Chương 4: Warren

Reality wrenched Mark through impossible angles. His stomach lurched and his scales scraped against nothing. For one terrible moment he existed everywhere and nowhere at once. Mark materialized in darkness, breathing hard, the restless hum beneath his scales still refusing to fade. An underground chamber stretched around him, its ceiling only about a foot and a half higher than his head. Bioluminescent blue and green mushrooms lined the walls bathing the chamber in soft blue-green light.

His memories told him this should feel creepy and unearthly, but his new eyes found it soothing. Along one wall, a single tunnel led away into darkness. Cool, damp air, thick with earth and stone was all around him. His tongue flicked out, painting the chamber in chemical signatures. He could tell the chamber was full of mineral-rich soil, fungal spores, and the faint trace of water somewhere he couldn't place. This was a perfect site for a den as it was deep enough for protection and easily defensible.

Also he knew he could easily create a moss garden if he desired. Mark didn't know how he knew these things, nor did he want to know why he suddenly had the desire to make a moss garden. Also why did the thought of moss make his mouth water? He looked down and noticed the button was still in his clawed hand. A pile of rodent carcasses lined the left wall, likely composed primarily of rats from what Mark's eyes told him. On the opposite side, furs had been arranged into a nest.

Nearby the nest lay a heap of shiny objects which included copper coins, bits of glass, some quartz crystals, and a spoon. His hands twitched when he saw the hoard. Weirdly enough the spoon called out the loudest. Despite being tarnished and bent his brain was insisting it was perfect. He recognized this as kobold instincts and pushed the thoughts down. From his human memories Mark actually enjoyed caves.

He always wished he lived in a state that had a deeper water table and perhaps a deeper frost line so that it would be easier to find a home with a basement. He would have loved a basement with one natural rock wall very similar to what surrounded him here. So maybe it wasn't fully the kobold instincts that registered the burrow as home. Actually what was Mark thinking? Even if he enjoyed caves and wanted a basement that did not mean he wanted a pile of rat carcasses or a nest of furs for a bed.

His tongue flicked out without thinking and notified him the rodent carcasses were fresh. The iron tang of blood caused his human mind to recoil, but his kobold brain labeled it as food. His stomach cramped with hunger. I will not eat raw rodent became a mantra. He quickly decided to focus on the hoard instead. One moment he was staring at the pile thinking about reorganizing it, and the next it was organized. Coins and quartz crystals were sorted by size, and glass pieces were arranged by color.

The bent spoon was displayed at the top in prime position. The button from Wes's room, somehow no longer in his hand, sat beside the spoon. He still had coins in his hand, and for some reason knew that they were each composed of pure copper this time without even flicking his tongue and getting the needed information. He had sorted everything perfectly with no memory of doing it. Standing had required conscious effort and multiple attempts, but the hoard had rearranged itself while he was somewhere else entirely.

He had loved organizing as a human. This was the first kobold impulse that aligned with something he remembered enjoying, and the instincts had claimed it before he could, leaving him to not even remember organizing it. He tried to pace and found himself moving in the same style of crouch he'd woken up in. The chamber rewarded this posture, as the ceiling felt the perfect height while slouched. He felt safe and comfortable in this chamber. Significantly safer than he did in Wes's room.

Maybe this was a sign this was truly his default state and his human memories were the intrusion? No. Stop it. Emma is real. The memories are real. To push the thought down, he questioned the thought the same way he'd coached patients to push back on their own automatic negative thoughts. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"I'm not a kobold. My mind is human and the mind is who you are." Mark turned to his human memories for comfort, but terror crept in when he tested them. Mark already could not sequence the last several days, but other details that should have been there were missing too. His office phone number? Nothing. The address of the house he'd lived in for eight years? Blank. His mother's maiden name? Gone. However, memories of the things that mattered stayed.

Emma's face when she concentrated on drawings, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, her laugh, that little snort-giggle she made when something was truly funny. Sarah's face on their wedding day, looking at him like he was the only person in the world. The day that Emma was born, when Mark cut the cord, and how he had the absurd, overwhelming certainty that his whole life had been building to that moment. Those memories he remembered perfectly. What if Wes was right?

