Where...Where am I?

How long have I been asleep? Or...did I faint?

It's so cold...and the air smells musty...

My head...it hurts...My limbs feel heavy...

Something's wrong...

I can't just lay here though. I have to move. I need to get up.

Slowly, he managed to force his leaden eyelids to open. He was greeted with blurs of grey and black, and hints of dark blue. Blinking several times to try and bring himself into awareness, the blurs focused into a dark, cloudy sky, with the tips of dead trees entering the edges of his field of vision.

What is this place?

Shaking his head and trying to ignore the pounding ache the action caused, he stretched his arms back and heaved his body upright so he could sit. His forelimbs were shaking from the strain of holding himself up, but he endured it, trying to get a better view of his surroundings. The area around him was just as grim as the sky, full of deceased plants and the skeletons of the few trees and bushes brave enough to struggle on, covered in rotting bark and fungus the colour of bleached bones. The same ghostly white seemed to stay around the very edges of his gaze, he noticed, but no matter which way he turned, it stayed lingering in the corners of his eyes, and he couldn't find the source. Giving up, he glanced at the ground he was sitting on. It looked just as grey as everything else, with the occasional patches of brittle grass clawing out from the cold, dry ground. Carefully, he reached out to feel the dirt, his claws barely able to scratch through the hard-packed surface.

Wait...claws?

He wasn't sure why that observation had sent his stomach twisting. His head was so heavy and this place felt so alien, he didn't know if he felt like mustering up the energy to panic over anything. He was just tired, and confused...he wanted to go back to sleep.

And yet...something had sparked in him after that thought. A deep, nagging feeling that he couldn't quite grasp enough to understand what it wanted. Like when you woke up from a dream, but every thread of memory you tried to cling to just flew from your consciousness, like scattered cobwebs. Why did he feel like something...like something was missing?

Whatever that something was, it had wormed its way into his awareness, and although he was tired and sore, he couldn't go back to that blissful, unconscious state anymore. There was a persistent knot of anxiety in his chest now, and sitting here wasn't going to get rid of it. Maybe a short walk would clear his head enough to think properly. Or maybe it would exhaust him enough to collapse.

Besides, I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious about all of this.

It took quite a bit of effort, but he managed to heave himself into a standing position, wobbling slightly until his legs had completely awoken. Unsure if a direction mattered, he decided to keep walking the way he was facing, trudging through dead debris and having to side-step a few crumbled rocks. The further he went, the more fog started rolling in, dancing around his feet and beginning to swirl around the sides until he could only make out a couple of feet ahead of him at a time. He wished the wind would clear it. He could feel the chilly breeze as it moaned across his scales, and if he listened carefully he could make out the rustling of dying leaves in a few places. Shivering, he hunched his shoulders. Maybe this walk wasn't such a good idea.

Even without the fog and bitter temperature, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. He'd hoped once he got moving and the haze of sleep had cleared he would start feeling better, but moving still felt strange. Like there was something else lurking with him. Not a creature following, but closer, like it was almost inside of him. He could feel something long and heavy dragging behind him, and his head still felt dense and off-balance, but there was something worse. He knew he was fairly low to the ground, that much was evident by the short bushes he passed that still almost reached his head, but there was also this bizarre sensation of something taller walking alongside him. Something straighter and less bulky, with strides that were several feet longer than his own and arms that reached further and hung lower, not resting hunched and close to his chest. It was almost like a phantom, something otherworldly, yet still...he almost felt like they were supposed to be together. Like it was supposed to be in this body.

Or, maybe...am I supposed to be in that one?

Either way, something was definitely missing. In this place, in him...it all just felt...lacking. Cold and empty and incomplete. Sighing heavily, he closed his eyes against the puff of white as his breath cooled, only for them to flash open in panic a moment later as his foot hit something solid and he pitched forwards, his face smacking into the ground. There was a distinct cracking noise, but whatever it was, he didn't think it had come from him. At least, nothing about him felt broken. Sitting up and rubbing his foot to ease the ache, he turned to see what he'd tripped over. A rock.

No, a chunk of grey stone. Smoother than a regular rock, if deeply weathered and broken in places. He ran a hand over it, his claw scraping lightly over the jagged surface. This had been something greater once. Some sort of object. He stood carefully, pacing around to the other side. There were more pieces lying around in the dirt, some smaller, some much bigger. Upon peering closer, he noticed symbols had been engraved into parts of the stone. Letters.

What was this?

He started to pick up the pieces one by one, placing them into a pile. If he didn't have anything better to do, he could at least fix this.

Catching sight of a chunk lying further away, he trudged over to it, digging through the debris to pick it up. As he brushed a few brown leaves aside, another, larger stone caught his attention. Curved at the top, and ensnared by ivy, but in decent condition by this place's standards. Cocking his head, he managed to make out the script carved into it. Or at least, what hadn't been worn away.

R-N-A-M-M-Y-A

Well, that didn't tell him much. Shrugging, he picked up the broken chunk of stone and brought it back to his pile. This seemed to be all that he could find. He could at least try to put it back together.

He had no concept of time here, not when his head still felt foggy and with everything remaining shrouded in the cold and the dark. But building this stone object was at least giving him something to focus on besides all of his questions. No need to wonder how he ended up here, or whether he was supposed to look like this or that creature he had felt walking with him. No need to wonder if the temperature was going to keep dropping, or if he could find something to sate the gnawing hunger in his empty stomach. No, his only questions were which piece fit where, which letters formed which patterns, or what he'd managed to break in the first place.

He eventually managed to answer two of those questions as he stood before the object. It probably wouldn't hold up for long in harsher conditions, since he didn't have any mud or another way to hold the pieces together, but it could stand completed for now. He could read the words on the stone.

AKIRA KURUSU

Why did those two words send a chill through him, deeper than that of the deathly wind swirling through this place?

Akira Kurusu...

Could that be what I'm missing?

Why, then...

Why was it written on a gravestone?