, hitting the gun directly and wrenching it out of his hand with enough force to sprain the wrist.

“Good thing I didn’t hit your hand, that would have been messy.”

She caught the White Hat rushing for his gun on the ground. She took a single step forward, placing her foot on the weapon. Seeing that he was not going to reach his gun, he thrust his fist toward Amaris’s head. With a bored look, she ducked to the side and kneed him in the gut, toppling him over.

At this point, the bartender came back with a bucket of clean water. He was clearly surprised at the scene he had returned to but made no comment.

With a wink and a smile to the men in the saloon, Amaris returned to the bar and filled her various containers with water. “Thank you, sir.” She gave him a thumbs up and left the saloon in much the same way she had entered, with a dramatic kick to the doors.

Immediately, she left town, going south. There was no road in the massive dunes, but she knew how to keep her direction straight relative to the sun at this point. There weren’t any trees to get in the way here. After trudging through a few dunes, leaving the oasis behind, she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

She burst into laughter, losing her footing in the process and unceremoniously rolling all the way down a rather large dune. She didn’t care that she had sand everywhere now and that it would be almost impossible to clean before the next town, the encounter had just been so funny.

“Did you see me, Pitch? A cute unassuming little girl, making a bunch of grizzled men make fools of themselves! I mean… you don’t see that on the TV, do you?”

Pitch hissed.

“No, no you don’t, that’s right!” She stood up but couldn’t stifle all the giggles. “Maybe that’ll teach them to give ladies more respect. I doubt it, but hey, I can dream.”

Still finding the entire scenario absurd, Amaris took out her map of the area. She was actually almost out of the desert, despite appearances to the contrary. The dunes were scheduled to give way to mesa and much larger settlements. In fact, the next one on her journey, Unrust, was of a decent size. It was still a pioneer town, like the vast majority of settlements out here, but if her information was to be believed it still had proper trade routes and even roads back to the rest of civilization.

With roads, Amaris could find a way to access the best world maps and maybe get some idea of where to go from there. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was something.

Though, to be fair, even if she didn’t have a plan she’d still go that way just to end the suffering brought on by continual sandstorms battering her everywhere. Even covered up as she was, the sand still got in the most uncomfortable places. Annoyingly, she couldn’t travel as far as she could have in the forests: the heat made her take regular breaks, continually watching her hydration and energy levels. Technically speaking, she’d had enough water to make it all the way to Unrest without stocking up at Mican, but the desert was a brutal place and she would much rather be safe than sorry.

Plus, she’d gotten something much more valuable than water during her stop: a spark of joy, fueling her to keep walking the decidedly boring desert.

