300- The Scent That Would Not Let Me Sleep
POV Viktor Averwyn:
I listened to old things, from times I had lived through and that had marked me. Mostly classics. But I also experimented with new rhythms from other countries. For quite some time my preference had leaned toward German music. A group called Brings began to sing “Love Wins,” and I walked to the window.
I looked outside. The sun was beginning to set, everyone heading home, the immense trees taking on a reddish tone. I leaned my elbows there, immersed in thought. The song said we were all equal and that only love prevailed. Romantic nonsense. In real life things were very different.
My mind drifted, until something changed—growing stronger, stirring my chest. I straightened my spine, motionless, observing the surroundings more carefully.
A cold wind blew, announcing the beginning of autumn. Soon the temperature would fall, just like the vegetation that was turning warm shades.
There was no threat around me, nothing unusual. Yet I did not ignore the sensation that slowly grew. It was already an old acquaintance of mine, one that at first I had thought was some kind of delirium, but that had gradually become more and more welcome.
When part of the landscape trembled right before my eyes, I did not blink. I let the memory come.
It had started after I turned a hundred years old. Spontaneous disturbances, loose images and voices, as if from an ancient time. At first I thought I might be tired, or that they were some kind of visions, like some witches claimed to have. But I was not—and never had been—a witch.
With time, I began to suspect there was more to it. The emotions were too strong, the beings too familiar.
The trees in front of me, their leaves ranging from dark green to yellow and orange, narrowed and stretched. Their trunks grew longer and thinner, much taller. The wind became colder, the ground smooth with pure white snow. And what seemed like a valley descended until it vanished from sight.
In that valley stood a woman, her back turned to me.
My village was not there. Only that place I had visited other times in my mind. It was always the same. And her—my mother. Or at least what I had come to believe. Inside my chest, that was how I felt about her. That was how she treated me when she spoke to me, bound to her by a deep love, until she became very important to me.
She turned around. Her straight black hair shone like the night down to her waist, spreading over the leather coat and fox fur draped over her shoulders. Tall, beautiful, with sculpted features, she smiled in my direction. Close—on the other side of the window.
A gentle warmth filled my chest. For centuries her vision had accompanied me, shifting from dream to reality. Unfortunately I had no control over it. She appeared only when she wished, as if my mind were playing tricks on me.
“Hello, my love. I knew you would be here.”
Her voice reached me like a breeze. I did not move. The other times I had tried to approach her, she vanished suddenly. Her black eyes shone and seemed to share a secret.
“She will arrive. I’ve told you about her, haven’t I?”
Yes, a few times. There was no point in answering. She did not interact with my world. I was only a visitor in hers.
“The human. Remember?”
The first time she referred to my promised mate had been almost two centuries ago. In truth, it was a monologue. She spoke and I listened. Now it sounded like a reminder.
She took a few steps and leaned against a trunk, turning her face toward the valley, then back to me.
“Do you hear the noise they make? They never stop playing. Soon the three of you will be adults. And you’ll give me grandchildren.” Her smile widened. “Have you thought about that?”
Who are they? I always asked in my mind.
The man with long hair as white as snow—young and strong—sometimes appeared there. And the two boys I only saw from afar. One small, one older.
“I don’t know where this idea comes from. I simply know it is real. They will find their destined mates among she-wolves. Yours will be human. You don’t believe it, do you? But know that we evolved together, and some of them have cells, organisms similar to ours. In the end, everything will work out.”
She stepped away from the trunk and extended her hand to me.
“Shall we go? They’re waiting for us, and the cold is getting stronger here.”
Stay. Tell me more. Their names. Hers. Yours. My subconscious pleaded, even though I knew it would be useless.
“Ah, look who’s coming! Our little wolf!” Her smile widened when the boy approached, climbing the valley and grabbing her legs. He must have been about five years old. “Did you fight with your brother?”
“Let’s run!” he asked, bouncing as his curls shook.
A new emotion slithered through my chest, because it was the first time I had seen him so close. On the other occasions the two of them stayed far away. They never spoke to me.
It was only her—and, rarely, the strong man with white hair.
“Want to bet who gets there first?” She turned to me, happy. “Call your older brother!”
Then the little boy looked toward me with a smile, saying things as he tugged her by the arm. I didn’t focus on the words, only on the round face with enormous eyes—shining blue with silver flecks. I knew immediately they were familiar to me.
“Now I’ll catch you!” The woman laughed loudly when he ran off and pretended to grab me, as if I were overtaking her. She ran too.
She went down the valley, and I felt a certain desperation as they escaped me. The vision vanished in an instant, everything returning to normal.
Everything except inside my chest.
The music was still playing, but I barely paid attention. What remained was the feeling of something once lived—a happy family, emotions from the past. I had had them and lost them at some point in life, leaving behind a void.
My heart beat hard, a certain irritation clouding my emotions. I didn’t want to confuse myself like that anymore. But my mind kept working until I became certain where I had seen those luminous eyes of the child.
It wasn’t possible!
Maybe I really was going crazy, fuck! Centuries and centuries having memories I didn’t know were mine, seeing that woman appear. And the others. As if I were there with them, in another time and place. She looked at me, spoke to me.
And at the same time, it wasn’t me.
Once, right at the beginning, I talked about it with the Elders. I didn’t remember the first almost hundred years of my life. They said it was natural for me to feel lost about my childhood and part of my youth. Then the images came, which seemed like memories. Sometimes happy, sometimes tragic.
No one knew where we had come from. The five Leading Alphas of the Tharnak region had been chosen by the Elders to watch over each territory. And, by coincidence, all of us had the same problem with memory loss: me, Edric, Konrad, Lucian, and Aldren.