"Let go Gregor!" Boots calls, her small legs peddling hard on her new bike.
She's riding through the spring grass, trying out her bike with no training wheels. She's been doing great so far for a three-year-old, staying up for sometimes ten seconds before she forgets to keep peddling and falls over onto the lawn, giggling like falling is the funniest part.
I let go of the bike again and Boots is propelled forward, but she's steering the wrong way, towards the gravel drive. I know she'll fall before she reaches it so I don't worry, but instead she keeps right on peddling, remembering when she actually needs to forget.
"Stop Boots!" I call. But she's too happy that she hasn't fallen yet and keeps right on going until she's on the gravel and her tire skids. In an instant she's on the ground and still giggling. Thankfully it doesn't look like she's hurt. But when she clambers to her feet I can see that her knees and hands are scraped and red.
"Gregor I bleeding!" Boots says, surprised and realizing that now is the time to cry.
Bleeding. I stumble at the word and sink to my knees in the grass, somewhere else entirely in my head. The crimson red of my sister's blood the only thing I can see. My body begins to shake as memories fill my mind.
I'm above the battlefield outside Regalia's walls, Underlanders on their fliers with weapons dripping blood surround me. Blood is on them as well, leaking from wounds both small and large. Blood is on the ground, forming pools beneath the dead bodies of the gnawers. Blood is on the gnawers, trailing from cuts that the Regalians and I have made. And from the dead humans as well. Blood is on the Bane, dripping from his shoulder and his severed tail. I did that.
Then suddenly I'm back in my own body, kneeling in the grass, gasping for air. But the images don't completely stop as Boots runs inside, forgetting about her own injuries, calling, "Mama! Mama! Gregor's hurt!" But I'm not hurt, not on the outside at least.
More scenes flash through my mind. I can't stop them. Blood dripping from Ares's wing as he drops me off on Regalia's wall. I can barely move but I tell him I'm fine so he can save more people. I need to focus on reality, cut off the flow of memories. This was already too overwhelming when it happened, and living through it again is just making it worse.
Blood covers my chest and arms, drips down my legs from the wounds the diggers delivered. I need to stop before the images go to the one thing I'm trying so hard to forget.
Blood stains my blade and twists off in glistening strings as I use the spin attack that Ripred taught me. No, it's getting closer. I can feel my father's arms wrap around me as my breathing quickens to an unbearable rate, my heart pounding frantically against my chest. But he can't stop these nightmares.
Blood coats the Bane's fur as he chases us through the dark tunnels, leaving the battle behind, but not the death. Only one person is ever able to pull me out of these blood memories, but it doesn't look like she'll be here in time. I brace myself for the one thing I've tried time and time again to rid from my thoughts..
Blood spurts out of the hole I just made in the Bane's chest as his eyes dim. No, make it stop.
Blood pools in my own chest, the Bane's wound sapping my life. No, I can't see it again. It has to stop. Please make it stop.
Blood drips into the puddle between us from Ares' neck. His eyes are empty and black, the light and life already gone. I feel another hand against my arm and I am pulled away from my father. She's finally here but it's too late. The memory is already back at the forefront of my mind, here to torment me in the days to come.
My eyes find Lizzie's. My sweet little sister who was there in the Underland during those last few days. She has no idea what I'm going through but somehow it's her touch and her words that have been able to pull me out of the memories before.
From the look in her eyes I know that she knows she was too late. "I'm sorry." She whispers, but it's not her fault.
I take one single deep breath, then push to my feet. There's one thing that helps calm me after the blood memories, helps to ease the pain of all the death I experienced: running. So without another word or glance at my father, Lizzie, and Boots, I take off across the yard, towards the back of the house where I can escape into the woods. In there, there's nothing to bring back Underland memories.
I know what's coming when I cross the threshold of the forrest so I block out every other noise and listen carefully, I don't want to forget her voice.
"Fly you high, Gregor." Luxa echoes in my memory. The only memory I have left of her that isn't covered in blood, all the others have faded away, leaving only darkness and fear.
"I can't up here Luxa, we don't have fliers in the Overland." The image of Ares dead next to me returns. But Luxa is quickly back to counter.
"Then run like the river." I can almost feel her hand in mine as I sprint through the trees, but she's slipping away, like I'm moving too fast for her to hold on. I try and slow down but her voice is still fading as I reply,
"Can't do that either. Up here there's only memories to chase me, and I can't run from those." I can't run from the blood memories, my headlong sprint in the forrest is useless, but Luxa's insistence is relentless..
"I have to say something as a farewell. You know goodbye isn't good enough." But a goodbye is all that I can remember of her.
"How about live you well." As I recall the words I spoke the last time I saw her I wonder how I could have been so hopeful. How did I still believe that everything wasn't over? That life could go on and I would be alright? I know better now.
"Live you well, Gregor the Overlander." But shouldn't I still try and live up to Luxa's last parting words? I have to fight harder because this is all I have left in my memory of her.
"Live you well, Queen Luxa of the Underland." I slow to a stop as I always do once our farewell has played itself out. I ran farther this time than before, the hollowed stump that was my end marker during the last series of blood memories is over twenty yards behind me. Maybe soon I'll be fast enough to live up to the run like the river blessing, I have more chance of that than fly you high or live you well.
I sigh loudly, letting out all my sadness, frustration, and pain in that single breath, replacing it with an image of Luxa's face. Lizzie isn't the only one who can drive the blood memories away. Then, without pause or a backward thought I begin the slow jog home.
The blood sun is setting.