Stitches finds himself younger, and on his knees within a cluster of trees. His hands are red. His knife is red. The corpse of a maimed doe paints the ground below. His breath is slow, he feels calm, and in a way, even happy. Footsteps behind him alert him to turn his head. Another adolescent approaches him, breathing shakily as she addresses him. Her hair is red like a sunset, and down to her lower back. Her skin pale and fair, offset with greatly wide and colorful green eyes. She speaks up in shock, “Kakeraen? Did…did you hunt that deer?”
Stitches tilts his head at her at first. He looks down and presses his mouth flatly, shaking his head, “Hunt? No. I just killed it.”
The girl takes another breath, a stuttering inhale, and clears her throat before speaking to him, “K, you can’t just kill things without a purpose.”
Stitches stands up and turns around to face her fully, speaking plainly, “It had a purpose, Iyala. I was seeing if I could kill it. I saw it here once when we were messing around, you, me, Jaec, and Sykes. I came back a few times and saw it walk the same path…so I thought it would be a good way to see if I could get it.”
The girl, Iyala, steps forward towards him, cautious and brave all at once, holding her hand towards the knife as if defensively, “K.” She starts and pauses, “You can’t just kill something because you have the ability to. Hunting…taking the meat of an animal and using it to make dinner for your family…that’s destruction for the purpose of creation. You shouldn’t just destroy for no reason.”
Stitches looks down and stares at the blood on his hands, the same blood that coats his knife. He is quiet for a moment before he asks, “What if there’s a reason? What if you destroy something to make it stop destroying other things? Like…is it okay to kill something that makes memories and feelings disappear?” He asks in the simplest way he can think to phrase it.
Iyala approaches him, her hand gentle gripping his arm, and two words leave her mouth that awaken him, “Your father?”
Stitches wakes from the dream of a memory he had not remembered. He looks around himself and gulps. This is enough. Only one person can help him piece this together. What happened all those years ago?