Sand dunes and half-dead cacti could only keep her entertained for so long. And the end of that had come a long, long time ago.

~~~

Tumbleweeds rolled, cacti became greener, and the dunes became small enough that somewhat regularly bare rock could be seen, dotted with the occasional dry bush. The temperature went down from “easily able to fry an egg” to “the egg would only partially fry.”

Amaris knew she was on the right track when she found evidence of a footpath on a larger, dune-less area of the biome transition and evidence of prickly pear harvesting. Unrust couldn’t be much further away.

It had taken her a day and a night to make the journey, taking the morning and the evening to sleep before extreme temperatures could set in. Night traveling was a lot less about managing water level and protecting oneself from the sun and a lot more about turning on the heat lamp and staying completely wrapped up.

Currently, though, it was midday, and Amaris had a town to get to.

She saw the Rusting Ribs long before the town itself—massive metallic structures that scraped the sky with their claw-like shapes. Each Rib was absolutely covered in rust that slowly wore away at the metal, hence the name. She’d expected to see it since the story of how Unrust was founded in the shadow of these ancient structures was a common tall tale across the desert, but she had not expected them to be quite so tall. They made skyscrapers look kind of pathetic.

It took two more hours for her to get close enough to see the actual buildings of the town, which were made of a mixture of metal and wood. Unlike the previous town, the wood wasn’t rotting and several of the buildings actually looked respectable. There were also actual roads. Granted, the roads were little more than patted down earth with some stones in them, but it was a far cry from the sandy streams Amaris had been forced to deal with lately. There were even a few steam trails rising into the sky, evidence of some steam-powered industries in the area.

She briefly wondered if any of the electricity in this area of the world would be compatible with her devices. She didn’t need it: she had a miniature solar panel and a lot of rechargeable batteries back from her time in Genk. But still…

Wait a moment. Why were the batteries and electricity in Genk compatible with her GameBrick and her heating lamp in the first place? She understood enough about how electricity worked to know that the ways it was transmitted needed to be standardized… and yet, home and Genk had had the same or close enough to the same convention to be compatible.

That doesn’t make any sense…

She shook her head—there was no point dwelling on that now. She had a town to reach.

A man in a soft gray suit, round hat, and circular spectacles came up to her from behind. “Greetings.”

“Oh, hi,” Amaris said.

“On your way to Unrust?” He was a middle-aged man with a long, depressed face who was remarkably clean for someone out in the heat like this.

“Yep! Looking for some proper civilization. Been nothing but desert and sand for a while now. …I know that’s redundant.”

“Oh… I suppose Unrust is a bit… rusty, to be called proper civilization?” He shuffled his feet nervously.

“Mmm.” Amaris shrugged. “I actually don’t know if it’ll work or not, it all depends on what I find when I get there.”

“You won’t find much I’m afraid.” He sidestepped a tumbleweed, moving to her other side. “There was once hope for great industry, but as far as I am aware, nothing happens there anymore.”

“Such a shame…” Amaris shook her head. “You live there?”

“In a sense… I’m Orville, Orville Inkwell.” He took off his hat and greeted her.

“I’m Amaris Kelvin. And this is Pitch.” Pitch lazily licked her finger.

“You… you’re young, aren’t you? Traveling all on your own?”

“A bit, yeah. Wandering around, hoping I find something.” She shrugged. “I’m used to it by now.”

“I wish I could help… but the people of Unrust don’t like me very much, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it all under control.”

Orville smiled warmly, but with a hint of sadness. “I can’t help but believe you. I wish you luck, Amaris.”

“And I wish you luck too, Orville!” She gave a thumbs-up… to thin air. There was nobody there.

Amaris blinked a few times. “Um… Orville?” She looked around, confused. There was nothing around for him to hide behind in the flat land. Looking down, she saw only her footprints in the sand-dusted ground.

“Pitch, did you see anything?”

Pitch let out a hiss in response.

“Great…” Amaris pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. Something had just been talking to her. A hallucination, a ghost, or what, she didn’t know and didn’t know how to tell.

At the very least, he was pleasant. And he didn’t ask her for anything so he probably wasn’t nefarious. Probably. However, at this point, she couldn’t be too careful. Something was afoot, and she needed to be ready for it.

Maybe today I get to help put a ghost to rest… He mentioned that the people didn’t like him. Maybe this is like the skeletons again. She took out her notebook and flipped to her drawings of the skeletons, finding more than a few imperfect lines in her sketches that momentarily distracted her, keeping her locked in the pages much longer than she otherwise would have liked.

After reminding herself of her many encounters and making note of a few inaccuracies, she looked up. She was at the entrance of Unrust. For the most part, it seemed like a normal town, although the populace appeared to be a bit cheery for living in the shadow of a rusty, decaying relic. There were only humans; she didn’t note a single other species among them.

What she did see was a large hastily painted sign out front of the town. It was a crude drawing of a man in a gray suit with a red x painted over him. There were also words, painted in the same red, that said “DON’T LISTEN TO HIS LIES!!”

Amaris swallowed. “Gonna be one of those days, I see…”

On alert, she walked into town, finding the population to be extremely friendly, greeting her with waves and polite hellos at the slightest provocation. It was a jarring change from the antisocial gruff towns that dotted the rest of the desert, but it was welcome. She didn’t feel like the people were going to turn around and shoot her for being different.

First things first, she made her way to the saloon. Inside she could hear hearty laughing and singing, but outside there was a small kiosk constructed out of rusted metal with a sign that read “Irene’s Attitude Solutions.” There appeared to be no items for sale, but there was a young woman sitting behind the counter, and she was decidedly unhappy. Not because she lacked a smile, but because hers was one of the fakest smiles Amaris had ever seen—plastered on her face out of some kind of necessity or delusion. Her eyes and body told a different story; small pupils, gloved fingers constantly drumming the kiosk in anxiety, and an inability to sit still. Her figure was exceptionally thin and had her body not been so angular, the form-fitting sleeveless dress might have been considered sensual. The black of the dress matched her large, overly feathered hat that was slightly too large for her head.

In short, she stood out from the rest of Unrust like a sore thumb.

Amaris didn’t really try to fight her curiosity. “Um… hello?”

The woman jumped, her eyes darting around wildly until she looked down at Amaris. Something about Amaris made her calm down instantly and, while still exceptionally twitchy, the woman found it within herself to launch into a rather boisterous speech. “Hello there, little one! I’m Irene, and welcome to Irene’s Attitude Solutions!” She held out her hand as if gesturing at something, but there was nothing but air. “Does life have you down? Do the hardships of frontier civilization beat you into depression? Well, then have we got the thing for you!”

Amaris was having none of this. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Oh, thank Dia,” Irene said with a sigh of relief. “You’re a lifesend.”

“Did you not… want me to buy anything?”

“It’s all anyone ever wants!” Irene wheezed, slumping down until her chin was resting pathetically on the kiosk’s countertop. “Even if they don’t need it, that’s all that matters. Just come to Irene, everything will be fine. Did you know you only need one treatment and it lasts forever? But noooo…” She suddenly stood up straight and pressed her hands together. “Enough about that! I never get to talk about anything else so let’s talk about something else!”

“All right… what’s the deal with the sign at the front of the town?”

“Oh, that guy?” Irene shrugged. “Local superstition. I’ve never seen him, but apparently he only appears in your miiiiind.” She twirled her finger around her head.

You’re one to be implying other people are loopy. “Why are they so convinced he’s lying?”

She shrugged with an even more exaggerated motion than before. “I dunno, because the legend says so?”

“…And the legend’s not very specific, is it?”

“Not at all! Just a random tall tale about a ‘mind demon,’ y’know?”

“Not… really.” Then again, for all I know, this is normal.

“Anyway, I think it makes for interesting poten—“

A gunshot rang out from inside the saloon. Irene immediately ducked below her kiosk, shivering in fear. Amaris had the opposite reaction: she charged into the saloon and kicked the door open.

The scene was the polar opposite of the last saloon she was in. The inhabitants, while mostly men, had huge smiles on their faces and were jumping around and dancing. A few women were there, doing much the same. The commotion had come from a gunslinger doing an excited dance with his pistol, shooting into the air with elation. He was still shooting when Amaris barged in, making more and more holes in the ceiling that was already filled with quite a few holes, but the bartender didn’t seem to mind—in fact, he seemed to be egging them on as he cleaned a glass with his wiry beard.

“Yeee-haw!” the gunslinger declared, spinning the gun around his finger. “Looks like we’ve got a stranger in town!” He pointed the butt of the gun at Amaris, grinning. “You all know what we do with strangers, right?”

“Right!” the patrons cheered in unison.

Amaris took a defensive stance, ready to draw her bow at a moment’s notice. It turned out to not be needed as the welcoming committee appeared in the form of the bartender producing a massive tankard of ale and gesturing for Amaris to have some.

“Wh… I don’t drink!” Amaris smiled awkwardly. “See, I’m a little young and I don’t weigh very much, so…”

“Nonsense!” the gunslinger declared. “What kind of person doesn’t drink? It’d be like taking Dia’s name in vain!”

“You do that all the time,” one of the women pointed out.

“Oh yeah… so I do!” the gunslinger let out an elated laugh. “Well tie me up and make me Her slave, looks like I’ve got some repentin’ to do! Woo!” He picked up his own tankard and downed several chugs of ale.

Drunk people are even more stupid than I remember. “Ahem…” She walked up to the bartender. “I’m traveling through these lands and I’ll need a refill of water, kay?” She dropped some coins on the counter that the bartender accepted without even looking. After that, the patrons collectively took virtually no more notice of Amaris, returning to their laughs, cheers, and dances.

She found it fascinating. The drunk mind apparently had no attention span, a disposition for big smiles accompanied by excessive laughter, and an intense desire to move. She hadn’t exactly been around enough drunk people to know what was supposed to happen, but she was fairly certain this wasn’t quite right. This was less inebriation and more ‘happy juice.’ There was more than just alcohol at work here, even more reason not to drink whatever was in the tankard she’d just been offered.

