4 Rewind

"People of now confuse beasts and viles as the same thing. The people of old didn't. They saw the true horror of the viles, they saw the destruction they caused with their arrival. And they understood, with every fiber of their being, that they are the archnemesis of this world. While we hunt both beasts and viles, beasts are of this world while the viles aren't" - Monstrology By The Holy Empire of Men's Court Scholars

-----------------

The sandy winds howled and weeped, and with it the cries of the innocent. Beasts of all kinds roamed the ruined city. Shesmu watched in horror as corpses formed mountains, blood formed rivers, and all the while the monsters' hunger wasn't satisfied.

"Papa!"

A voice he knew all too well. He turned around, but he couldn't find her. Only corpses and destroyed buildings. Shesmu was shocked. This kind of horror, it's something he has never seen before. The pale skin, the vacant eyes, the red blood. Shesmu looked away, no longer able to stare at the dead.

"Papa!"

He heard it again. This time fainter and farther away. He moved towards the direction of the sound, but carefully. He took refuge in the vacant buildings, safe from the ogres and chimeras that roamed the city. Slowly, he made his way, the sound of his daughter his only guide.

Suddenly, a loud roar shook him to the core. Earth trembled and the vases that decorated the house he was in cracked. He put his hand on the wall to regain his balance until the earthquake stopped. However, something was wrong. The streets were quiet. No more howls of beasts, no more weil of men, only silence. Shesmu looked out from the broken window and what he saw, he couldn't believe. A dragon. A live and real dragon stopped atop the ruined cathedral, breathing hellfire upon the city.

He went back into the house, afraid that the beast would notice him. Shesmu looked for another way out of the house, and there it was. A backdoor into the alleyway. Shesmu ran with all his might, from building to building, making himself small, unnoticeable. If he didn't, then there was no happy end for him.

"Papa!"

Her voice came back again. He could see her, for a second. Her shadow behind the corner of the street, just a few meters away. He ran to catch her, but once again, he was met with disappointment. There was no one at the corner of the street. However, there was a road. A way that led to outside the city, to the desert.

Shesmu walked. He walked away from the city and its death, the monsters and the dragon. He walked into the horizon. For hours and hours, his legs never stopped once. His eyesight was blurry, his feet wobbly and his breath hoarse. He was about to fall when he regained his balance, and there she was, in front of him. Eva was there.

"Eva,"

He extended his hand toward her, unable to take another step. She looked at him and smiled. "Papa," she paused, her eyes looking straight at Shesmu. "... Goodbye."

Shesmu blinked. The moment his eyelids closed, he heard a soft hush of wind. By the time his eyes opened, only sand remained. Eva was no longer there.

He woke up, his hand extended to the ceiling, and tears falling down his cheeks. At that moment, Shesmu felt incomplete, hollow.

"Sophie…" Shesmu turned around, expecting to see his wife on the other side of his bed. She wasn't. In fact, there was no other side to his bed. He stands up, looks around baffled. The whole room was different. The color of the walls was blue when it should have been white, the hologram projectors are nowhere to be seen, the door was no longer when it used to be, even the blankets on his bed changed. This wasn't his room.

A feeling of unease drowned him. The premonition, the nightmare, and now this. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. He looked around at the room, trying to see if he recognized it. He did, faintly. A memory of a distant past. This room, he remembered it, he lived and slept in it a long time ago.

Shesmu exited the room and all of his worries came true. This was the house. The house his parents left him, the house he left almost ten years ago. Shesmu grimaced. It had been so long since his father passed away, but this incident made him remember. The days he spent with his long-gone father in valleys and plains so magical and mystical.

The low, fragrant breeze tickled his nose, the slow molten sunlight, warmed him from the cold. Things that he couldn't experience in his ice-cold city were within an arm's reach in the virtual world. Then father gestured to him with his hand, signaling Shesmu to pay attention to what he was about to do. He raised his right arm close to his face and snapped his fingers. The world was set ablaze, fire spurted from his fingers and danced with a myriad of colors around his hand.

Shesmu would then follow his dad to numerous adventures. Slaying monsters, finding treasures, eating food from the most dreamlike lands. It all felt so real, and it was all so fun. Shesmu was mesmerized. It was then that he fell in love with the virtual world, with all of its possibilities. But then, his father started showing up less and less. By the end, he would only see him once a month. His mother was also sad. With each passing day, she became more depressed. It was then that disaster struck.

The news of his father's death was on all of TV and social media. A leading researcher in neuroscience and Brain-Computer Interface was found dead in his lab. The official cause was stress. They said that he had put in long hours of work, longer than any human should. In the end, he died from a stroke.

