A tingling sensation surged through my body moments before my eyes opened. When they did, I was met with an empty void of neverending blackness and the strange realization that I was not dead nor alive.

“There, it is done,” a booming male voice said.

Who the hell was that? I spun my body around, twirling in the empty space, to look for its owner. Or, I thought I had spun my body. In reality, I didn’t have one. This space might have been so dark that I couldn’t see, but when I went to move my hands or touch my body, there was….nothing. No movement whatsoever.

“All your memories are now gone, just as you asked. You can be sent down right after we go over the conditio—”

“Wait, what?” I said, cutting him off. “When did I ask to have my memories deleted? I don’t remember that!”

“Of course you don’t!” the memory thief said. Blasted robber. “If you did remember, that would mean they weren’t erased, you bumbling buffoon.”

I didn’t quite like being called a buffoon, but he had a point. I’d never know for sure if I actually did ask for them to be removed. That was quite annoying. For all I know, this memory thief could have stolen them from me against my will.

“I suppose that is true. You have me beat. But why would I ask to delete them?” I said.

Thanks to my foolish past self, I wouldn’t know my name or even my features. What good was that?

Your name is Kayn. You're 18 years old. You have lightly tanned skin and wavy black hair. You’re kinda average looking too….

That was the sound of my inner voice. So I suppose I did know those things. I could’ve done without the rating, though….

“I cannot tell you the reason why for that will break the spell placed on you, bringing your memories back. I’d rather you not reobtain them. I’ve….suffered enough,” the thief said. He really had suffered. You could hear it in his voice.

Despite not knowing who the voice belonged to, I sensed a weird familiarity when I heard him speak. Probably because we had a conversation before this. While I have no memories, it seems the experiences I had before all this were still deeply rooted in my body.

If my memories were gone, then that’s just the way things would have to be from now on. Whoever I was before this, didn’t matter. The Kayn before me is as good as dead!

The thief began speaking again. “Alright, you seem to have obtained some of your faculties. I believe we can go over the conditions of your rein—”

“Nope.” I cut him off again. He didn’t seem to like that. There were a couple of thunderous booms in my head.

“What do you mean nope?! And would you stop cutting me off!”

“I’m sorry, Theif, but nope means nope. Anything my past self told you to tell me is stuff I don’t wanna hear, got it?”

The Thief sighed. My past self must have been quite obnoxious for him to be so tired of me.

“Even if the other you hadn’t asked this of me, I would have done it anyway. It’s information you need to know.”

“No it’s not. I don’t know why, but I understand the gist of things. I’m neither dead nor alive right now; I’m in a limbo of sorts for some reason and am about to be sent back. I probably asked for my memories to be erased to forget how I died. What a loser. Let’s just get this show on the road, alright?”

He was silent for a moment. It was a long moment. He then started grumbling and soon after cleared his non-existent throat as if he’d come to a decision. Took him long enough.

“So be it. You never told me what to do if you became this defiant, so I’ll do as I see fit. I’ll finally be able to rest after this. How many centuries has it been….”

For some reason, I felt a sharp pain in my chest when he said those words. Was it….happiness? Sorrow? Perhaps a mixture of both. If I had my memories, I would’ve been able to understand them. But who cares! Send me down there baby!

“Let’s get it going. There’s no time like the present to be reincarnated, am I right?”

“The sooner I rid myself of you, the better. So I couldn’t agree more. Be on your way, lost soul of the _______. May you find what you seek in your new life.”

I felt a frantic loss at the blurring of his words. He had said something important, I know he had. If he could just say it again, I could hear what it was. If he could just say—

My consciousness soon faded as the void was pierced by blinding rays of white light. I felt my weightless body drop from its stagnant position and fall into the emptiness below.

***

“And that was all two weeks ago, can you believe it?” I said to M-Scum. The bulbous prison guard sat at his tiny table and fiddled with some contraption far too small for his oversized hands. He simply grunted in an unfriendly manner.

“You all showed up just as I was getting used to walking again. Ha, maybe I should’ve listened to what that thief was trying to tell me….you think this was part of those conditions? I think it was. Like, ‘Heads up, I’ll be sending you into demonic lands. Be careful not to get caught!’ something along those lines I’d imagine. I really screwed myself, didn’t I?” I said again to the same response but slightly louder.

Oh, M-Scum was short for Man Scum. It’s what big red over there called me and had been calling me ever since I set foot in this place. It had gotten on my nerves, I feel most wouldn’t enjoy being called scum, and I tried turning it back on him. Yeah….turns out he hates when ‘Man’ is used in reference to him. I swore I saw that thief on the other side again when M-Scum came stomping over to me, face filled with rage. He seemed ok with the shortened form, though, so I’ve been rolling with it, and it’s been rolling off my tongue.

“You think he would’ve kept pushing for me to know where I was headed, right? Or better yet, wouldn’t it have just made sense for him to send me somewhere else? A nice village with pretty women and cozy fireplaces would have been nice.”