Fortunately, since the patrons were so caught up in their festivities, nobody was trying to make her drink anything. The bartender brought her the water she needed and she filled up her stores, thanking the bartender.

“Wait…” She tilted her head, examining the wiry old man with a beard half his height. His toothy smile was bigger than any of the others in the saloon, and yet his breath didn’t smell like alcohol. Which made sense, seeing as a bartender who kept sampling his product would likely have problems serving it eventually. However, he was still smiling.

Now that she was thinking about it, everyone in the town had been smiling and overly happy. Except… Irene. And Orville, but Amaris wasn’t sure he counted.

It was at this point the gunslinger let out a “whoop!” and jumped onto his table, dancing and shooting his gun all over the place, punching holes in the wall, ceiling, and even a few beer bottles and the clock.

The last bullet hit a random guy square in the forehead.

There wasn’t much visible blood, so it took Amaris a few seconds to register that the man falling out of his chair had just been shot. She let out a short shriek, jumping onto her stool. For a moment, everyone in the saloon looked to her, then followed her gaze to the now very dead man laying on the ground.

He still had a smile on his face.

“Oh, looks like I got Ol’ Bart,” the gunslinger said with a shrug. “Oh well. Looks like he had fun though, right?”

“Hear hear!” everyone else called, and the festivities resumed without missing a beat.

Nobody even so much as took care of the body. It was like it didn’t exist in their minds.

Amaris ran out of the saloon, gasping for breath. “Come back soon!” the bartender waved like he hadn’t just seen a man get shot. As she left, Amaris noticed that Irene wasn’t at her stand anymore. She got out of here. Smart. Yep. Getting out of here, great idea, don’t look back, just keep running…

She didn’t even bother to put her face wrappings or goggles back on, she just ran. Usually, when people run away at full speed with a massive backpack, they collapse in a heap before they can really think to do anything else.

The sad fact of the matter was that Amaris was used to this by now, and the all-devouring fear inside of her was soon replaced with coherent thoughts. The first ones were about survivability—running at full speed in this climate was a death sentence; she had to slow down, take some water, recover her stamina. Having recognized her own self-inflicted peril, she was able to slow herself down and find some shade from the Rusting Ribs. Making sure she was decently far from everyone out and about, she took care of her hydration needs and rested.

In her break, she thought. Something was wrong with these people. Everyone she saw was happy. When she’d arrived that had seemed a welcome change, but she couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been. Entire towns weren’t filled with nothing but happy people, much less frontier towns with limited resources in a harsh climate!

People weren’t this way naturally. Something had to have been done to them. Something that, potentially, could be reversed…

No, no, not again, don’t go there…

It was no use resisting. The more she thought about running out of town, the more she realized that this probably wasn’t their fault, that it was some kind of curse, and it was making them so careless as to kill each other.

Amaris looked down at the blue triangle hanging around her neck. Lifting it up, she let its cyan color catch the light of the sun.

Taking a drawn-out breath, she stood as straight as she could manage. “Right. Pitch? We’re gonna try to help these people. Somehow.”

Pitch poked his head down over the brim of her hat and flicked out a tongue.

“Starting with Ire—“

Orville was standing at the base of the Rusting Ribs, looking right at her through his spectacles.

“Scratch that, new plan.” She pulled up her sleeves and marched right up to the base of the Rib.

“Have they gotten to you yet?” he asked, with a slight waver to his voice.

“Something is very wrong with this town, buddy. I want to know what.” She crossed her arms in defiance.

As previously, his suit was completely clean. The same could be said of his glasses, but he took them off and polished them anyway. “I am.”

“Right, so, why have you made them so trigger-happy they’re killing each other? Hmm? What do you have to gain?” She pulled out her bow and aimed it at him… feeling strangely disoriented in the process.

“What? They’re killing each other?” He took a step back, aghast. “Why!?”

“I don’t know, you tell me!”

“I don’t know! The last murder was five years ago when Oregano Kid came to town!”

“…So the trigger-happy dance parties in the saloon are recent?”

Orville looked at her like she was insane. “Trigger-happy dance parties? That saloon has never seen a cheerful toast, much less anything that could even be compared to an actual party!”

Amaris raised her bow again. Wait, when did I lower it? She shook her head, narrowing her eyes. “When was the last time you were in the saloon?”

“I… can’t really give you a time?” Orville rubbed the back of his head. “It seems recent to me but that was diving quite a ways back.”

“Excuse me, what?”

“I, uh, well…” he grabbed his collar and tugged at it nervously. “Look, you’re the only one who’ll talk to me right now and I don’t want to ruin it with weird mumbo-jumbo you probably won’t believe. I’m just… Orville.”

“I’ve been kidnapped by a giant toad, hunted by a monster made of brass that trapped me in a time loop, fell into an ancient alien spaceship, helped forge diplomatic relations between a graveyard full of skeletons and their neighbors, and saved a bunch of cats in an alternate dimension from some freaks that stole their sun.” Amaris narrowed her eyes. “And now I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with this town so I can help them. So, Orville, try me.”

“That was hard to get out of you…”

“Stop being so cryptic!”

“Okay, okay, okay!” He held his hands up in surrender. “I just perceived that little speech of yours differently, is all. See… I don’t actually exist.”

“Oh that’s a la—“ Amaris realized she was pointing her bow at nothing, and not even where Orville had been a moment ago. “…Very funny.”

“I don’t really think so,” Orville said, appearing suddenly right next to her. “See, I’m not actually here. I can never exist. I only exist in memories. Past memories.”

Amaris blinked. Then she lowered her bow. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, frowned, and then shook her head. “I’m not sure which of my many questions to ask first.”

Orville rubbed the back of his head. “Well… I only exist in memories. Every time you think you’re talking to me, that’s just an altered memory of me. You actually said those things to nothing—often realizing in the middle of a sentence that you were talking to nothing so I had to go back and adjust myself into your memories again so you’d keep talking but that didn’t work since I can’t exist in the present and so I had to back up further and… okay, long story short, that little rant of yours took a long, long time to get out of you.”

“So… while you were saying that I was just… staring at nothing?”

“It’s a little hard for me to tell?” Orville shuffled his feet awkwardly. “See, I only observe memories by placing myself into them, and by doing that I often change them from what they really were. It is… quite a mess, to be perfectly frank. And since I can only be in one memory at a time—don’t ask me how long memory jumping takes, I still have no idea—everyone’s under the impression that I’m a hallucination or a ghost.”

Amaris tilted her head. “Well, are you?”

“A ghost? No. Well. I don’t think so. Ghosts can exist in the present, right?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never met one.”

“But, you said… skeletons. Those are ghosts, right?”

“Uh… no. Not at all.”

“How do you know if you’ve never met a ghost?”

“I have no clue.” Amaris felt the need to put her hand to the bridge of her nose but found that her hand was already there. “Okay, this is immensely disorienting.”

“You’re telling me. How do you think I feel?” Orville sat down on a nearby rock, taking off his hat and running a hand through his hair. “I live like this, with everyone convinced I’m a mind-demon ghost-thing that’s evil and going to kill everyone.”

Amaris rocked back onto her heels and sighed. “You don’t have anything to do with the excessive creepy happiness, do you?”

“I sure hope not!”

“Right. So, follow-up question.” She tried to grab his collar and found to her surprise that she actually could, and it felt perfectly fine. “How do you not know something’s wrong with Unrust?”

Immediately after this Amaris found herself facing the other direction and suffering from a bout of nausea.

“Yeah, interacting with the closest-to-present memory of me can be… unpleasant,” Orville admitted. “Sorry, but I felt like you needed the tactile feedback.”

“Don’t… try to touch you… got it…” Amaris breathed heavily, getting her gut under control.

“And to answer your question, well, I don’t really concern myself much with the town that’s doing its best to consider me a demon of doom. I spend most of my time with my love, Lila…” He held his hand to his heart and let out a deep, pained sigh. “Oh Lila, my love, I sit in all your memories, ignored, but patient…”

“Aaaaah.” Amaris nodded slowly. “Love-stupid. I see. Probably should get a doctor to check that out.”

“You’re getting better at finishing your sentences talking to nothing.”

“Thank you!” That thought is mildly disturbing. Scratch that, very disturbing.

“And I don’t expect a child like you to understand the nuances of love.” Orville crossed his arms. “I am devoted to Lila, and I will be forever.”

Amaris raised an eyebrow. “You’re right, but I’ve read enough books and seen enough shows to know classic lovesick nonsense when I see it. Let’s see, you’ll be over her in a month and find some new girl’s memories to haunt.”

Orville looked at her with disgust. “I have been at her side for five decades, Amaris.”

Amaris blinked a few times. “Okay, so maybe I am an idiot. But now that just sounds like you’re stalking her memory. Creepy.”

Orville deflated. “Perhaps you’re right… but she refuses to acknowledge me. I am but a hallucination to her, something that doesn’t exist… All I do when I visit her present memories is make her cry or scream…”

“Yeah, definitely haunting.”

“B-but I restrict myself to her past, now! Appearing, watching everything that ever occurred in her life… and… and… and this is just making you more and more convinced that this is messed up.”

“No, really, what gave that away?” Amaris deadpanned.

Orville merely looked at the ground, despondent.

Amaris sighed. “Look, I… I clearly don’t understand how this thing you do works, I am just a kid, but I’ve seen a lot. And being so obsessed with some girl’s memories that you don’t even notice that the entire town is on happy juice is probably a sign of something being at least a little off.”

“The entire to—“ He stood up suddenly, a big grin coming over his face. “Ah-hah! That means she must be happy as well! Perhaps I can finally get her to talk to me!”

“Orville!” Amaris was shouting at an empty rock. “Orville you get back here right now. I’m not done talking to you! We’ve got to work together to figure out what’s wrong with this town and… and… wow I really am good at talking to nothing like I’m talking to something.”

Pitch was staring at her.

“I’m not insane,” Amaris grumbled, gripping the straps on her backpack. “Back to the original plan, I guess… find Irene.”

