Quintessence of Arcana

My Name is Erald

Winter. In a remote village out in the wilderness.

A certain young man is lying in the corner of a dark and shabby wooden shack, which the air is dry and chilly. He seemed to be half-dead, without any vital signs of waking up.

But at some point, a warm and gentle light began to shine and embrace the young man's body. The light seemed to came from the pendant that he worn around his neck. Color then rapidly returned to the young man's face, and his breathing evened out. For some reason, the light that covered his body disappeared with a subtle flash and returned to the pendant.

“Wake up child, you have slept for far too long... wake up.....”

“Wake up....”

An insubstantial voice drifted toward the young man over the boundless sea of consciousness.

“Mhm...”

The young man blearily opened his eyes sometime later. Lying on his back, he blinked until his vision cleared and a dimly-lit ceiling came into focus. His mind was still hazy, as though there was a fog preventing him from thinking clearly. He tried to stand up, but his body is slightly trembling.

He was weak, and had yet to recover his strength and stamina. Overwhelmed with fatigue, the boy stared blankly at the ceiling. His mind managed to recover to a point where he could process his thoughts again; pushing his weary body up into a sitting position, he started to wonder about his situation. He glance around at his surroundings and revealed a dismal room with some shabby furniture placed in the middle.

“Where am I?”

He looked around the room in a daze but in the next moment, he collapsed back on the bed; he felt like lying down for a little longer. He then lifted a hand and stared intently at it.

It was definitely his hand. But it was weird. There was something strange about it. He didn't know why but he started to reminisce something as he close his eyes momentarily.

He had no idea how long he had slept, but during that time he had a dream.

A dream that was a bit, no, a lot different than the dreams a person usually had. To be precise, it was more like fragments of memories that cascaded into his inner consciousness.

“Ah!”

Feeling his head ached like it was splitting in half, the young man opened his eyes and gasped loudly. He clutched his head between his hands as he endured the pain. Sometime later, when he recovered, the young man realized that something just didn’t feel right... rather, something was muddled with his memories.

Broken images of various scenes then flashed through his mind. Scenes he believed that didn't exist in the present world. Rather, it came from another world, in an unfamiliar civilization, with knowledge that he didn't recognize...

It seemed all-too realistic to be written off as 'just a mere dream' of an individual like him. In fact, it was more like a vision... which showed the life of a completely different person. Someone named Evan Skier.

According to his memories, Evan Skier was a weapons engineer and a soldier. But somehow, the young man felt like he had personally experienced everything, as if he was living that life. A strange unsettled feeling fell over him, causing him to shake his head violently.

“What am I thinking? Evan Skier...?”

He breathed in and out, deeply, trying to calm himself as he pry into his memories. He placed a hand against his head in thought. He wasn’t Evan Skier. If he were Evan, he wouldn’t be a young man right now, much less in a place like this. And if his memories were correct, Evan Skier wasn’t even alive.

“In my memories, Evan died on the battlefield fighting against those aliens... I think?”

He remembered what happened to Evan alongside the last of humans as they struggle for survival against the foreign race that invaded their world. Somehow, he remembered being in extreme pain, like his limbs were torn apart. He even felt all sorts of emotions from that particular scene.

Regret, remorse, lamentation, and a deep sigh... Even until Evan's life flickered out, these fervent emotions raged inside him. They lingered inside the young man's mind, ringing his heart.

But then again, he was not Evan Skier.

“If... I'm not Evan Skier... then who am I?”

The young man listed off every possibility he could think of about himself, but he couldn't get a definite answer. At the same time, every moment he pry deep into his mind, his headache worsen. The only thing in his head at the moment are memories of Evan. Apart from that, there is nothing.

“Why did I lose my memory? What did I do before losing it?”

As the young man started to panic, a soft breeze happened to pass by from a nearby window and brought a refreshing coolness in his head, calming him down. Despite the snowy weather outside, he didn't felt a slightest bit of cold.

“Hmm?”

The young man then noticed the pendant around his neck as it was gently brushed by the passing breeze. Subconsciously, he reached out, and gently touched it with his two fingers.

To have no memories is to have no past. The mind is fated to wander aimlessly like a falling leaf in an attempt to find it's way back. The young man sighed, as he clutched the pendant with his hand.

“What is... my name?”

His soulless eyes stared blankly at the window. Perhaps only a god could give him an answer. But somehow, he didn't happened to notice the object in his hand flickered subtlety.

...... born in........ body.... made of...... chaos..... live in... calamity.... dead.... God... name is... destruction.... Ar... ca... na....

Fragments of vague scenes like clues then suddenly trickled by, without a clear definition inside his head. He was quite startled at first, but he continued staring at the window as he weakly muttered, “E... ra... ld...”

Erald—that was his name and the only thing that he clearly recalled from the vague scenes of his memories. He was a slender youth with a morbidly pale skin, around seventeen years old, with a handsome, yet androgynous face. His messy black hair hung over his shoulders in a natural way, and his sharp, gray eyes gave off an ethereal feeling, adding in his charming looks. In other words, his overall appearance exudes an aura of nobility.

