Elsewhere, somebody awoke in bed. They opened their eyes and looked around.

  Where am I?

  The room was clean and sparsely furnished. Aside from the bed, the room had a couple chairs, a small table, and a chest of drawers whose top was a lone island of clutter. The air moved with a slight breeze but the walls had no windows, only bare cobblestone.

  What is this place?

  Getting up, their body felt weak and stiff. While rising they accidentally bumped the table, clattering a bowl of an ambiguous wet-looking mush that was on top of it.

  How did I get here?

  They spotted the lone door to the room, which answered that question. On the way there, though, was a wall mirror just above the drawers. The man in the mirror was another unfamiliar thing.

  I’m… a guy? I’m kinda old too! Wait… that shouldn’t be surprising. Something isn’t right.

  He looked down at the clutter and was struck that he didn’t recognize any of it. Something which looked like a smooth candlestick caught his eye. Its base was oddly large, it was covered in strange markings, and the spot on top was rounded in such a way that any candle would immediately fall off of it. Stranger, the markings became most ornate on the bottom of the thing, which nobody would see without picking it up.

  “Uh…”

  The man looked over. A young brunette in a light blue tabard was standing in the doorway with a look of confusion and fear. He followed her gaze until it landed on the not-candlestick in his hand.

  “Oh, uh, sorry,” he said, putting it back down.

  This seemed to put her at ease. However, she then said “stay here” and ran off while calling for a doctor. The man peeked out the door to watch her go.

  So… hospital maybe? Maybe not, these walls don’t exactly scream “doctor’s office”.

  Peeking further, he noticed there was a small letter board next to the door. It read a single word: Naiouyubi.

  Maybe… a name? Seems foreign… that’s a lot of vowels.

  The hall was lined with doorways similar to his, each with a similar letter board. The man wandered over to the nearest one: Rioshkaltis.

  Also weird, but in a completely different way. Maybe they come from different places?

  “Yubi! You’re awake!”

  The voice had come from within the room the man was standing by. The interior of this room was similar to the one he’d woken up in: bed, drawers, chairs, table. Another, burlier man sat half-covered on the bed, looking out through an open door. The hall was empty and there was nobody else in the room.

  “Are… you talking to me?”

  “What?” the man in the room laughed, “Of course, my friend! You stand before me like hope itself incarnate! Seeing you is like seeing the sun return to a world of darkness, Yubi!”

  “Uh…” Wait, so that was my name? “Right… It’s good to see you too… em… Roi- no… Rios cal… Rio. Shkal. Tis. Right. Rioshkaltis.”

  “Wha- Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my name?”

  Naiouyubi chuckled, “I was surprised to learn my own name just now.”

  All the life drained from Rioshkaltis’ face. “You forgot your own name? Have you also forgotten the promise?”

  “I… uh… maybe, but I think a doctor’s coming. I’ll ask.”

  The other man was silent for a moment. Then, “Yubi. I’ll pray that your memory heals. After that, we need to talk. A lot has happened while you were away.”

  “Righto. I’ll do my best and… uh… head back to my room now.”

  He waved to the man in the room, the latter did not wave back.

  In his own room, the mirror captured Yubi’s attention again. Apparently, he was a middle aged man with short black hair which greyed a bit at the temples. His skin felt real when he pinched it. His nose wasn’t abnormal, but its shape felt wrong. The hair growing on his face and his arms and his legs felt itchy and disgusting. The objects below the mirror didn’t seem to include a razor.

  Why is my body like this? Has it always been like this? Why don’t I remember it being like this? When was the last time I showered? Who was that with the weird name? Why do I have a weird name? How can my own name sound weird?

  “Eep!” Yubi fell from a squat at a knock on the door. After standing, “Are you the doctor?”

  The woman in the doorway looked as though she’d just seen a ghost. “I am.” She gestured toward the chairs. Her outfit was similar to that of the girl from earlier, only she wore a long-sleeved garment under her tabard.

  I should get one of those.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Erm… I feel alright but I can’t remember anything.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing. Only re-learned my own name a couple minutes ago. I’m not sure where I am or how I got here.” He chuckled, “Everything feels like some sort of weird dream.”

  “So you don’t recognize the names Aiyaloya and Voilauisan?”

  “Honestly those don’t even sound like names to me.”