~~~

Orville jumped himself back in Amaris’ memory to the last time he’d talked to her, at which point he felt rather stupid. He needed a memory connection to jump to another person, and it had been Old Man Strayer who had seen Amaris through his little micro-observatory in one of the Ribs. Amaris hadn’t seen Strayer so Orville couldn’t jump back that way.

So, instead, he jumped forward along Amaris’ memory, finding her in the saloon, staring at the body of Bart Tuckerson.

Something really is happening to the town… Orville shivered. This was one of the worst parts about surfing the memories. Traumatic events were often the most memorable, and he tended to appear in them regularly..

However, this event served its purpose—giving him a connection to Jimmy, who was laughing his head off at the bar. That man never smiled in his life… Orville pushed back through Jimmy’s memory a long way, back to when he lived on Outrider Street, and in this time Jimmy was scowling just as much as Orville expected.

Here, Jimmy’s neighbor was Lila, who lived in a small little house with beautiful green paint. If only that house stayed like this…

He waited in Jimmy’s memory, jumping forward and back a bit until he caught sight of Lila—at which point he jumped to her. Here, she was a young woman with a beautiful blue dress and a comically undersized hat that was more of an accessory than anything.

She was staring right at Orville with horror.

I’ve already been in this memory. This must have been around when she first moved here.

He jumped forward, as far forward as he could manage at once. Even this didn’t get him all the way to the most recent memories, merely within a year or two. It was immediately evident that the house had seen better days—the windows were boarded up, everything was extremely dusty, and a haggard old woman with a drooping face sat in a chair with uneven legs. The dress was still blue, but it was a dull blue that had seen much better days.

He was in the memory, so she responded to him with a glance.

With a sigh, he shook his head. He could alter the memory however he wanted, make it so she remembered dropping everything and confessing her love to him, make it so she was suddenly young again… and he had done these things, in the past. But they had never stayed with her. They had never been real.

Instead, he just let memories like these play out ‘naturally’ without any guidance from him. Which… generally just meant her eyes registered his presence and then refused to do anything else. Occasionally, she would start crying.

He did his best to stay in the distance in these memories, but that only worked when he had been in her memories for a while. When he jumped around like this, the strongest place in the memory was always nearest to her.

Orville walked outside the house. Her memory of its exterior was fuzzy in this era, so all he could see was the flaking green walls, but no specific scratches or marks. It was like looking through marbled glass. Orville knew what it looked like from other people’s memories, but Lila… Lila never left the house anymore, her memories were of no use.

“You used to be so full of life… and now… maybe, just maybe, you are again.”

He jumped to the present, or, rather, the short-term memory. The only memory where meaningful interactions could take place and be anything more than just a dream.

The house was every bit as worn down and decrepit as the previous memory, but Lila herself was dancing. Humming to herself the instrumental tune that had been playing when she and Orville first met. She was most definitely happy.

“L-lila?” he asked, stammering.

“Oh, Orville, my darling!” she declared, jumping at him with arms open wide.

Orville did not permit her to remember touching him… she passed right through, stumbling forward but not falling over.

“Orville! Oh, Orville, I don’t care that you’re a figment of my imagination, not anymore! How I could have turned a blind eye to you, I’ll never know—old me was a fool! But I am a fool no longer, I’ve never felt more alive!”

“You… are not Lila,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Maybe not,” she said with a shrug. “And you are not Orville… but why would anyone care about that?” She approached him with wide eyes and a big—too big, impossible, horrendous—smile.

“No, no, this is wrong…” Orville said. What did I think was going to happen!?

“Orville, dear, you spent so long trying to get me to notice you! Come, enjoy your reward!” She opened her arms to him. “Enjoy life with me, forever, as we were meant to.”

“Don’t you see that this is wrong!?” Orville shouted, holding a hand wide. “There should be tears at our reunion! Uncertainty! And a deep… deep connection! …What even is this!? Lila, darling, can’t you sense that something is wrong?”

“I’m happy!” Lila declared, without a falter in her smile. “I’m happy for the first time since you vanished! I no longer look at you and feel that the world is pointless!”

Orville froze. “L-lila. Be honest with me. When you saw me before… did I really make you…?”

“Oh, yes, but that’s water under the bridge,” Lila said with a dismissive hand.

“…I did this to you.”

“Did what? Orville? …Orville, dear?”

Orville shook his head—he’d lost control of the short-term memory updates, he must have vanished from her perceptions. Even though scrubbing the short-term memory to keep a cohesive conversation was almost instinctual at this point, it was not a mindless task.

And his mind wasn’t very organized right now.