After that incident, his mother was no longer the same. Her fall into depression was then in full swing. She was prone to anger, easy to lash out. At the same time, she would spend hours crying and apologizing. Even her diet was in shambles. Not eating for a few days, only surviving through water. By the end, she fell into insanity. She was hospitalized and kept in a treatment facility. A glorified Asylum.

From then on, Shesmu was alone. A ten-year-old boy with no parents or caretaker. Only Alan stood with him. Throughout all those years, he only had Alan.

Shesmu continued walking around the house, lost in his memories. Every piece of furniture, everything was as he remembered. It's as while the whole world was continuing to change, this place was frozen in time.

A fleeting thought caught his curiosity. Like his own new home had Melon-chan as the AI system governing it, this house had one too: Seth.

"Seth…" Shesmu's voice was low, hesitant. He didn't know if even after all these years, Seth was still functional.

"Yes, Mark." Seth's voice was warm, like a father's, like a caring friend's.

Shesmu rejoiced. Even with no maintenance, Seth was still functional. He immediately asked the AI what he has been wondering all along.

"Seth, what happened yesterday? When did I enter the house? Was there anyone with me?"

"Mark, you entered the house yesterday at 21:34. You talked with Alan for two hours before heading to sleep. No one entered the house with you."

Shesmu was confused in more than one level. First of all, by that time yesterday, the game was still in full swing. Second of all, how could such events happen when he has no recollection of it. Something was wrong.

"Seth, are you sure? I came alone yesterday to this house, right?"

"Yes Mark, I'm certain of it."

This didn't make any sense. How could he not remember such an important trip? And the talk with Alan, what did they talk about? The only thing that Shesmu could think of was yesterday's incident with Shade. Did he suffer amnesia? Did someone tinker with his brain and made him forget something important? Shesmu needed answers.

"Seth, I know this is a weird question, but what is today's date?"

"June 26th, 2041."

Shesmu expected many possibilities. Maybe he had been drugged and days went by without him knowing. Maybe his memory had been failing him and he was then in a further future than he actually thought. What he didn't expect was for Seth to give him a date that was ten years in the past.

Shesmu chuckled. It all made sense now. Coming back late to this house, talking with Alan for hours before going to sleep. That's something eighteen-year-old he would do. That settled it, Seth was bugged. It thinks that it's still in 2041.

There were no answers to be found in this house, Shesmu had to go out. He needed to understand what actually happened. Check the neighbors' surveillance camera, talk with the police, anything that would explain to him how he ended up in his old house, hundreds of miles away from where he slept yesterday.

Shesmu opened the main door and that's when reality hit him like a truckload of bricks. The buildings across the street, the decorations, the asphalt, the width of the road. Everything was different. No, it was different from when he visited this place a couple of months ago, but it was familiar. He saw these buildings before. He knew them, he visited them, he lived with them. Every day as he went to and from school, he would see them. This street, this whole place, it's the same as when he left it ten years ago. It's as if the laws of physics got drunk and time had a bad sense of direction. Shesmu could not believe it.

He went back to his house and closed the door. There was something he must check. He made his way to his bedroom, turned on the light, and there it was. A small brown case with stickers of his favorite characters glued on it. At this point, Shesmu knew what happened. It wasn't a prank. It wasn't an elaborate case of kidnapping. He knew that there was only one possibility. However, He still opened the case, hands shivering. There they were, his digital lenses, Ravs as they were called, they were there, waiting for him. He put them on and, for a second, the whole world turned digital before returning back to normal.

'System activated.'

Seth's voice resounded in his head with the activation of the Ravs. Shesmu once again asked.

"Seth, what is today's date?"

'June 26th, 2041'

His chest heaved. Every breath was painful. Shesmu finally understood what his earlier premonition was about. He finally knew what he lost. The realization stabbed him like a thousand needles. He fell on his knees and sobbed. "Eva…" His voice kept shaking, only her name escaped his lips amidst the hiccups. Tears poured down and his heart ached. He never felt so sad, so broken, so powerless.

Shesmu sat on his bed for the better part of the day. His mind spiraling with his thoughts. Every moment, every smile, every laugh, every word Eva said he remembered. But she was gone, gone amidst the ocean of time. Never to be known, never to live, never to exist, never to be remembered. Only in him.

His mind was void, heart broken. He didn't budge a finger, his eyes stared into nothing, only at his memories. Suddenly, a ding sounded in the depth of his mind. Seth's voice announced "Mark, you just received a mail." He opened the mail and it read.

"Dear Shesmu, or should I call you Mark?

I know that you must be suffering terribly right now. The loss of your daughter is something of any man's worst nightmare. You, even more so. For it to happen in such a cruel, unforgiving, and terrible way. I have no words. However, know that you're not alone, know that things far greater than both you and I are in action and that the world as we know it might very well change. I hope that you find in yourself the courage to move forward and to do what you know best.

I'll wait for you, in Ashes of God."