I seemed to have quite the extensive knowledge despite not knowing exactly why I had it or where it came from. When the demons showed up and ripped me from my enjoyment of the warm rain, I knew immediately that the red, black, and grey creatures in front of me were undoubtedly demons. I knew they were hostile to me, and I knew that I needed a new set of trousers for I had soiled my current ones. They provided me with them, which was quite a nice surprise.

M-Scum continued to fiddle with the interlocking device in his hand and paid me no mind. It appeared to be one of those puzzles that required precise movement to separate the two pieces. How do I say this….M wasn’t the greatest at solving it. His frustration showed on his face every time the puzzle reset itself back to the starting point.

“If you want, I could help you with that. It’s not too hard to complete once you g—”

“MAN NOT TALK!!”

And that's how I became a mute. Damn straight I don’t talk. Stitch my mouth shut for all I care. That roar scared every fiber of my body into shutting up.

The angered demon guard slammed his fists on the table, smashing it and the small metal puzzle to pieces.

Do you think they’d reincarnate me again? I sure hoped they would. That puzzle was just a foreshadowing of what he was about to do to me. M-Scum approached the cell with his fist clenched far too tight for my liking. He grabbed the bars and pried two of them apart so he could stick his head in.

“RAAAAAHHH!” he roared.

Right then and there I saw my life flash before my eyes. There was the thief in the void, the warm rain of that forest with the gigantic trees, getting captured by the demons and brought to the cell, spending my days talking to M-Scum and eating food I swore came from sewage.

….

It wasn’t the greatest pre-death montage, but what could I do? I had no memories!

The clearest one in my head was a time when Scum was eating a cellar rat. He was eating it while staring at me with the most uncomfortable gaze imaginable. ‘RAT NOW, YOU NEXT’ that’s what his eyes were saying to me. As he went to deform the cell bars even further, I saw the same look in his eyes except the ‘NEXT’ was ‘NOW’.

Before he had the chance to do so, I felt a tremor shake the castle. Dust filtered from the ceiling and the torches on the stone walls flickered along with the shake.

M-Scum backed up from the gate and looked at the ceiling above. It was more like he looked past the ceiling at whatever was up there. Just moments after the tremor, another demon came rushing down the spiraling steps in a flurry. His skin was grey unlike the red of my jailer, and he had wings at the back of his toned body which only made it clearer that M’s round, wingless figure was of a lesser demon.

They spoke in their demonic tongue which to me sounded like a foreign language overlaid with English and then reversed.

The new demon I had seen before. He was one of the future stealing mongrels that brought me here. I called him Smiles. Not to his face, of course—he was quite sensitive about the fact that half of it had been blown off. He was Smiles because he was always smiling whether he wanted to or not. Not a nickname to be said out loud….

There were a few English words in their conversation like manling and king and such. If my deduction was correct, the demons were currently fending off an attack from some human force. Of course, they could be training for when they would face off against one, but they wouldn’t have such urgency in their faces—or half their face—if that was the case.

M-Scum shot me a dangerous stare before following after Smiles up the stairs. To whoever was attacking the estate at the moment, you have my heart and soul. And to my foolish companion of two weeks M-Scum, if there was one thing I loved dearly about you, it would be your idiocy.

The gap in the bars may not have appeared that large to M, but he was a creature three times my size. What wasn’t large enough to him was just the right size for me, and I wasn’t a man who would squander such an opportunity.

When both of their footsteps no longer echoed in the stairwell, I slipped out from my cell and slowly made my way up the stairs and out of the cellar.

***

To be completely honest, when I made my way from the cellar, I had believed it was a brilliant idea; a chance at escape that wouldn’t show itself to me again. Well….that wasn’t the case. I don’t know what I had expected but things certainly weren't happening the way I planned.

The only exit I knew of was the front gate that I had entered through when they brought me here. Much to my displeasure, I had no idea where that was.

If it wasn’t for the fact the castle was under assault, drawing the attention of the demons to their attackers, I would’ve been spotted long ago and executed in advance.

Yes, executed. It was made clear to me when I arrived that when their queen returned I’d be roasted on a stick like rotisserie pork and shared around as they partied and got drunk off my blood. Ok, that was an exaggeration. They had said ‘YOU DIE BAD!’ and my mind just filled in the blanks. Maybe if their communicative skills were better I could’ve had a better image of my imminent demise, but because they weren’t: Roasted me on a stick.

I wandered aimlessly through the expensively decorated corridors passing locked door after locked door. Somebody had a privacy issue….

At the rate things were going, I was better off returning to my cell and hoping for my kidnappers to have a change of heart. Or maybe for them all to die to the huma—let’s be real here. Big red was the lowest of the low of these demons and that behemoth bent the jail bars easier than I could bend a twig.

The only difference between those bars and bodies of the army troops was that the bars didn't scream out in agony, the humans would.

Human army, your efforts shall not be forgotten. I will cherish your brave souls in my heart for as long as I live. So you got about a week or so on that promise. I won’t be around much longer than that; maybe have someone else remember your legacies?