“Orville, dear, you’re flickering in and out. It’s one of the most amusing things I’ve ever seen!”

Orville was no longer looking at the woman who used to be his Lila. He was now looking at the decrepit old house of a woman who saw no point in life, who just sat waiting for nothing, reminded every time she saw a ghost that there was nothing for her anymore.

“I did this to you…” he said, whispering.

“Orville, what are you looking at?”

“I’m sorry, Lila.” He hung his head, unable to look at her. “Amaris was right. I was blind. Blinded by myself… fifty years, unable to see what I was doing to you. I… I am just as much of a monster as whatever’s making you all happy.”

“Irene’s not a monster, she’s a life-saver! Though…” Lila tapped her chin. “If she turned out to be a monster that’d make an interesting story, wouldn’t it? Maybe I’ll write that, break out the old typewriter.”

She hasn’t touched a typewriter since she moved here. This… this is all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. He punched his hand into the wall, making a hole in the memory. How could I have been so stupid!?

He retreated to the past, to a memory where she sat in a chair and refused to acknowledge his presence.

It was in times like these that Orville wished dead men still had memories. Then he could take refuge in a memory with no fear of causing any damage. Then he could be alone.

But he could never be alone.

It was the way of things.

~~~

After searching basically the entirety of Unrust, Amaris found Irene.

Back at her kiosk in front of the saloon, looking as nervous as ever.

“Hello.”

Irene jumped like a scared rabbit made of dynamite. “Hello there, little one! I’m Irene, and welcome to Irene’s Attitude Solutions!” She held out her hand as if gesturing at something, but once again there was nothing but air. “Does life have you down? Do the hardships of frontier civilization beat you into depression? Well, then have we got the thing for you!”

“It’s me again,” Amaris said.

“Oh, good.” Irene deflated like a balloon. “I… oh my stars I was afraid they’d shot you for something stupid. You okay?”

“I watched a random guy die,” Amaris seethed. “And I’d kind of like an explanation.”

“W-what can I say?” Irene tugged at her collar. “The drink?”

Amaris raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, would you be convinced that maybe they’ve always been like that?”

“Look, lady, what’s making them all happy and trigger-happy? You appear to be immune,” or are the cause, “and whatever you can tell me might let me help them stop… that. I can tell you’re terrified of them too.”

“I, well, uh…” She drummed her fingers against the kiosk faster and faster.

“You were right,” Orville said, walking up to the stand. “I have been a fool all these years, taking advantage of the naïveté of love and squandering its fruits for my own personal vendetta. I feel nothing but sha—“

“Yeah, good, glad you’ve had an epiphany, little busy right now.”

Irene cocked her head. “What?”

Amaris put on a dumb smile. This is going to be pain. “Ignore that, I’m still asking why everyone’s so happy. You know something, and I think it’s in everyone’s best interests t—“

“You’re ignoring me!” Orville wailed. “I… I can’t believe this, it’s happened to you as well! Without you or Lila what will I do? I…”

“No, you don’t just get to crawl away! Stay right there and I’ll be with you when I’m done talking to Irene!”

Irene glanced at Pitch and then to Amaris, quickly realizing that Amaris’ wasn’t looking at the snake when she was talking. “Um…”

“Look, Irene, answers, please?” Amaris put on the biggest, cutest smile she could manage. Orville don’t you dare do anyth—

“Irene?” Orville looked at who Amaris was talking to. “Oh, you are… wait, Lila said you were responsible!”

Orville was no longer in Amaris’ perception. However, given the dumb look on Irene’s face, she knew exactly where he was. “Okay, Irene, listen to me, he’s not a bad guy he’s just a little strange an—“

“What do you mean I’m a… wait, where’d he go?” Irene blinked—and then her facial expression reset to what it was a few seconds ago. “—mean I’m a monster?”

“That’s freaky…” Amaris said, blinking.

“I’m a freak too!?” Irene shrieked.

“No, no, I was referring to the memory stutter thing that oh my gosh this is going to be impossible to explain.” Amaris facepalmed. “Okay, so, he’s a memory entity of—“ Amaris stopped herself when she saw Irene’s expression reset again. “Orville! You’re just making this worse!”

Orville appeared from behind the kiosk. “I’ve never tried to interact with two people at once before, okay?”

“How can you not have tried!?” Amaris asked, flailing her arms. “If I had sweet memory powers I would test out every way I could use them!”

Irene took her hat off, put it on, and took it off again, repeating this motion several times like it didn’t make any sense.

Orville adjusted his glasses. “Amaris, this power of mine is terrible. I could alter anyone’s memories as I wished. I do not have any desire to know the full extent of what I can do. Even limiting myself I still ruined Lila’s life! Oh, Lila, darling Lila…”

Amaris left him to his wallowing, turning back to Irene. “Okay, so, can we move past Orville now?”

“His name is Orville?” Irene asked.

“Let’s not dwell on th—“

“That’s a dumb name for a memory ghost. It’s also the name of that guy who stood up my great aunt on the most important day of her life.”

“Hey!” Orville stood up. “I’ll have you know that I didn’t stand her up, I was ju—“

“Orville, you’re in my memory, not hers,” Amaris groaned.

“Oh. Right. …Wait, she said great-aunt, how i—“ Whatever Orville was thinking about, Amaris didn’t catch the rest of it because he moved memories again, jarring Irene considerably.

“Wait, so am I going to start stuttering like her again?” Irene asked, looking more than a little queasy.

“I was stuttering?” Amaris pinched the bridge of her nose. “Uuuugh, I don’t know if it’s Orville giving me a headache or just the impossible mess of this conversation.”

“So just talk even though I think I’m talking to nothing.” Irene frowned. “Well, I’m doing it, right? …But that’s ridiculous and kind of silly and absurd. Stop interrupting me!”

Amaris slammed her hands down on the Kiosk. “Augh! Can we just stop!? I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with this town and how to help it! How about we shut up for a split second and get some answers!?”

“ ‘Fraid not.”

Amaris groaned. That hadn’t been Orville or Irene. Now there was another person present; the gunslinger from the saloon. And he had a gun pointed at Amaris and Irene’s heads.

“H-hey!” Irene said, lifting a hand at the gunslinger. “Randy, you feel good, right? You don’t need to do this…”

Randy glanced back at the saloon. “Hmm. Y’know, I’m not angry at you at all, and that trick of yours is mighty fine. But we got tradition, and that tradition is that the memory must die before it consumes us all.” He chuckled. “Seems silly sayin’ it like that, but I’m sure y’ understand, seein’ as you both were talkin’ to him and all.”

“Orville, I am going to kill you,” Amaris breathed.

“You’re right, girl!” Randy let out a guffaw. “Cuz if all who talk to him are dead, he’s dead too!”

“For the record, I’m pretty sure that’s not how this works,” Orville said.

“Tell him that,” Amaris hissed. “Scramble his brain so we can get away or something.”

“…I don’t like doing that…”

“He is going to shoot us!”

“…Fine.” Orville vanished, and a moment later Randy started repeating the same exact guffaw he had done a few seconds ago.

Irene lowered her hands and clutched her chest. “Oh… oh my… I was so sure I was a goner… golly gee golashing gra—“

“We can thank Orville later, I think we should run for now.”

“Huh?”

“The rest of the saloon is coming out.” Amaris grabbed Irene’s hand and took off.

At the same moment, the doors of the saloon burst open, revealing a dozen grinning gun-touting men and women. “Looks like we got ourselves a proper hunt, boys!” a woman cheered.

Gunshots whizzed over Amaris and Irene’s heads.

“Got anywhere we can hide!?” Amaris asked—knowing they were not going to be able to run very far in this heat. She’d already experienced that today.

“Uh… uh… idea!” Irene took point, taking a sharp right into an alley. A bullet went right through Amaris’ hat, narrowly missing Pitch.

“Man, I liked this hat…” Amaris commented.

“How can you be calm!?” Irene shrieked. “We’re being shot at!”

“I’m used to it.” Another point in the “I’m probably mentally scarred” column.

They made another turn, bursting out of the alley into the scant market of Unrust. While it was filled with people, none of them were aware of the hunt and just waved happily as Irene and Amaris ran by.

Amaris started to feel substantial pain in her legs. Good news: the gun-touting meatheads will shoot me long before I die of overexertion!

“This way,” Irene called, more to herself than Amaris since Irene had a death-grip on Amaris’ wrist. They turned a corner into another alleyway, and the spindly woman suddenly ground to a halt.

Randy was standing there, alone, with a toothy grin. “That was a nice trick you had there.”

“Bwha-huh-how!?” Irene stammered.

“I watch everythin’ that happens in this town, miss. I know you spend a lotta time in the sheds. Figured that was where you’d be headin.’ “