He didn't know if this was his own memories, but he knew for sure that he was Erald as he felt a strong connection to it. With a deep breath, he composed himself, and decided to leave his 'identity crisis' for the meantime as he believe that his memories will return as time passes by. His first priority right now is to know his current whereabouts.

He tried to get up, but his body was still stiff as stone. With great effort, he managed to stand up. The room was filled with a cold, fresh air with a flavor of ash that originated from the fireplace.

He was slightly startled when he heard a voice of an elderly man that came from outside. He pushed his sore body up, and left the shack with stiff steps.

It was afternoon. The sun were blocked by thick clouds, and the surrounding area were filled with snow. An old man was sitting on the ground as he threw some twigs to the fire he created while being surrounded by six children. Their eyes were fixed on the old man, captivated by the fables he had told countless times before.

“A long time ago, the Fiend race’s attack brought calamity and disaster to the entire continent, and threw its people into an abyss of abject misery. It was referred as 'The Great Calamity.' The countries which had historically coveted each other’s lands were forced to unite to resist the Fiend race's invasion. However, how could mere humans obtain victory over such strong residents of Hell? Just as the continent was about to be driven off at the edge of a cliff, humanity had no other choice but to beg the Deities. At the very last moment, the Deity race dispatched a savior. She was none other than the Goddess Aurora, also known as the Goddess of Light.”

“Together with her army of Seraphs, the Goddess of Light spent a month driving away the demons. They fought their final battle with the Demon Lord of the Fiend Race in the northern part of the mainland. The battle lasted for many days and nights, but no one knows who was the final victor. All we know is that the Fiend race had been driven away, and the Demon Lord together with the Goddess of Light vanished.”

“Up to this day, no one knows where they went. Some say that the Fiends were all perished together along with the Goddess, while others believe that the Goddess killed the Demon Lord before returning to the Heavens. However, the truth remained a mysterious riddle; but since the Fiends never returned, the Goddess of Light and her army who saved the continent are now forever remembered as saviours by humans from one generation to the next.”

The old man stopped there and then glance in Erald's direction. With an inexplicable feeling, the latter's heart suddenly began to throb. Even though he saw a mild, old man telling a story, for just a moment, he could see a set of deep eyes that were like light in the surrounding darkness.

“Grandpa, the Deities that came from the heavens, they must be very beautiful right?” One of the children asked with curiosity. His question perked the others’ curiosities as well, and their eyes focused on the old man.

“They might be, but no one could get a clear view of what they looked like. Humans don’t have the honor to see what the Deities look like.” The old man spoke with a smile.

The children showed their disappointed faces. Then, the old man smiled. “My children, I will stop here today, so you can all go now. I will let you all know when your brother Croen returns.”

Those kids left so quickly, they did not even bid the old man goodbye. The old man then stood up and walked towards Erald with a cane in his hand. His steps were strong and steady, without any sign of weakness at all as though the cane seemed to be merely a prop for him.

“You finally woke up.” The old man exclaimed in an aged, peaceful voice. He looked at the youth before him up and down.

Erald nodded and then asked, “Uhm... senior, where is this place? What happened to me?”

The old man narrowed his eyes, and for a moment he remained silent. He turned his head and stared at the dense wilderness as he was reminiscing something. Eventually, he peacefully responded, “I happened to found your body from a deep ravine in the west. You remained unconscious even though I used every conceivable methods to help you recover. You’ve been unconscious for five whole years. You neither ate nor drank, yet, there was no sign of your vitality waning away. I was surprised to see that you were even able to grow taller during that time. I've seen several miracles during my lifetime, but your condition is what completely amazed me the most.”

“Five years?!”

Erald was shocked. He didn't expect that he was in a coma for a very long time. He calmed himself down very quickly, and listed this off as one of the causes of his selective amnesia. But it didn't explained the cause of his 'acquired memories' of Evan.

“Senior, may I ask... what should I call you?” Erald looked at the old man.

“What should you call me? For an old man like myself, you can just call me grandpa Gin like the other children do, or just call me old man,” he said with a smile.

“If that's the case, thank you grandpa Gin, for taking care of me over these past five years. I will certainly pay you back for saving my life,” Erald slightly bowed.

The old man shook his head as he sat on the snow-covered ground. He said to him, “You have only slept ever since I took you in. It isn’t a big deal. If you were an ordinary youngster, you can't even get past a year and already died.”

Erald also sat next to him. Even though his body was still stiff, he could at least move with some freedom.

“No matter what, I still owe you grandpa Gin...”

Feeling that he couldn't convince the youth before him, the old man just helplessly sighed, “Alright. Since you're so adamant in repaying favors, I have no problems with it. Perhaps, can you tell me about your name and your history?”

Erald slightly frowned and muttered, “My history...?”

After a long silence, the old man looked at the young man pensively.

Judging from his reaction, the old man had been able to surmise that the youth seemed to had lost his memory. Had it been fifteen years ago, the old man would have spared no expense in exploring everything about the mysterious youth. But he was old now and already tired, so he just helplessly sighed.

As the old man feel sorry for the youth, the latter before him stood up and curtsied, startling him. With a slight smile on his face, the youth looked very entrancing as he meet the old man's eyes.

“My name is... Erald.”