  “Okay,” she said, “wait here a moment.”

  As the doctor left, the girl from earlier entered and took her seat. She was noticeably younger than the doctor, maybe even a child.

  Yubi asked, “So if she’s the doctor, does that make you…?”

  “I’m an apprentice healer.”

  “Not a nurse?”

  “No?” she said, confused, “I don’t have children.”

  “What?”

  “You asked if I nurse?”

  “No I… um…” Yubi shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “The doctor told me to ask you some questions to diagnose the severity of your amnesia.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  When did she do that? “Alright.”

  “What color is the sky?”

  “Blue.”

  “How long does a person live?”

  “About eighty years.”

  “How many days are in a year?”

  “Three hundred sixty five. And a quarter, I guess, because of leap years.”

  For a moment the apprentice looked shocked, but she hid it quickly. “How old are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What is your wife’s name?”

  “I have a wife?”

  “So you don’t know?”

  “I guess not.”

  “What is the most powerful weapon?”

  “Probably the atomic bomb.”

  “The… what? What is that?”

  Yubi thought for a moment. “I’m not sure, actually. Weird.”

  The sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway.

  “Alright, that’s all,” the apprentice said. “Also, a year is only three hundred sixty days.”

  “It… it is?”

  The apprentice left and a moment later the doctor returned. They didn’t seem to exchange words in the hallway. The doctor pushed the mush bowl on the table to the side to make room for a jar of white powder. This revealed some markings on the table, similar to those on the thing that wasn’t a candlestick.

  “I forgot to mention it earlier, but my arms and legs are feeling a bit stiff.”

  “That makes sense, you’ve been asleep for over a month.”

  “A- a month!?”

  “Do you remember how to operate a diagram?”

  “Wha- er- no. I’m not even sure what that means.”

  “I suspected as much.” She reached under her clothes, presumably into a pocket, and pulled out a rock and a piece of wood. “Do you remember how to focus mana?”

  Yubi stared for a moment, trying to make the phrase “focus manna” make sense. When he couldn’t, he simply shook his head.

  “Is that a no?”

  “Oh, uh, yes. No. Yes it’s a no.”

  “Alright. In a moment, I will put this wood under your right hand. When I do, pay attention to the parts of your right arm which feel strong or weak and try to feel the sense of motion of that strength.”

  Yubi held the wood. His hand felt like some shape part of it was being stretched out somehow. It felt like his arm was pulling out past his fingertips without actually moving.

  The doctor touched the wood and then took it. “That should be enough. Did you feel anything?”

  “I think so?” He wasn’t sure how to describe it.

  “We can do that again if needed. Now, I’m going to put this stone in your hand. When I do, try to recreate the feeling you had in your arm.”

  “Recreate how?”

  “Just try it.”

  Yubi held the rock. He tried squeezing it. Nothing happened. He looked up at her with confusion, but she maintained a neutral expression. When he’d held the wood, it felt like stretching. He tried to remember what it felt like. For a moment it was perfectly clear to him. In that moment the rock began to glow. The shock of it was enough that he dropped the rock. After picking it up, he tried again. It wasn’t consistent, but he could get the thing to flash on occasionally. When it worked, it was like flexing a muscle he didn’t know he had. Each time he succeeded, he could feel the same body-place-motion that the wood brought on. After a couple minutes he got the rock to glow continuously, if flickering.

  “Alright, I’ll leave those with you.” She pulled out a piece of paper. “I’m going to give you some dream powder, which should open up your mind. Once it’s open, this diagram will let you navigate more easily. To use it, put your fingers on these circles and focus mana into the diagram the same way you did with the glowdust stone. These will only open your body’s memories, so I’ve called for the Librarian to draw you a soul memory diagram. Understand?”

  “Um…” he made the rock flash again. “Kinda?”

  She scooped a bit of the mush from the bowl onto the surface of the bedside table. Then, she poured a bit of the powder from the jar onto it and mixed the two. After putting her hands on the table, the mixture disappeared.

  The doctor turned back to Yubi. “When you start to feel the powder’s effects, activate the diagram and try to remember something. Any questions?”

  There were many holes in his understanding, but none of them were question shaped. “No. Or… what’s your name again?”

  She looked away. “Try thinking that question as you go under.”

  Then she left.