“Think about this,” Amaris said, “you’ve been affected by the mind-demon yourself, and that means…”

He chuckled, leveling the gun at her head. “I’m afraid I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about, stranger.” He pulled his finger back.

Amaris kicked up, knocking the pistol out of his hand just as he pulled the trigger, launching a bullet into the air. Irene followed this up with a decidedly dainty slap across Randy’s face.

Randy snorted, putting a hand on his hip. “Irene, what was that?”

“Uh… an… at-t-tack?”

“Irene, that was the least dangerous atta—“

Amaris kicked him between the legs as hard as she could manage, twisting her leg as she did so as to sweep his legs out from under him. His smile didn’t vanish, but the happiness could do nothing about the body’s involuntary response to immense pain. A swift kick to the head dazed him—but didn’t knock him out.

“I wish Jenny were here right now, she could knock him out like a light,” Amaris muttered.

“Who?”

They heard gunshots from behind them and uproarious laughter from the market.

“Who cares? Move!” Amaris gestured for Irene to take them the rest of the way. Irene needed no more prompting to take off at a full run to their destination: a large sheet metal warehouse with a big padlock on the front. Irene quickly pulled a small key out of her bosom and jammed it into the lock. Such force made the lock jam and she had to jostle it around several times to get the lock to release. When it did, Irene grabbed the lock in one hand and thrust the door open with the other.

Amaris and Irene ran into the warehouse, slamming the door shut behind them. Irene quickly slammed the padlock on the interior side of the door, locking it tight and plunging them into absolute darkness.

Amaris flipped out her flashlight and turned it on. “…How bulletproof is this warehouse?” Amaris asked.

“I’m k-kinda hoping they get bored after a few shots,” Irene said, blinking rapidly in an attempt to adjust to the light being shone in her face.

“I don’t think they get bored. I’m not sure they can feel anything negative!”

“Th-that’s right, but their minds wander, and if everything’s happy then, w-well, they don’t tend to do any one thing for very long.”

Amaris stared at her. “Irene, what in the world have you done to this town?”

“I don’t know!” Irene wailed, sliding to the floor and pulling her knees to her chest. “I just wanted Auntie Lila to be happy, and then everyone was happy, and then I was stuck because everyone knew it was me and I just I don’t know it’s all gotten out of control!” She grabbed the edges of her hat and pulled it down to her nose.

“Can’t you just… undo it?”

“Easily,” Irene muttered. “Except then they’ll all want to kill me for ‘messing with their minds.’ “

Amaris frowned. “Well, then, I don’t know, release them and run away or something!”

“Okay, hmm, one, where would I go? Two, if they’re not happy anymore, revenge becomes a veeeery strong motivator! They’ll hunt me to the ends of the world!” She grabbed Amaris’ shoulders in desperation. “You don’t want to know Randy when he’s not happy.”

“I don’t like him when he is happy.” Amaris shrugged Irene’s hands off her shoulders and turned to stare at the locked door of the shed. Listening, she didn’t hear any gunshots, though she did hear cheering. “I think they got distracted.”

“I’m not leaving here until tonight,” Irene said.

“And what will we do then?”

“Uh… uh…” Irene put her hands in her hair. “I don’t know! They’re happy but they’ll still remember that I was talking to Orville! And… this is all his fault!”

“I highly doubt that.” Amaris paused. “Okay, I only fifty percent doubt that.”

“He’s the one who talked to me!”

“And you’re the one with the ‘happy juice.’ “

Irene blinked. “…Juice?”

“I mean you sell something at that kiosk, right? I guess I… kinda just assumed it was juice.”

“Uh… no.” Irene held up her hand, waving her gloved fingers. “I kinda just… wave my hand and cause happiness.”

“…How?”

Irene turned and pointed further into the warehouse.

Amaris didn’t even need to turn the flashlight to see the cube. In the darkness, it appeared to be a floating white outline with faces somehow darker than everything around it. It was a little larger than Amaris’ head and gave off harsh shimmers despite the only light source in the entire warehouse being a small flashlight not even pointed at it.

“What is…?”

“No idea,” Irene admitted. “Found it under the Ribs—I fell down. Yes, it was painful. I brought it back here and… touched it, and it did this to me.”

Amaris flicked the flashlight beam onto and off of the cube several times, finding that it appeared the same no matter what she did to it. “This is breaking so many laws of nature.”

“It gave me the ability to induce happiness, what makes you think it’ll listen to the laws of nature?”

“…That… is a good point.” Amaris approached it, eying it nervously.

“Don’t touch it with your bare skin! That’s when it… got me.”

“As cool as happiness powers would be, I think I’m going to pass,” Amaris deadpanned. She took out one of her anti-magic arrows and strung it into her bow.

“Uh… what are you doing?”

“Destroying it.”

“Wh-hey now!” Irene grabbed Amaris’ arm and pulled the bow off target. “This cube is the only thing keeping me alive right now!”

“Oh, really!? And I bet you aren’t attached to yo—“

Orville appeared to Amaris, leaning on the cube. “Hey, looks like they’re gone.”

“Don’t touch that!” Amaris shouted at Orville.

Orville rolled his eyes. “I’m not really here, Amaris, remember?”

Amaris took in a sharp breath. “That… is technically correct.”

Irene groaned. “He’s back, isn’t he? Hey you! You ruined everything!”

Orville vanished from Amaris’ perceptions. Given the stunned expression on Irene, he was giving her a mouthful.

After about a solid minute of this, Orville appeared in front of Amaris again. “Sorry about that, I had some… things I needed to tell her. About me, about my beloved, about…”

“Hey, loverboy,” Amaris interrupted. “Maybe go back and, like, re-live the conversation Irene and I had when we entered the warehouse so you’re all caught up. Don’t worry. We’ll wait.”

Orville shrugged. Amaris couldn’t see him anymore.

“…I don’t think he had any idea what point he was trying to make,” Irene said, still staring at where she had seen Orville.

Amaris sat down on the ground, not taking her eyes off the cube. “I think between the three of us we have enough mental issues to fill an asylum.”

“The insane are generally just taken out and thrown into a ditch around here.”

Amaris shivered involuntarily. “Let’s… not talk. Orville will be back eventually. Then we can decide about the cube.”

The warehouse fell into silence.

Several minutes passed.

Amaris took a moment to drink some water, tossing the thermos to Irene after she’d had her sips. The woman proceeded to chug almost the entire thing. How does she survive out here?

Some time later, Amais got bored and started playing with Pitch. The action clearly unnerved Irene, but not as badly as the cube itself did. She was terrified of the object, despite her actions to protect it earlier.

“So…” Irene tapped her fingers on her elbows. “How much longer, do you think?”

Amaris shrugged. “I got the impression it takes him longer to live through a moment than we do, most often. He makes us stutter and reset our short-term memories to have a cohesive conversation.”

“That… is messed up.”

“You’ll get no argument from me. Now shush, miss turns-the-town-into-happysville.”

“I was ju—AUGH! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” She gestured angrily at the empty space. “No, we weren’t talking, I was just asking how long we should wait. That doesn’t qualify!” She stared blankly at the empty space. “You have no cultural awareness whatsoever, do you? You don’t interrupt an upset woman to tell her how good her speaking with nothing is getting!”

“Hey, he did that to me too,” Amaris said.

“See? She agrees!”

“He is pretty hopeless.”

“You two were just talking over each other, what?”

Orville appeared to Amaris this time, sitting on top of the cube like it was a chair. “And as for you, Amaris…”

Amaris held up a hand. “Hold that thought. Let’s figure out what we’re going to do here. This town is messed up. I want to use my anti-magic arrows to destroy the cube to end it all. Irene does not.”

Irene shook her head so hard that she made herself slightly dizzy. “I… that will probably cure them, Amaris, and then they’ll hunt me to the ends of the earth!” She pointed to where Amaris saw Orville, an act that visibly surprised him—she must have been acclimating alarmingly quickly. “You saw the conversation, right?”

“I did,” Orville said.

Silence fell over the warehouse.

“Oh, uh, he said yes.” Amaris coughed awkwardly.

“Good!” Irene stood up, legs wobbling. “And I’d very much like not to die if you don’t mind! Living is good!”

“Is your safety really worth the potential death of more people?” Amaris asked. “They’re unaffected by someone accidentally shooting someone else! What if one of their minds wanders off to become a serial murderer? Who’s going to stop them if everybody’s always happy about everything?”

“You can just…” Irene wiped the tears from her eyes. Then she lifted her hand and pointed her palm at Amaris.

Uh-oh, was all Amaris had time to think.

