Chapter 2: Lizards

Chapter 2: Lizards

The shine lizards had no tails anymore. Instead of sunning themselves on the rocks, they hid in their burrows, peering out at the boy who hunted them.

They had not known to be afraid of him before. He had visited them often in the past, and he did not smell like a predator. His scent was that of the desert wind, and why should they have feared the wind?

Then, three days ago, something had changed. The wind had come for them. Clumsy at first, he had grabbed and pawed at them, catching one or two of the slowest. He'd ripped their tails from their bodies before releasing them.

The lizards learned to fear him. They ran.

The wind ran faster. He ran until he caught them all, every last one.

The thoughts of the wind were unfathomable. His next actions were beyond their ken. So the lizards trembled in their burrows, staring with nervous yellow eyes as he dried their stolen tails atop their favorite sunning rock.

He sat by the stream, toes dug into the mud as always, and when the night came this time, he did not leave. He did not sleep. He only stared off into the desert or up into the vastness of the night sky.

When morning arrived, the lizards watched him collect their silver tails from the rock. They watched him swallow them one by one.

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Elph lay on his back in the stream. It was just deep enough for the tepid water to run into his ears. The feeling was not unpleasant. It deafened him in a way that made him almost calm.

The sun, arcing toward noon, shone down on his face. He closed his eyes. Then, he lay the damp straw doll on top of his chest, crossed his arms over it protectively, and waited to die.

He had lived for months alone in the ruins of his house with no memories. A few days ago, that had begun to change.

He had started to know all the things he didnt want to know. He had started to feel all the pains he didnt want to feel. He had suddenly understood so much about himself, and all of it was unbearable.

He feared that the hungry thing would come again. He feared it would reach inside his soul again...to twist and use and take. Most of all, though, he feared waking up in the morning to discover a few more terrible truths about what had happened here, to everyone and everything he'd known and loved.

Elph was not a brave boy. He did not want to be. He wanted to be erased.

The flesh of the shine lizard was deadly poisonous. Maybe there was a reason that was one of the first things he'd been sure of after he'd...

Maybe knowing about the lizards before he knew anything else was a sign. But Elph couldnt bring himself to kill the creatures. His hands shook, and he vomited when he thought of doing it.

Nothing else could die because of him.

Then, a few days after the memories began their torturous return, a lone welcome one appeared in his mind. A man with a thick black beard and kind, bright eyes smiled down at a group of children sitting by the fire in the village center. He told them a story about the lizard god who lived on Mount Sayar in the distant heart of the Erberen.

Daddy! Mother! Please.

Theyre dead.

Help me! Help!

They begged you, too. And you killed them.

A strange wind howled over the Erberen for most of the afternoon, carrying the dying boys screams for miles.

But the village was an isolated one. There was no help to be had.

Saints of the third heaven, Megimon said hoarsely. He stared down at the twisted body of a young boy. Hes still alive.

When Megimon first found him, he was sure the child was a corpse. Then he heard the faint, pained wheeze of a breath.

He had no idea what to do.

He had come here to collect a wandering soul. He was not in the business of stealing the spirits of the living! Besides that, the Disc of the Sacred Fate had been set to very specific parameters. That it had found this poor child meant something was wrong with the device. It was likely his soul wasnt even the right type for the rehoming process.

That damnable pixie. Lutcha must have done something to the Disc besides throwing it in the pond.

The child needed healing, but Megimon was no healer. He was a scholar of spatial magic, especially portals and interplanar navigation. He could mend a skinned knee, but this was far beyond him. It looked like Kashwins Sting, and from what he knew of the infamous poison, there was no cure.

Fortune had obviously forsaken this child. If hed only fallen with his face in the shallow water, he would have drowned before suffering such a gruesome death. And if a peak-level sorcerer skilled in the healing arts had found him, instead of Megimon, he might have been saved.

Had he stumbled upon a dying boy fifty years ago, Megimon would have known who to take him to at least. However, he wasnt sure if there even was a healer in the first world right now who was powerful enough to reverse this much damage.

That left only

Well, perhaps it wasnt such a bad option. He looked around at the vacant desert. The villagers from the ruin nearby appeared to have been dead for months, and there werent any other settlements in the area. Not within a few leagues certainly. And there was hardly any plant life to speak of, so he wouldnt need to worry about the taint spreading.

Hold on, boy, said Megimon, pulling a long strand of misshapen crystals out of his robes. If you can live a little longer, you might yet grow up. And youll get to meet a pixie, too. You'll have a frightening story for your grandchildren to disbelieve one day.

The sorcerer muttered curses to himself while he set up the summoning circle, wincing every time the child let out a weak sound of pain.

Lutcha had placed Megimon in this dreadful predicament. She could be the one to get him out of it.