When Alex first woke up, he could barely think. The pounding in his head filled the few thoughts he could bring up. He opened his eyes and couldn’t see much. It was like he was staring through a wall of fog, and the light left a dull pain on the back of his eyes, so he kept them closed. From the brief glance he had, he could tell he was outside and moving.

The second time Alex woke up, his head didn’t hurt so much anymore. It still felt like someone hit his brain with a hammer, just a rubber mallet instead of a sledge. When he opened his eyes, he found his sight was mostly back, not much worse than when waking up from a particularly good rest. Except, that was certainly NOT a good rest. His muscles still ached, and to his dismay, there was still a searing pain in his side from where that falcon tore into his side. He craned his neck over to see the damage, and to his surprise, found a bandage wrapped around his torso. To his dismay, it also bound his wings in a rather uncomfortable position on his back.

He tried to think about what he remembered last. When he reached the forest, that falcon snuck up on him and tried to take him down. He pried himself away, and in return, it lashed out, leaving a deep gash running across his left side. He fled for a while, and eventually, it caught him and carried him to the ground. Then he fought himself, and the potion wore out.

The last thing he remembered was going for the thing inside his body’s neck and getting slammed into a rock jutting out of the ground. He was surprised he still remembered that, especially with just how much his head hurt. He could feel where he hit the rock, right on the top of his head, just barely in front of his horns. It felt wet, and if he had a mirror, he would see the bandage wrapped around his head was saturated with blood.

And yet again, to his dismay, the bandage was not only there to help him. It was also wrapped tightly around his snout, holding his jaw shut. That he could see, and there was no blood there for the bandage to soak up.

Where was he, exactly? It was possible Parker brought him back to the academy to patch him up, but the room he was in didn’t look anything like the ones there.

Actually, now that he thought about it, the room looked familiar. Except, last time he saw it, there was a dresser covered in trinkets, and a bed that was a bit too short for him. This looked just like the inn he stayed that night!

He immediately tried to get up, ignoring his screaming side and head, but couldn’t. His feet were tied together, stopping him from pulling them too far in any direction. As he struggled, a loud and high pitched bell rang. A thin cord attached his feet to the clapper of a bell suspended next to the counter he was laid upon. His movements shook it, causing the ring. The sound bounced around the mostly empty room, and Alex instinctively tried to cover his ears, only worsening the noise. The sound rang through his head, only worsening his awful headache. He stopped struggling, and eventually, the bell quieted itself. He heard shuffling from behind the door and snapped his head to look at it.

The door opened, revealing his own beat-up body in the frame. It limped through, and he noticed he wasn’t the only one bandaged up. The thing’s hands were wrapped tightly in the same material Lasair used on her arm to stop the gas from escaping her body, and itsit’s face was all black and blue from the fight.

“You’re awake, good. I was worried you would never get back up. You hit your head hard on that rock.”

Alex growled back at the thing, but it was muffled by the bandage covering his face.

“Now, you shouldn’t growl at me like that. I know you aren’t happy to see me, but I didn’t want this to happen any more than you.”

The thing detached the bell from his ankles, as it had served its purpose. Alex could do nothing but glare at his captor.

“I’ve never had anything like this happen before.”

The thing began pacing around the room, its limp making a louder clack on the ground with every other footstep.

“Normally, whenever the body I’m using is about to die, I just find someone interesting, and when they fall asleep, I take their form.”

The thing placed its elbows onto the counter Alex was laid upon, resting its head on its hands, gazing at Alex.

“You, though, you were different. Why?”

Alex did the best he could to scoff and rolled his eyes.

“Right, well, that was a rhetorical question.”

The thing stood back up and leaned against a wall.

“I can feel it in this body. There’s something missing. I can’t sustain myself with your… husk. If you hadn’t brought those rings…”

The thing shuddered.

“Then again, if it were anyone else to fall for the one-night-free trap, I wouldn’t be in this situation anyway.”

It was like torture for Alex, stuck there, listening to the thing blab on, pacing around in his body!

“You know, I tried taking another form. Who knows, maybe if it worked, you would’ve been plopped right back in…”

The thing motioned towards its body.

“This mess.”

That was too far. The creature not only stole his body but had the gall to say it wasn’t good enough for it? He struggled in the ropes again, but it was to no avail.

“Now, wait just a moment. Judging from our last fight, I don’t plan on hurting you anymore. I have a proposition to make.”

The thing turned its back to Alex.

“When I tried to pry myself out of this body, it pulled me back in! It was a void, sucking in anything to fill its empty cavity. And since it’s obviously still tied to you, with our shared wrist injury, I thought you might be able to… Fill that hole instead of me.”

The thing turned back towards Alex.

“I’m going to pry myself out of here, and you can hop right back in. I’m free from this vice, and you get your body. So, do you agree?”

Alex’s eyes went wide with shock. His jaw would’ve dropped, too, if it could have. He didn’t care if it was some kind of trick. It couldn’t get much worse, anyway.

Alex nodded vigorously.

“I thought so. Are you ready?”

