The shock at finding each other again was so overwhelming, all they could do was stare. Each pair assumed the other was dead. It took a minute for it to sink in that they were not looking at ghosts.

The moment passed and they rushed toward each other. Her Tío Filipe picked her up and gave her a toss, commenting on how much she'd grown. Tío Oscar embraced Papá with a clap on the back. Papá hugged him back, but was careful to place his hands on his own skin. For some reason he'd become impervious to burns.

"Did you join a boy band?" Oscar joked, a bright smile on his face.

"In the 90s?" Filipe added.

Her Papá pinched a lock of platinum blonde hair in his fingers and absently examined it before flicking back in place. "Would you believe it is natural?" He said with an awkward grin. The scattered locks of blonde now growing from his head was just one sign that something was off. His skin had also turned a shade more orange and his hands were always warm to the touch. "I can tell you about it later," he added, sparing a glance at Coco.

"Yes, there's so much to talk about," Oscar said. "We'll explain on our way back to camp."

"Camp" referred to the little community of survivors from Santa Cecilia. Oscar and Filipe took turns explaining what happened to them before the Flash. As the Mushroom War escalated, the brothers started building a secret bunker just outside of Santa Cecelia, hoping they would never really need it. They happened to be working on it when the green cloud appeared. They started getting everyone they could find into the bunker and closed the door just before the flash went off. They stayed down there for a few days until they finally decided to check if it was safe. When they came out, they found Santa Cecelia destroyed, covered in scorch marks with strange puddles of green slime splashed about the landscape.

They'd become a wandering community since then, everyone had to be now a days. Papá's first question was if Imelda was with them. She was not. No one had seen her since the flash. Papá looked sick.

They did mention that Ernesto was with them for a time. He hid in the bunker with them and traveled with the community for about a year. Then, he found something, he wouldn't say what, but he thought he found a way to reverse the flash. He went off on his own to find it, and that was the last time they saw him as well.

When they finally made it to camp, Coco could hardly believe her eyes. Sure, the camp itself was little more than a series of tents and campfires, but there were people there. She hadn't seen so many people in so long. And there were kids there! Kids her own age! Kids she could play with! She even recognized a few from school. She begged Papá to let her run ahead, and he actually did. He never let her wander out of his sight these days. Surely this must be a special place.

The rest of the day was like a dream. It was almost like she had her old life back. She got to out to play for the first time since she couldn't remember when. And the smile Papá wore as he watched her play was real. It was a real smile.

Lately, his usual ones were fake, usually accompanied by lies like, "I'm alright," despite evidence to the contrary. They were weak with worry and shrouded in sadness. They were frowns forcibly and painstakingly turned upside down, not that he would ever admit that. Whenever she asked about it, he'd tell her not to worry about it. Every kid knew that meant he was just keeping all the worry for himself.

Her dream shattered that night, as quickly as a false smile. After they shared dinner with the rest of the community, Papá asked her uncles to talk and they went into one of the tents. She said she wanted to go too. Papá told her everything was fine and to go play with the other kids. But everything was definitely not fine. She could tell by the way they whispered.

After they went in, she waited until she was sure they'd think she was off playing before sneaking up to the tent flaps. Right away she knew something terrible was about to happen.

"Of course we will," her Tío Filipe said. "That's not even a question."

"But you're staying too," Oscar added.

"I wish that I could," Papá said. He was sad; so, so sad. "Imelda would be so proud to see what you've done here, but I can't be part of it. I'm slipping, I can feel it. I've already begun changing. If the amulet were to take over entirely…"

"Maybe it won't come to that."

"Maybe, but more likely it will."

"You can't just give up."

"I'm not giving up. If there is a way, I will find it and I will find you all again, but this is what's best for everyone. Before today, my only plan was to pray that I could hold on long enough for Coco to learn to survive on her own. Now that we found you…" there were tears in his voice, "at least I know I'm leaving her with family who loves her."

Leave? Her heart jumped into the back of her throat. Papá was going to leave? No. It was worse. He was going to leave her behind.

She tore into the room and launched herself into Papá so hard he nearly fell over. "You can't!" she cried as she clung to him. "Please, Papá! No! You can't!"

"Coco…" he breathed. That was all he could say.

"I know the amulet made you sick," she continued, tears streaming down her cheeks, "but it's okay now. Tío Oscar and Tío Filipe are here. They're smart, really smart. They can fix you."