~~~

Irene lowered her hand to see a dumb grin on Amaris.

“You know...” Amaris said, stretching and leaning back as though the warehouse were a lounge chair. Her bow and arrow fell to the ground. “I think I was supposed to be mentally screaming at myself to destroy the cube? But I don’t want that anymore. This is pretty nice. Like, wow, I can replay that memory of Buddy getting vaporized over and over and you know it’s actually kind of pretty.”

Irene bit her lip. “I… I’m sorry, I’ll let you go later, you don’t belong here.”

“You sure?” Amaris tilted her head. “I’m pretty sure this would do wonders to help with my curse. Effectiveness of trauma drops to zero, woo!” She threw her hands into the air and giggled.

“Great, we’re all cursed,” Irene grumbled.

“Curses are painful things,” Orville said, leaning on the cube. “You sure you want to keep yours?”

“No, no, I don’t have to listen to this.” She lifted her hand and directed her abilities toward Orville. Nothing changed in his expression whatsoever.

“I’m not really here, whatever you did to Amaris can’t affect me. That said…” He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her close. “The same does not go both ways.”

Irene was suddenly back where she was standing a moment ago, head reeling. “You don’t… exist. You can’t make me do anything! I can hide inside this warehouse forever!”

“Can you?” Orville asked. “You have food stores, yes, but eventually those will run out. Then what? Go outside and hope they forgot you?”

Irene placed her hands on the warehouse wall, banging her head into it. “Why can’t you just go away and let me deal with this?”

“This is my problem now.”

“Why?” Irene demanded. “You’re a ghost of another era who doesn’t know how to move on! You didn’t even talk to me until today and I’m Lila’s grand-niece! You live in your own little bubble, you have no right to lecture me!”

“And you… are lashing out.”

“No, really!?”

“This is the best movie ever, wish I had popcorn,” Amaris commented. She started ruffling through her backpack, looking for a suitable snack.

“That’s messed up,” Orville said, gesturing at Amaris.

“And for all I know you’re rewriting my memory every five seconds until you get a response you like,” Irene said, crossing her arms. “You are, aren’t you?”

“That’s not exactly how short-term memory communication works…”

“Fine, there are several other ways you’re messed up. How long have you been haunting Lila?”

“It’s not haunting…”

“Then what do you call it?”

Orville sighed, leaning back against the wall. “Being stupid, that’s what.”

Irene’s fire died out. Instead of the usual emotional replacement of fear, she just felt sad for the memory-man. “…I saw her being so… so sad, all the time. And all I wanted was to just make her happy. And then… the cube let me do it.”

Orville let out a bitter laugh. “I know what that’s like. Be careful what you wish for… you might get it.”

Irene nodded, looking down at the ground.

“It’s not impossible to just leave, you know,” Orville said. “Amaris knows how to travel and the world is massive.”

“Leave…?” She shook her head. “I can’t leave. You know that. …You’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive.”

Orville turned to look at the cube, frowning. “Maybe… maybe it’s time for us both to move on. Leave this place behind, start a new life. Away from painful memories, ruined towns, and excessive happiness.” He glanced at Irene with old, sad eyes. “It’s wrong to keep them like this, Irene.”

