Efrain was floating in an inky gloom. It’d been a long time since he ‘dreamed’, but he recognized the sensation as he descended into the dark. Accompanying was a certain amount of relish, being set adrift down one of the paths through this conflicted mind.

That, however, was only a momentary distraction, as he collected himself and remembered why he was here.

He reached out for the cramped confinement of his physical form. It was somewhere out there, ‘above’ the depths of the place, though direction was strictly a matter of analogy. He could not truly ‘reach’ for it, but he made his best efforts to attempt. What he ‘caught’ was something that resembled a tether, which snapped taught in his hands. Immediately any sense of vagueness regarding who he was and his purpose fell away.

The overall image was like dangling at the precipice of a great cavern, clinging to a rope that led up to a pinprick of daylight.

After taking a moment to process the shocking reinforcement of his identity, he began to seek outwards. For his image, he envisioned a great tree, reaching its roots down deep into metaphysical soil. In abstract spaces like this one, the framework of emotion, memory, and intent was substituted by more metaphorical constructions. Efrain was at the core of that tree, sucking up all the qualities that the roots drew.

Almost immediately, he was hit with a surge of emotions so strong he nearly lost his grip on the tether. For one moment he thought that the girl’s mind was trying to repel him, which would’ve been surprising indeed. He ‘ wrapped’ himself tighter as he was buffeted this way and that by the tumult of emotions.

Losing one's identity was a risk in all situations when one delved into the depths of another's mind. Efrain repeated his name, repeated his purpose, repeated that there was a surface to find his way back to. When it, at last, appeared that her mind had settled somewhat, Efrain resumed his vigil.

Sights and smells began to tumble upwards, the black painted over with strokes of colour and light. A village rose around him, unlike any architecture he had ever seen before - the houses, he assumed, were not made of wood, or brick, but of massive, helical stones, carved of one piece.

Either way, the village was in dire condition, given that a great portion of it was currently on fire. Gusts carrying embers and ashes swirled across the impression of blackening greenery, and the snap and crackle of flames grew loud as Efrain situated himself within this memory.

In the centre of the ring of houses, something tremendous stood. It twisted and shuddered as it shrank into something more man-shaped. A length of metal glittered in the firelight, then multiplied and collided with each other as if being reflected in a mirror. Suddenly, a scream broke out and then he was thrust back into silence.

Efrain drifted in the smothering darkness, trying to dissect what he’d just seen. The girl's mother had said she'd never been outside the village, but those houses weren't anything that belonged remotely close to this valley. Efrain wasn't entirely sure that they belonged on this continent. Either way, his fascination with the children only grew as he parsed through the images again and again.

He pushed the roots deeper, feeling even more sensations crawl their way back to him. Behind them was a great rush, a wave of something barrelling toward him. Too late he tried to retract his magic, tried to clamber back to the safety of his own form. The wave hit him, and hit him hard, knocking him away into the dark as his tether faded into oblivion.

Efrain, as soon as he could right himself, as much as ‘balance’ held any meaning here, chanted to himself about who he was and why he was here. When he could feel the tether starting to come back into existence, he desperately made a grab for it.

He missed it, and for a sickening moment he could feel the sensation of falling, Then, on his second attempt, he felt it wrap tightly around him. As he began to push, or pull depending on one’s perspective, himself back up to the outside, he heard a voice.

It was calling out to him, a child of some sort, but not the voice of Aya. Footsteps echoed through the dark abyss, growing steadily louder as they came towards him. He could’ve ascended back to the physical world, but he stayed to watch, to see what new curiosity this dream would visit.

Someone, dressed in clothes that he didn't recognize, faded in from out of the dark. Their face was a blurry mess of indeterminate geometric lines and vaguely remembered colours. They were holding out a book, a dusty leather-bound grimoire, up for his inspection. For an instant, he thought that it was just a fragment from the girl's mind.

That was until it called his name.

A certainty crawled over him that this was not one of the girl's memories, but his own. Before he could reply in turn, before he could reach out, another wave of emotion pushed him away. He surged towards the surface, climbing through the dark until he could feel his own body again - the clothes he’d draped on his frame, the cold solidity of his mask, and the faint warmth of the sun.