Her uncles gave each other a helpless look. "Coco, I'm afraid it doesn't work that way," one of them said. She couldn't tell which. They both looked like the same blurry blob through her watery eyes and her heart pounded too loud in her ears to hear the subtle differences in their voices.

Papá wiggled out of her grasp enough to kneel down to her eye level. He placed a hand carefully on her cheek and wiped away a rolling tear. His hands were hot, they always were now, but they didn't burn. "I never want to leave you."

"Then don't!"

She could see the heartbreak behind his kind, brown eyes. Somehow, he managed to keep his composure. "You know about my fire magic," he said in his calming voice. "It's getting too dangerous now. I need to go away to find a way to fix myself, but I need to do it alone so that I don't accidently hurt anyone."

"You wouldn't hurt anyone," she insisted. "You're too nice."

"I don't want to, but if I don't fix myself, I might. When I find a way, I will come back."

What if you don't? The question was in her mind, but she was too afraid to ask. She thought she already knew the answer. Instead, she threw herself into her father's arms. He held her as she cried until she had no tears left. "Do you have to leave right now?" she asked as she regained her breath.

"No, I can stay a few days."

"Will you play for me?"

"Of course." He kissed the top of her head. "Will you sing my songs, even when I'm not around?"

She hugged him tighter and buried her head in his chest. "I promise, Papá."

[-]

She was 8 when he left.

At age 10, her uncles discovered a new force was seeping into the earth. For lack of a better term, they called it magic.

At age 12, they discovered monsters, thought only to be myths and fairy tales, were making themselves known again. Her uncles theorize that the earth cycles through periods of high and low magic and magic was on the rise again.

At age 14, search parties began setting out into the ocean in hopes of finding more inhabitable lands. Some came back empty handed. Some didn't come back at all.

At age 15, Tío Filipe was attacked by a vampire and nearly killed. Coco began training to be a monster hunter.

At age 16, a search party returned with news of an uncharted archipelago, uninhabited and untouched by the war. They began making plans to build boats and move the community to the islands in hopes it would become a permanent home.

At age 19, she lost a fight with a vampire just weeks before they were set to depart for the islands. The vampire turned her and she couldn't go with them. She was able to control her new bloodlust just long enough to say goodbye to her uncles.

Age 20, she discovered she didn't need blood to survive, just the color red. Also, she started going by Socorro. She just doesn't feel like Coco without her family.

At age 25, she returned to Santa Cecilia and found the white skull guitar miraculously still intact in its case. It was horribly out of tune, but she learned to fix that. She remembered his songs and she swore to learn to play them.

Age 36, she found her Papá again for the first time. She didn't recognize him at first. He'd been completely transformed into the Flame King.

He didn't even look anything like the man from her memories. His dark hair had turned to a pale yellow and grown somehow even more unruly. His skin was now an inhuman shade of orange. His brown eyes were tinged with red.

This wasn't him. It was someone else entirely. She can't stand to look at him. She ran.

Their paths crossed again at ages 83, 154, 247, 333, 421, 518, 609, and 700. By 705, found her every couple of years. Now, at age 1000, it only takes him a few months.

He didn't do it intentionally, at least not always. Half the time he didn't even remember that they'd met before. Once, just once, she let on that he was her father. It was a mistake. Luckily, he forgot by the next time they met.

[-]

When he showed up at her home that day, she was ready to throw him out and find a new place to live again, as usual, but then he showed her the little red book. "I thought people might like me if I wrote them a song, and I need your help because you write the best songs," he said as he held up the book. "Your songs are so good, I wrote them all down. I mean… I don't remember doing that, but I must have."

He didn't know. Her heart twisted. He didn't know that she sang his songs, that she played his guitar. He didn't remember that she promised him she would.

So, she let him in. He lugged in a makeshift guitar slapped together out of wood scraps. Socorro took out her own guitar. This one she got herself to play on while the white skull guitar rested safely on its stand. She never risked doing anything that might damage it. She kept it in good shape, cleaning it and tuning it, never letting it collect dust. Every once in a while, she'd hold it across her lap and strum her fingers along the strings, but it was never quite the same as when Papá played.

She wished she'd known the Flame King would be in her house today. She would have locked it up somewhere.

Their session started off predictably awkward. He claimed he never wrote a song before. He wanted pointers from her. She almost laughed at how completely backwards he had it. He was the musical genius, not her.

She tried anyway. At first, she thought she could draw on the hours she spent watching her Papá work. She could easily see him hunched over his guitar, plucking out melodies. He was so vivid in her mind; cringing and biting his tongue when he hit a sour note, furiously erasing lyrics or notes that just didn't fit, eyes lighting up when he found just the right word. What she wouldn't give to have that version of her Papá here now.