  A few minutes later, his body began to feel lighter and the stones in the walls appeared to rearrange themselves. Yubi took that to be the powder’s effects, so he tried treating the circles on the piece of paper the way he did that glowing stone.

  What is the doctor’s name?

  He was on a cold stone table in another room. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew an elaborate diagram was drawn onto the table below him. His chest was marked with a severance spell to break the soul from his body without killing it. His head bore the forbidden mark of sharirachori, the body stealing spell.

  The room was filled with mana generators, kneeling at large inflow nodules. Two figures stood back from the rest: Yaldabia’s head diagramist and head doctor.

  “Are you sure about this?” the doctor asked.

  “Now is not the time for second guessing, Sailokyuzu,” the diagramist answered, bitterness dripping off every last word.

  He gave the signal to the generators and the room glowed magenta.

  Who is that?

  Naiouyubi stood beside a young Toinoioeo outside the fortress of a wretched traitor nation which had given itself over to the demons. Inside the compound there was a thunder of footsteps. Toi flipped through a warbook of diagrams and planted his hand on a page.

  The two waited tensely as the last phase of Yubi’s plan fell into place.

  Finally, “Tulpa linking complete.” Toi looked up at Yubi hesitantly.

  “Activate the warbook.”

  Toi turned away, closed the book, and held it up. Moments later, the footsteps went silent.

  Horror took over Toi’s face. He fell to his knees and vomited onto the fortress walls.

  Naiouyubi had found Toinoioeo to be weak from the moment they first met. He respected that, despite his weakness, Toi still managed to become one of the greatest diagramists in Yaldabia. That was before he’d gotten fat.

  Yubi put a hand on the youth’s shoulder and tried to console him. “Don’t worry, it’s their fault this happened. If they hadn’t attacked us, we wouldn’t need to do this. And if they had lined their clothes with fireleaf then they could’ve avoided the spell.”

  “Right,” said Toi with the voice of a dead man, “right.”

  Who is Rioshkaltis?

  Two fasting young men, only a week into adulthood, sat beside each other before the empty pedestal under the church. They had started as a crowd of fifty. Back then, their fasting had been understood as abstinence from taste. Then, as the days went by, the group dwindled to a dozen. At that point, they understood it as abstinence from the satisfaction of desire. By the time only two remained, it felt as though they abstained from life itself.

  Then the noon bell rang in the church above. The two opened their eyes and, for just a moment, caught a glimpse of God upon the pedestal. It was only for a moment, though, and after they blinked it was empty once again.

  The two cried out. Finally they understood! This was true pain! This was the abstinence from God which the Demon King forced upon them!

  When Yubi and Rio returned from their fast, they swore, together, to do everything in their power to destroy the forces of the demons and bring God back onto the earth.

  Why can’t I remember anything?

  Rio slapped Yubi to the ground. “You fool!”

  “Do you… ugh… do you not remember our promise to-”

  “This is not destroying the demons! This is a foul heresy which spits upon-”

  “You would do the same!”

  “I WOULD! But I am not you! Of all people, you must not throw your life away!”

  “It’s not throwing my life away if I succeed! The other worlds have spells to put the demons to shame!”

  “So you promise to live?”

  “I will!”

  “And you promise to return?”

  “Of course!”

  “And we will serve Leader Aiyaloya ‘till our last breaths!?”

  “WE SHALL!”

  Naiouyubi sat in the library reading a grimoire from an age of darkness before the modern Law. These heathens’ iniquities beggared belief. Nations crossed into foreign worlds to rape and plunder. Old kings stole the bodies of infants to prolong their reigns. Men forgot that God was flesh and blood, worshipping gold instead.

  But then, in the mind of that old strategist, a plan took shape. It demanded the use of diagrams forbidden by the Law, but if I must be damned to do the will of Ya, let me be damned!

  Head diagramist Toi had tried to reject the plan, but Leader Loya sided with Yubi.

  The room glowed magenta. Head doctor Kyuzu turned her back and left, ashamed of her participation.

  “Tulpa linking complete,” said chief diagram operator Rio.

  “Send him off,” said Toi, covering his face.

  The severance spell activated, loosing Yubi’s soul from his body. The sharirachori mark activated, scoring his soul to bind to a new body. The diagram which covered the table and floor snatched his soul away and flung him into another world.