Page 6 of Light Leech

“My daughter.”

“Are you zegging me?”

“I know… she’s not real. I mean, I don’t have a daughter, right? Or a son?”

“Is that what that thing did to you?”

I know I had asked about our daughter when I was pulled from that trance, but if she noticed, she didn’t mention it. I nodded. “It feels too real. The first few minutes after, I was convinced that it was. Now I’m seeing where I was wrong, but it doesn’t make it any easier. It’s worse than any dream or neurospace experience. I had a whole life, Naoma. A wife. Two kids.”

I scoffed, doing what I could to keep back the panic. Zeg, I needed a fix. “Never tell Boyband, but one of them was named Devóne.”

Concern beat out humor as she kept her gaze focused on me.

“Syla was an infant. Devóne was like five, maybe older. We were sitting in a room, my wife and I, when those tentacles on his face came out from the hallways and sliced my family into pieces. I had memories of their entire lives. It was all so real. Whatever that thing did… it was worse than any punch I’ve ever taken. Can you imagine that? Imagine this whole life being a fabrication then… then just pulled from you?”

I spared her the details of feeding from her teeth over my infant’s body. It had already disturbed her enough.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s nothing. Just another obstacle. It’ll wear off like any other dream, right?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything like it, but you already sound like you’re processing it. Maybe this is why I don’t remember my past. Maybe some things are best left untouched.”

“But is sparing yourself that pain worth it? Those memories are you. The ones that I had–”

“Might have been a version of a life you hoped for? Who’s to say it won’t happen? Save the last part, of course.”

Had she heard me refer to her part in it at all?

“Boyband has a lot to accomplish before I ever consider naming my son after him.”

She smirked.

“Tell me about all of… whatever that serpent was. “

She held up a finger. “As long as we get to the light we saw in him.”

I nodded. Since our first “date.” she had given me glimpses of the spirit that accompanied her.

“Ever since I left Nichley’s ownership, I’ve felt that thing grow in strength. What I showed you in that diner wasn’t a secret I’ve been holding for a long time. I think I would have remembered it from working with Reef, as do I most of that job, but it was never there. Something awoke it in Arabasia. Maybe it was all of you and your ghosts, I don’t know. This was the first time it actually tried to protect me. It all felt so natural.”

“Do you think whatever he was trying to do to you triggered it?”

“Maybe? You’ve told me how your Gui always tells you to ascend. Maybe mine is as well.”

“You think you have a Gui?”

“I don’t think so? I mean, I don’t want to eat teeth.”

“Maybe yours is more pure.”

“It’s different, for sure.”

“Does it talk to you?”

“No, it’s not like that. It doesn’t even feel like a separate being. It’s more like an extension of me.” She shrugged. “Questions for the Luxists, right? They seemed to know about your Gui.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”