Now that Alex thought about it, he wasn’t really sure what he could do to get back into his body. He hoped that whenever the whiddsoul did its thing, something would happen.

It seemed he would not have much time to think, as it did not wait for his response. Alex watched as the thing slumped back against the wall, sliding down to the ground. It threw its arms back, and shot its head up, opening its jaw. Slowly, a shadowy form emerged. It looked like smoke was oozing from its mouth, forming a hand that slowly reached out of it. A long, spindly arm made from the same substance trailed behind it, and grasped its shoulder. A second arm and hand followed suit, finding its place on the opposite shoulder.

Both ghastly arms pushed down on its shoulders, prying a round mass, seemingly thicker than the surrounding black haze, out from its gaping jaw. It placed itself where the whiddsoul’s chest would be, and more smoke spewed from it, taking the rough shape of a head on its shoulders.

The smoke creature clawed its way out of the now-empty body’s mouth and stumbled out to its side.

It was then that Alex felt a strange pull towards the now vacant body. Not strong enough to move him, but it was there. It wasn’t pulling on his body, though. It was pulling on his mind. He tried letting it take him, but felt an opposing force wrenching him back.

The whiddsoul, however, had no such resistance. It was pulled back towards the body with an immense force, digging its sharp fingers into the floor, leaving gashes in the wood. It opened its shadowy jaws and mimed a shriek, with no lungs to make the sound, as the strange force tore it back into the still-open jaw of the empty body. Once it was off the ground, all attempts to resist the force were naught.

As quickly as it had left, the thing was back in the body. It struggled to stand up, pulling itself from the ground with the table.

“Y-y-you.. Why didn’t you-”

The thing stumbled and nearly collapsed, barely catching itself on the table, before opening a drawer under Alex. He flinched as the thing pulled out a silvery metal object, but semi-relaxed when he saw it was only one of the orc rings.

The thing enclosed the ring between its palms, and a bright light shone through its skin and flesh, painting the room with a reddish glow.

The thing stood up straight and placed the ring back into the drawer, slamming it shut.

“Why didn’t you take back your body? You have no idea what you just did! That was all that was left on that ring! I don’t have any left! You… You… You…”

The thing grabbed Alex by the neck.

“I tried to give you exactly what you wanted... Why? Why didn’t you just take it?”

Alex felt electricity instinctively build up in his throat, but had no way to release it. He struggled in his bind as hard as he could, but the combination of his injuries and the chokehold, he couldn’t do much—panic sunk into him, as his lungs burned from the lack of air.

“I tried giving you the civil option, but if you insist on making yourself my personal battery, I’ll do what I must!”

The thing adjusted its grip, placing both palms around his head. It freed its airway, but he was now being lifted solely by his head. He felt the tension in his neck build up, as the thing did the same thing to him as it did to the ring.

As it crushed harder and harder with its palms, Alex’s head hurt worse and worse. The electricity in his throat began shocking him from the inside, with nowhere to escape to. Just as Alex noticed the same glow emanating from himself as from the ring, he blacked out.

When Alex awoke, he immediately felt something was off. All his injuries were gone, and he no longer had a headache. He opened his eyes, and found himself in a nest of sorts. However, instead of being made from twigs or straw, woven between its walls were bent sabres, swords, and other shiny and thin metal objects. Between himself and the walls of the nest were coins of various kinds, and a broken eggshell.

All of it was wrong, though. It didn’t seem real. There were some things he couldn’t focus on, or recognize.

Suddenly, a relatively large chunk of meat dropped in front of him, and without his control, he began devouring it. It was then he noticed no matter what he tried, he could not control his body. He was merely a passenger along for this ride. A deep rumble echoed around him, and to his pleasure, his head turned to look back to find its source. At first, he thought he was looking at a cave wall, until he noticed, said wall was the exact same color as his scales. Behind him laid another dragon that looked almost identical to him, only 100 times his size, and missing a bottom row of horns. He felt as his body stood up and walked itself closer to the mysterious dragon, and curled itself up at the larger dragon’s chest. His body closed its eyes, and fell back into slumber.

The next time Alex awoke, he felt the lack of mass behind him. His body rose with a jolt, and cried out with all its might, before frantically searching around the nest. This gave Alex a better view of the area he was in. Certain things stood out, like claw marks on a wall of the cave, increasing in size below one much larger mark, and a slowly trickling stream of water pouring from fissures in the cave roof to the side of the nest.

The larger dragon appeared from almost nowhere, much more stealthily than its size would have Alex to believe. It, too, scanned the area for danger. Once it saw there was none, it gave Alex a small nudge with its snout before disappearing through the mouth of the cave.

This time, his body did not instantly fall asleep. It, instead, stayed put, pouting. This gave Alex some time to think. What was going on here?

With everything new he spotted came a nagging feeling in the back of his head as if he’d seen it before. Deja vu struck him with every action. It felt like a dream, only it had all happened before.

With surprise, not reflected by the pouty form of his body, Alex realized where he was.

It was a memory.