Two souls

It was hard to think with the pain he was in, he looked down to where his stomach was supposed to be only to find a branch impaling him. He looks to his left and sees only rocks, to his right the sun sets, dyeing the sky red and orange.

The last thing he remembered was being in the car and being hit hard. He is distracted by the sight of drops of his own blood sliding down the completely red-soaked branch.

"Wha-?" The words cut his throat with each word.

After a few minutes of reorganizing his thoughts, blurred by lack of blood, remembers that he wasn't the only one in the car. He raises his head quickly and stretches his neck trying to see the state of the people in front of him.

“Dad? dad!?” Every movement result in excruciating pain, even speaking is torture.

He keeps moving despite all the suffering that this caused, until he is stopped by warm fingers resting on his cheek. Startled, turns his head to the right to find a woman smiling right into his eyes.

She slowly shakes her head as if signaling him not to look, gently caressing his cheek, staining it with blood.

The woman had long black hair and green eyes, now slightly dimmed by the situation, which in the past had been full of life. She struggled to maintain consciousness and hide her bleeding profile and mangled.

She can't help but smile when sees his greatest pride and achievement in life, contrary to his expectations, no tears come out and only the smile remains, transmitting all his feelings to him.

“I love you.” Were the last words out of his mouth.

At that moment he understands that he has lost the woman that loved most in his life, his mother.

He wouldn't be long in following her.

Ezer opens his eyes with his head tilted looking at his reflection, tears distort the surface of the water creating a blurry image.

“So this is who I am. I'm Ezer and also... No, just Ezer. Who he was in the past doesn't matter, this is Ezer's life... My life.” He gets up and leaves the small artificial lake.

His mind was freed, but it was still fragmented. He was still Ezer, the fourteen-year-old boy who ran away to survive, but something inside him also changed.

The memories of his past life felt like a distant, hard-to-remember dream, and he was partly thankful for that. If it were the other way around, maybe their emotions and personalities would mix and corrupt his mind.

Only one memory kept the emotions and it was that of his mother. He puts his clothes back on trying to reorganize his thoughts and finish convincing himself of reality.

“It's strange, part of me feels that this world is a fantasy with beasts and swords. And the other part thinks my past life was a fantasy, with towers reaching to the clouds and carriages moving on their own.” smiles to himself

"I guess it's just a matter of time until I get used to it" His movements and body expressions were different, almost imperceptibly, but different.

"So... what am I going to do from now on?"

“My previous ideas were very foolish. Go north until when? If I twist my ankle just once it could be a death sentence in this place, how long could I live like this? A month? Six lucky?”

“A person cannot live alone for a long time, that would make him go crazy… I would go crazy. No, a person must live surrounded by people, it is normal. I wonder if I also have that right?” Having gained experience from the past, he begins to see the situation from another point of view.

“Going home is not an option, no matter how much I miss my mother and sister. The territory controlled by my family and the Rolennar is also not an option, I hope those guys are tired of chasing me.” He walks from one side to the other thinking of possibilities.

"And other territories of other families, perhaps the Anadak capital...? No, the nobles have connections and I can never be completely sure, much less have a peaceful life.”

"I only have... the three dukedoms left and if I'm not mistaken, there is no good relationship with Renia's nobility. The best way to get there is by sea, but the nearest port is controlled by the Rolennar. I could go overland around it, but that would take months and I have to cross my family's land anyway.

“Hmm... one road is very dangerous and another is less so, but it would take time.” If he were the old Ezer, he wouldn't take either of them, at least not in the near future, but now he's already decided which choice to make.

"By port, across the gulf to the duchies. It is the best option... I hope.”

By land it is not necessarily safer, the longer you are traveling the more likely you are to encounter an unforeseen event.

Satisfied with his choice, Ezer turns his attention around looking at the now familiar paintings on the wall. Because he looked at them for hours he can tell they now look different than before.

"All this time I was wrong..." He sighs exasperated at his own idiocy.

The first painting, in which it had seemed to him before that a man danced following the trails of the wind, now he could clearly understand that the wind followed the footsteps of the man.

Like the second one in which the woman did not defend herself from the wind, she used the wind as a defense. And finally, the third mural, did not cut the wind, but used it as an extension of the edge of his sword.

Ezer is excited to try to imitate the movements again, but he calms down as he does with his breathing. Every step he took stirred the wind around him, albeit inconsistently, and sometimes going against him making movement difficult, but he continued nonetheless without going too fast or too slow, just adjusting to his own rhythm.

With each step a tear fell, he no longer felt the pain that imprisoned him for years or the memories that weighed on his shoulders. The wind caressed her cheek just like her mother did in his past life.

He couldn't help but burst into tears, the facade of acceptance and rational thinking crumbles with every tear. All insecurity, stress and pressure are washed away, both from the past life and now.

The wind flows around him, cleaning all traces of his past, but without erasing it, thus clearing his future. Now Ezer is truly free to light his own path.