A crash brought her out of her memories. She turned to see the Flame King holding the remnants of his slapdash guitar. The rest of it sat crumbled on the floor.

Her heart leapt. "Oh no, guess this means we can't play together anymore," she said, beginning to usher him out of her home. "You probably want to go home to fix it."

This was great. If he couldn't play, they couldn't write. He'd have to go back to his molten tower and she could get a jump start on moving again. Maybe he would just forget the whole thing and she wouldn't have to move.

"What are you talking about? You've got another one right there." He pointed at the white skull guitar and her heart sank.

"Oh, I don't use that one."

"Why not? Looks alright to me." He started toward it.

Socorro managed to rush ahead and block his path. "No. You can't use that one."

"Why not?" Steam rose from his hands.

"I said no!"

"Let me play!" His hands engulfing into flames.

"Stop it! Right now!"

"Fine!" he shouted. "I don't need your dumb guitar anyway!" He launched a fireball at the guitar. Socorro managed to grab it out of the way just in time. The fire landed on her carpet. She stomped it out and turned back to him, fire in her own eyes now.

"Do you have any idea what you almost did?" she roared, hovering over him. "You could have destroyed it! You have no idea what that guitar means to me!"

As quickly as his temper flared, it dissolved again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he pleaded like a child.

She couldn't look at him. It hurt to look at him. In fact, it enraged her to look at him. This pathetic creature, whatever it was, was not Papá. It couldn't be. It might be walking around in his skin and morphing his body, but it was not Papá.

"You don't know anything! Do you have any idea what it's like to be around you? You don't even remember who you are anymore, do you? Héctor?"

"Who?" The Flame King blinked his vacant eyes. Socorro searched for some trace of recognition but found nothing.

She looked around for the songbook and snatched it off the couch. "You wrote these when I was a kid!" she shouted, opening to a random page and showing it to him. "Don't you remember?"

"I wrote music?"

Socorro let out a sigh and looked back at the book. She traced her fingers over the notes her Papá wrote so long ago. Maybe this is all I get, she thought as she flipped through the book. Vivid memories of her Papá writing and singing and playing danced in her mind. Maybe he is just memories now. That's more than he has.

She flipped to the back and her hand froze as she came across a song she'd never seen before. It was written in various colors of ink, apparently whatever he had on hand at the time. She ran her fingers over the notes. This is him, she thought as she scanned the lyrics. It might be the last thing he ever wrote.

"What's that?" The Flame King asked, peeking over her shoulder.

"A song."

"And I wrote it?"

She turned to him and looked in his eyes. She could almost see something behind the haze, something familiar. "Yes."

"Is it good?" He picked up her guitar and plucked a few strings. "Sing it for me."

Socorro looked down at the song. She wondered if her Papá ever played it. He left the guitar behind when they left Santa Cecelia and she doubted he ever found a new one. She never heard him sing it, so if he did, it wasn't around her. Maybe this song deserved to be played again, just once.

"Socorro, is it just you and me in the wreckage of the world?

That must be so confusing for a little girl.

And I know you're going to need me here with you.

But I'm losing myself, and I'm afraid you're gonna lose me too."

The Flame King began playing along with her words. She watched his fingers move along the frets. He was still in there somewhere. This was indisputable proof. No one else could play like him. No one else could make it look as effortless and natural as he could. He remembered somehow. Even after he forgot his own name, he remembered the music.

"Wow, I wrote that? What's it about?"

Her heart dropped. "You don't remember what it means?" She turned the book toward him and shoved it in his face as something wet rolled down her cheek. "Look!"

He peered at the book and sang the words off the page.

"This magic keeps me alive, but it's making me crazy,

And I need to save you, but who's going to save me?

Please forgive me for whatever I do,

When I don't remember you."

He didn't know what he was saying, or at least he didn't understand the significance of it. She could tell by his vacant eyes. Whatever flicker of her father she saw was just that, a flicker. Very little remained of him now. It wasn't enough to fight through the havoc the amulet wreaked on his mind. She should have known better than to get her hopes up. Papá was gone and the Flame King took his place.

She picked up with white skull guitar and strummed it in tune as she joined him in the chorus. The tears flowed down her cheeks but he didn't notice. Papá would have noticed, but he didn't.

Still, she played on. It was her Papá's last song. It deserved to be played on his guitar at least one time.