The girl was still sitting, her eyes closed and her breathing steady. Efrain gently extricated his hand from hers and stood up. Innie was marching with barely restrained annoyance at his actions.

“So?” she asked, “I hope whatever you found in there was worth it.”

Efrain didn’t reply, hands shaking slightly at what he’d seen.

“Efrain?”

“I saw someone,” he said numbly, his skull tingling as feeling began to return to the dead bone.

“…is that it?”

“I saw someone. Someone that I knew,” he said not entirely believing the words that fell out of his mouth.

“So your own memories reflected back at you. I was hoping for something a little more substantial.”

“Someone I knew before. Before I became… this. I'm certain of it.”

“I thought you had no memories of those days.”

“I don't. There was something else, a village, but not hers. It was burning.”

“So some young girl is magically talented and has visions, I can only think of about a half-a-hundred examples of that,” Innie snorted.

“This is different,” Efrain insisted, “these are actual memories, but they're not hers. And they've been burned into her somehow.”

“...yes?” Innie said, with the strong undertone of concern, “I thought that's what the anametic etching was for? Please tell me you actually learned something useful.”

Before Efrain could respond, the girl’s eyes fluttered open. Her shoulders relaxed and fingers curled in as the muscles stopped tensing. She let out a groan as she looked around the hill, once again not entirely sure where she was.

“W-What happened?” she said, voice hoarse.

“You know, I'm not entirely sure,” said Efrain as he looked at the girl with new eyes, “I can tell you that I've never seen a case like yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“The scars on your arms, they resemble a practice I know,” Efrain said as he reclined back onto his rock once more, “it’s a technique used to preserve knowledge and stories in some cultures. A bit of an oversimplification, but think tattooing with magic instead of ink.”

“What’s ‘tattooing’?” the girl said, before yelping as she rolled her shoulders.

Efrain crossed his hands, as he steadfastly chose to forgo the query.

“The point is,” he said, “yours isn't that. It’s not a projection of memory concentrated within the surface of your skin.”

“What is it then?” said the girl trying to stand up and failing.

Efrain could have responded with several different things, instead, he elected to opt for the truth, rather than pure speculation.

“I have absolutely no idea. And that is the first time in a long while that I’ve said that,” he added, drumming his fingers on the rock as the gears of his mind raced faster.

“Great. Thanks for the help,” she said as she finally managed to struggle to her feet, and began to turn back to the camp. Before she could get more than ten steps, she winced and put a hand to her head.

“No. No, no, no, no, no. Not again,” she said, her body beginning to twitch.

Efrain could ‘see’ what was happening, as the magic within her skin begin to flare and flow. In an instance of somewhat malign inspiration, he pulled his pack from his side and began to rifle through it. It only took a few moments before he felt the carefully wrapped crystals and their unnatural coldness. The girl by this time was squatting in the grass, holding her sides as she took ragged breaths.

Innie was circling the girl, still too wary of the unnatural magic that pervaded her to get close. Efrain by this point had fully cast caution to the winds of curiosity. He strolled over to the girl and knelt beside her, gesturing for her to take the crystals from his hand.

“What are those?” she mumbled, grasping at with dark stone with shaking fingers.

“No idea. But it might just help you,” he said as he handed her the gems.

Her fingers closed around the stones, grimacing at their cold touch. Innie was once again looking in abject horror but offered no objections to the act. Aya’s breathing slowed as the light within her arms began to fade.

“It… helps?” she said, her body growing looser.

Efrain watched as the magic surrounding her relaxed in turn, the lines, while still defined, losing their bright glow.

“Ah,” he said, as it clicked.

The girl looked at him with a quizzical expression.

“That’s not etching,” he said, half to her, half to Innie, who at this point had mustered the courage to approach, “that’s flooding.”

“What?” Innie said, prompting a startled yell from the girl.

“Yes. The cat, it talks,” Efrain said quickly, before turning to said cat, “that’s flooding. Its effects were more-or-less abated the moment the magic was negated.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. She should be cooking from the inside out.”

“Well, a mystery I said you were, and a mystery you remain Aya,” he said, noting the understandable look of horror on her face, “now, I’m sure you’ll want an explana-”

As he felt the impact, he realized too late that the girl had been looking past him.