Chapter 2

Restless!

She woke up restless.

Her eyes widened with explicit apprehension as her heavy breaths lingered on the eerie yet silent surrounding for she just found herself caught in an unpleasant nightmare, no---

--not her.

She slowly started to take heavy breaths, calming herself down. The cold that she didn’t manage to notice earlier embraced her sweaty skin. She started to look at the bigger picture and her surrounding enigmatically intrigued her more.

Grey walls of plaster and papers and scrolls piled up on the wooden table. Not a window in sight and a wooden door in front of her. She couldn’t see many details because of the inadequate light inside the room but an overwrought feeling suddenly bloomed in her chest.

All at the same time, she felt nostalgic and not, she felt home and not, she kind of knew this place and not.

What does that suppose to mean?

Her head ached, making her grip her silver hair.  Nothing, not a memory, she could not remember anything.

'Who am I?'

That question rang on her mind as her head unpleasantly ached.

In instinct, she pounced up to the beam after a moving shadow from the other side of the door caught her attention. She too was overwhelmed by this thoughtless action for she didn’t feel something intimidating from the shadow. Worse was, the beam was too high for her to reach in her perspective.

'What is happening?'

The door opened, the seemingly owner of the room felt thunderstruck after realizing the changes inside the room, making his things from his embrace fall.

She silently crawled nearer to the door before the things even reached the floor. As the creature on the door appeared to be in a daze, she took that chance to strike.

She swiftly jumped over but before she could even reach him, his palms are now pointing to her direction and a fire, refined on the open-air went towards her.

Both were in shock, as she watched the fire coming closer to her and as he has known who he’s about to hit. Everything was so slow and so fast at the same time that a sudden and familiar sensation collided in the air.

He diverted his assault in instant and caught her off the air. His back felt the ground as he assured her safety by a fervent hug but in not less than a minute, he shrilled in disbelief as he found himself being turned to his stomach as she locked both of his hands on his back.

“Where am I?” Her cold and stern voice made him widen his eyes for that woman who locked her in place never once emitted such intimidating atmosphere.

She watched him being intrigued by this scenario. Being impatient for his answer, she uttered another question that made the inside of him felt like it’s being crushed bits by bits. 

“Who are you?”

It was painful to hear. His dreams shattered, the string of hope that he once clung onto broke. His world was painted with blinding darkness for the person he loved doesn’t remember him anymore. He let that excruciating truth pierce his heart and stopple his mind because before this scenario could even happen, he expected that, but never did he imagined, it would wound him this much.

Because whenever such an experiment of his, resulted in an oblivion, it meant he failed.

It has been years after all when she died!

As she slowly scanned the exposed side of his face, her chest ached even more than earlier. Her grip weakened as the pain eluded her from the situation.

He freed himself from her grip and readied himself for the unbearable scene, which is extinguishing her from living once more.

His hand refined another ball of fire, but a sight made him stop his hand on the air.

He watched the woman sitting in front of him, sobbing with her tears falling down her cheeks, and as she seemingly grabbed her chest in pain.

“Why does seeing you pained me so much?” she annoyingly and painfully muttered with her head down to the ground. Not being able to decipher her own feelings made things harder for her.

His eyes showed hints of shock and joy from her statement, as a spark of hope flamed on him in spite of the fact that he failed. It has been years of experimenting, trying to bring back her soul to this flesh and bone body in front of him.

Necromancy is not a joke and a hint of amnesia is mostly the reason to conclude that it failed, that the body and the soul aren’t compatible together. Thus, amnesia will occur, both for the body and the soul.

But her statement made him wager, that maybe, the lonely years of the soul made the soul forget but the body wasn’t able to.

Choices clashed to his mind, for such possibility rarely happens, no, it’s likely impossible to happen.

“You seemed confused, why don’t you come with me outside. Maybe you can be able to remember something?” Yes, he didn’t give up yet, he will likely want to make this circumstance go the way he wanted to.

Unexpectedly, she was calm after hearing his gentle voice, not so high, not so low and somewhat nostalgic.

She gave him a nod and wiped her tears away.

They strolled out of the room and found themselves in a sanctum wasteland of healthy green grasses and the starry night sky gave her a delighted setting. He watched her awed expression, making his lips curl into a smile.

“Minutes from now, Sirius will be lighting up the sky with his monthly performance.” He spoke up, that performance should never be missed.

“Sirius?” she looked at him with genuine bliss.

“The Star keeper,” He answered as he gazed up to the heavens. hoping that seeing that performance again would trigger something, after all, it was something these two had been doing years back when they were together, that is watching the sky light up.

There then, from the horizon was a blazing comet, as its trails of blue and orange light slowly fades away. In her eyes were distinct hints of amusement as her mouth agape, but it was then changed with an unforeseen realization, this scene has an obvious resemblance to the comet in her so-called dream.

‘They were the same.’ That rang on her mind.

Another round of the pain from overlapping scenes, settings, and memories made her held his head with both of his hands.

He noticed her struggle and immediately held her shoulders to make her face him.

“Are you okay?” he gritted his teeth with concern as he heard her whine of pain.

Is this it? Are her memories finally coming back? What identity is she going to have? Were his hopeless years of experiment with necromancy would be paid off right now?

Her memories indeed came back, her pain has ceased and the confusion became more extreme. How did she come to such a place? What is this place anyway? What is happening? Who is this guy?

She finally had the courage to look back to the dazzling night sky as she’s being held tightly by this unknown man’s arms.

She finally remembered who she is, she’s 'the' assassin.