Lost
He can't remember his name.
He can't remember anything. Where is he? Is he even 'he?'
A gray wolf lopes up, bright amber eyes.
You're not supposed to be here.
She's right. Certainty hits hard, icy water down his spine (he doesn't have a spine, a body). This is all wrong.
What happened? Do you know?
He's desperate, but she's already gone.
Another time, the wolf returns, but now she's a silent man, black, thin-boned, shadowed eyes.
Who am I?
-then,
What did I do?
Anxiety tangles him up, a thorny thicket. The shadow-man is difficult to read: detachment, compassion?
You're lost, is all he'll say before becoming one with the shadows, melting, gone.
Time is a wistful dream, but he can't sleep. His now is one moment drawn out into forever. He waits for something to happen, anything, feels like something, if it comes, might be far worse (how?).
He tries to remember his name.
It catches him unprepared. A tug, inexorable, pulling him apart into a pattern, geometry, lines and symbols, a fiery gate. Pain drowns the fire, all that he is is pain, wiped clean—
--blinking tears from his eyes, cold stone slab under his back, chill and ache deep in his flesh, his bones. His vision swims. He focuses. Torches in the dark, violet-red flames dancing and swirling on the edges, it hurts his eyes, a sour man and a beautiful woman stand over him, hungry, terrified, exultant.
He remembers his name, he remembers everything, and Roger laughs, and laughs and laughs.