“I… I know.” Irene sagged. “I’ve always known, b-but I just kept saying I had to live, everyone was happier anyway, and that this was the way things had to be.” She leaned down, picking up the anti-magic arrow from the ground.

“Ooooh…” Amaris said, scooting to the edge of her seat. “What’re you gonna do?”

“Release myself from this mess.” Irene, for the first time in a long while, felt powerful and confident. With all the force she could muster, she rammed the anti-magic arrow into the cube.

The pink arrowhead shattered into dozens of pieces and the shaft snapped in two. Irene’s hand kept moving until it smashed into the unscathed cube as hard as it could.

“…AAAAAAUGH!” Irene shouted, pulling back her hand and waving it. “Ow, ow, ow, OW!”

Amaris broke out laughing. With a growl, Irene removed her power from Amaris—to her chagrin, the girl kept laughing.

Orville couldn’t help but chuckle as well.

Irene blushed as she rubbed her heavily bruised hand. “Okay… Amaris, I’m blaming you for this.”

“How was I supposed to know it wasn’t going to work?” Amaris asked, standing up. “I was able to cut through spacecraft hull with that arrow.”

Irene twitched, glancing anxiously at the cube. “Wh-what even is it?”

“No idea.” Amaris walked up to the cube, frowning. “But I think I know what we can do with it. Irene, is there a limit to your power’s distance?”

“I… don’t think so?”

“Could you remove the happiness from the entire town from, say… a few miles away?”

“…Maybe.”

“Then I think I have a plan that’s going to involve half-stealing some horses.”

Irene blinked. “Wh… what?”

Amaris grinned. “We’re getting out of here, taking care of this cube, and curing the town all without dying!”

“…Why do I have the feeling you’re making this more dramatic than it needs to be?”

Amaris placed her hands on her hips and grinned. “Because I am!”

“Amaris! My heart is frail and weak and has been working way too hard today! Can we just… not?”

Amaris pursed her lips. “…Fine, I’ll stop. But you deserve it, and you know it.”

“She has you there,” Orville said.

“Now, help me get the cube into a box we can stick a padlock onto,” Amaris said. “Then we’ll need to steal some horses, but leave enough money behind to pay for them because we’re nice that way we just don’t want the horse guy to kill us or something.”

“You want me to steal a horse!?” Irene shrieked.

“You, no. Me, yes. The happy people do sleep, right? I’ll just do it at night. Now, ahem, mind moving the cube for me?”

~~~

Orville stood over Lila as she opened her eyes in the middle of the night. She made eye contact with him and then forcibly shut them again.

“There’s the Lila I know and love,” Orville said with a sad smile. “I don’t want to cause you any more grief, so I’ll keep this brief. I’m leaving. If all goes well, you’ll never see me again.” He laid his hand on hers. “I love you, Lila, and I was a fool that thought it only went one way. I’m sorry. Goodbye, my love.”

He jumped away before she could react, returning to the memory where Lila was given the “happiness” from Irene. Then he rushed forward along Irene’s memory until he appeared back in the short-term memory, where Amaris and Irene had just finished digging a hole in the mesa. They threw the locked crate with the black cube in it. After a moment of silence, they grabbed their shovels and started filling the hole.

Irene made eye contact with Orville. “I remember you being there with Lila, now.” He hadn’t even needed to adjust the memories to keep context, she spoke all on her own after only having seen him for a moment in the short-term memory.

“Hey, Orville,” Amaris asked as she shoveled more dirt into the hole, covering the locked crate. “Can you go back to any event and change anything in anyone’s memory?”

Orville shifted to Amaris’ short-term memory. “Absolutely. It’s not even that difficult. However, I’ve found that this does not influence the times where you remember that you remembered, so if I, say, went back to your birthday and inserted a memory of me replacing one of your most prized possessions with a ruby, you would still be able to access the memory of the memory associated with the object itself.”

“I thought you didn’t like to test.”

“I was… trying to prove I was really who I said I was to Lila. It… didn’t work.” He walked up to the two horses Amaris and Irene had obtained, taking a seat on one of them. “I was young and desperate. Still am, I suppose.”

Amaris and Irene finished filling the hole, patting down the earth until there was hardly a sign anything had even been dug there. The two of them climbed onto their horses. Irene phased through Orville within Amaris’ memory.

Amaris snorted.

“He’s sitting on the horse, isn’t he?” Irene asked. “Geez…”

They turned their horses around to have one last look at Unrest and the Rusting Ribs. Orville felt a profound sense of loss; he had lived as a memory in that town longer than anywhere else, and in the end, he hadn’t really known it. What had the people been to him, but an extension of Lila? Or, worse, a reminder that this was where she went to run away from memories of him.

Lights started turning on in Unrest.

“Ah, yes, that’ll be the angry mob forming,” Irene said. “Shall we run like the apocalypse is upon us?” After a pause, she whimpered. “Please?”

Amaris nodded. “Good idea. Though, before we’re moving so fast that I can no longer hear anything… I have been meaning to ask. Orville?”

“Hmm?” Orville took a moment to stretch his limbs.

“How did you end up like… this?”

“Oh, that’s rather silly. I was talking to this guy who ran a traveling puppet show. I’ll never forget that six-eyed mask he wore. Back then, I fancied myself an author and was talking about how I wanted nothing more than to be remembered. He gave me some self-righteous spiel and cursed me with ‘may you never be forgotten’ and that was that.”

Amaris stared at him like she’d seen a ghost.

“Amaris?”

“That’s… that’s exactly what happened to me…”

What? How is that possible?

“Can we move please!?” Irene asked. “I don’t know what you two are going on about, but surely it can wait until we’re miles away from Randy, right? …Right?”

Amaris had to visibly force herself not to ask Orville many more questions. “R-right. Lead the way.”

“Hyaa!” Irene called, whipping the reins and sending the horse into a gallop.

“Hyaa,” Amaris said, lightly flicking the reins. Her horse started leisurely walking after Irene’s.

“…You don’t know how to ride a horse, do you?” Orville asked.

Amaris buried her head in the horse’s mane. “Just… just tell me how to make it go fast.”

“All right. Just do what you see me do.” He demonstrated the proper technique in the memory. Amaris emulated it well enough to get the horse to go.

“AAAAAAUGH!” Amaris shouted as she held onto the hooved mammal for dear life.

Orville shifted memories to Irene. “She’s right behind you.”

“Did she seriously not know how to ride a horse?”

“She’s a quick study.”

“…I’m going to die out here. That’s it, I’m going to die.” She pulled herself closer to the horse’s neck.

“You did the right thing, Irene, releasing everyone.”

“Yeah…” Irene said, looking at her hands. A genuine smile crossed her face. “I guess… I guess I did.”

Two horses, two girls, and some kind of hard-to-define memory-based entity galloped off into the moonrise…