Just as I was about to give up on the maze-like hallways, I stumbled upon a set of crystal doors that reached all the way up to the ceiling. They were enormous and seemed immovable. Even if they were unlocked, my puny self—though respectfully toned, don’t get it twisted—would have no chance in all hell at opening them.

They were beautiful though. They appeared like diamonds and had no handle of sorts anywhere on them. They were just two slabs of massive crystal hinged to the archway.

I walked up to them and placed my hand on their icy frame. They were beyond cold. It felt like a piece of metal that had been caught in a snowstorm; I worried my hand wouldn’t come off. They’d have to execute me right here! My hand would forever be stuck to the door as a new decoration! Maybe someone would think it was the door handle and would try using it to open them.

My pointless thoughts were proven wrong as I removed my hand from the door with ease.

Vrrmmmm~

A sound began emitting from the door. Alongside it came a pulsating wave that spread out from the center of the door like the ripples on a pond's surface.

What in god's name….

From the crack between the two doors came a shining light that grew larger and larger as the two crystal slabs swung backwards and into the room they had sectioned off. What confused me was that the room itself was dark and had no powerful light source.

What was that flash of light then? The room gave off an eerie vibe; an unsettling, do not enter, type of sensation. So I did what any sensible man would and entered it.

Why wouldn’t I? They were massive crystal doors! Of course I want to see what’s on the other side.

There was this unmoving fog that spread throughout the room and, I noticed this soon after, the room felt impossibly expansive. There were no walls in the room. Just the tile I walked on and the fog that covered it. I may have been walking on the fog itself in actuality.

The crystal doors then closed behind me, cutting off the light from the hall and returning me into a void of darkness like before.

As soon as I heard the click behind me, the fog cleared and a room materialized around me. The room was only composed of a single walkway with alcoves carved out on both sides of the walls. Each alcove had a pedestal or object standing or sitting within them.

At the very end of the room was a circular platform with a pedestal on top.

No way, it’s a treasure room!

To my left was a beautifully crafted sword chained into some stone while to my right was a suit of dangerously black armor. Each alcove contained a different item that drew my attention like a kid at a buffet.

I cared for none of them. The only item I cared for was the misty orb that floated on top the pedestal at the end of the room.

It was raised on a platform and at the end of the room like it was an artist's final painting for crying out loud; I wanted it.

My time was limited, and if I was going to die after stealing an artifact from a clan of demons, I was gonna die stealing the coolest one.

The misty orb pulsated as I came close to it. It was like a blue ball of flame that contained no heat.

“No time like the present….” I muttered to myself and grabbed the orb.

I felt a shock wave surge through me like electricity. For a moment, my body seized up and I felt the wave pass into my mind.

I would’ve preferred one of my own kind, but a human is much more appealing than a demon.

Some voice said in my head. I couldn’t even respond. My body simply shook in the same position I had been in when I grabbed the orb.

“Who are you? What’s happening!?” I asked. I recieved no answer, only a vague continuation of the voice's last statement.

I pass it to you then, human boy. May it serve you well in your endeavours.

And then the voice was gone. So too were the seizures, and, much to my confusion, so too was the orb.

What just happened? It’s like the orb….entered into me. That voice said it was passing it to me. What exactly does that mean though….?

My thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door behind me. The room dematerialized, and the fog returned alongside the expansive darkness.

“Who dares trespass in the room of relics?” an overpowering female shouted from behind.

Entering through the opened door was a demon so human in her features I could’ve mistaken her for a woman playing dress-up. She had black wings and tail sprouting from her back and behind and she wore a grey suit of armor that fit her body snuggly.

Her violet hair fell over her grey cheeks to below her shoulders, and her eyes were crimson red and reptile-like. I don’t know why, but when I saw her, despite never having seen her before, I knew exactly who she was.

The god damn demon queen.

“You! Manling! How did you enter this room?” she roared.

Before she even gave me time to respond, which I had no intent on doing, none whatsoever, her eyes widened with horror and anger.

“Impossible….did you fuse with the gatekeeper's soul?”

There was more worry in her voice than anger.

“No. I didn’t touch anything. Not a single thing; I swear it on my mother’s grave.”

She stopped her approach to me and just stared at me in confusion. That confusion slowly turned to hatred.

It was then that I realized I had understood every word she said to me. I had assumed she had spoken English because I was capable of following what she was saying, but that wasn’t the case.

She had spoken in her native tongue. The language of the demons.

Most certainly due to my absorption of that misty orb, I could now understand them. And it appeared she had come to the same conclusion as I.

“Ok. Maybe I don’t swear it on my mother’s grave….I swear it on M-Scum’s grave,” I said.

As she took her fury-filled steps towards me, I began regretting ever reincarnating. I began cursing my past self who decided to put ME into this mess instead of himself.

If I was going to be reincarnated, did it have to be as a demon’s prisoner?