I should know more about my life other than the important and emotional things. I should remember my address and office telephone number. Declarative facts about yourself shouldn't just disappear on a whim. His thoughts kept spiraling. If someone, or something, had implanted memories, of course it would include family, purpose, and work. Those were the emotionally load-bearing beams of a life.

Telephone numbers, maiden names, and addresses might be low priority, the sort of details a false history could leave empty because they lacked narrative weight. However, a point in his favor was he did remember thirty-five years of life.

He didn't remember only highlights but he also recalled lazy Saturdays where him and his family watched movies all day, how Sarah and him had a habit of forgetting to water the summer flowering plants which led the dead plants to be used as Halloween decorations by October, and even how he knew where all three warp whistles were in Super Mario Brothers 3. There was so much unimportant material in his memory, that there was no way all of that could have been created just to convince him he had a true backstory.

The issue with his memories was with sequencing and scattered autobiographical data. He knew far too much about Dr. Mark Wright for him to not exist. Of course, those were the only memories he had forgotten so far. Wes said the rest would fade over the next few weeks. What if I really am Dr. Mark Wright but my memory fades anyway? Mark's clawed hands went to his face, an old habit and found a snout instead. The snout jutted forward like a dog's. It was wrong, yet somehow this was the reality he found himself in.

That one familiar gesture just made the strangeness of everything feel so much more real. Wes's arguments made sense on paper. Professor Venwick evidently had a proven ritual that Wes used, and claimed there were creation sigils instead of summoning markers, and most damning the status screen literally stating he was a magical construct familiar. From all evidence, Wes seemed correct. However, for his sanity, Mark had to reject Wes's belief.

The idea that had pulled him out of the status screen panic attack had to be true. Mark curled into the nest, and intentionally turned away from both the meat and the hoard. His body found the perfect position instinctively, tail wrapped around his legs with his claws tucked under his chin. He was missing Emma's bedtime story tonight. Every single night for six years he'd read to her, and how many of those times had he been on autopilot?

How many times was he thinking about a patient while his mouth formed words from the page. A week ago, or near enough that the memory still felt recent, he had come home after a rough day at work. Emma asked what his favorite part of the chapter they were reading was, and his mind had gone blank. He had been thinking about a patient the entire time, worried whether they were safe. So while he had read the chapter for Emma he couldn't remember a single thing from it. He was fairly certain Emma had noticed.

We were at the part where Eustace turns into a dragon. Emma asked if dragons could cry. Mark still didn't know about dragons, but he just wished he could tell her that kobolds could cry just fine. Mark tried to be a good husband and father but he knew he wasn't perfect. Every broken promise he could recall seemed to go straight to the front of his mind. He had sworn he would take Emma back to the aquarium after their visit last May, then they just never seemed to find a good weekend for it.

He had promised Sarah he would block off one Friday afternoon a month several months ago. However, due to his waitlist and the desire to pay off the house quicker he still hadn't made the move to actually block the schedule. Now he may never get that chance. If Emma and Sarah never existed, the guilt he felt was meaningless. But if they never existed, why did losing them hurt this much? Mark's chest heaved with sobs that came out all hiss and no resonance.

"Emma. Sarah. I love you both so much." He cried harder than he could ever remember crying, until his throat was raw and his eyes burned. The crying continued until his stomach cramped again with hunger. The rodent meat was present but that was still easy to ignore. While he laid in the nest staring at the low ceiling, the clinical part of Mark's brain surfaced, reaching for a diagnosis that might explain all of it. Mark shut those thoughts down. He didn't want to be a psychiatrist analyzing himself right now.

All he wanted was to be the husband and father his family deserved and think of them. If Mark Wright really existed. The tears came again.

"Please," Mark whispered to the darkness.

"Let this be a nightmare. Please just let me wake up as a human next to Sarah in my bed." The only answer was the soft glow of fungi.

"I'll be a better husband and father. I'll be more present. God, please, just let me go home." Only silence answered him.