what! Where am I? Memories of the last 18 years in this world hit me like a nuclear bomb.
From 34 to 18, within a short period of a migraine, I had lived 18 years in what seems like the medieval times.
Than Elian's last memory hit me with dizzying momentum and I felt Elian die the weakness he felt before he stopped breathing, in a way he welcomed it... I started weeping, for the young boy. Tears flowed, rage in my heart... I was a man, I felt the need to protect him but I was helpless.
I re-lived his memories, I saw his, or rather also my, memories, I wanted to hate, I was enraged, furious.
I couldn't properly hate Theron... The life they both lived was awful and Theron had tried, even though he was selfish it was only self preservation not malevolent actions that ultimately didn't protect the boy from the harsh realities of this life.
The white-hot, protective rage I felt for Elian was an alien heat in the boy's frail chest, and I used it to shove myself upright. The world swam for a moment—the dizzying reality of eighteen years of malnutrition now translated into shaking limbs and a blinding, primal hunger. The hut was nothing more than a few low, smoke-blackened timbers sealed with mud, lit by a meager fire of damp peat. The air was thick with smoke and the pervasive cold that seemed to stick to the back of the throat.
Theron sat on a low stool, nursing a chipped wooden cup. He didn't look up. He was a man carved from hardship, his face permanently etched with cynicism and exhaustion.
I looked at Theron, livid at this adult, even though I understood his decisions... Nothing I could say to him could remedy what has already happened. I had better things to do than speak to this half corpse anyway.
Turned toward the single, small window covered with greased parchment. The daylight filtering through was a sickening gray, and the cold inside the hut felt somehow colder than the air outside. It was the Morbid Winter, a legendary enemy of man realized. Every joint in this stolen body ached; the cold was already a dull, heavy stone in my bones.
The sudden, brutal reality of the boy's memories—the raw, screaming emptiness of his stomach that was now my stomach—instantly eclipsed the moral outrage. My adult rage was useless against the cold and starvation. Theron hadn't been malevolent; he'd been an animal trying to survive. I wiped the tears and snot on my sleeve, the heat of grief instantly replaced by the terrifying, singular clarity of immediate survival.
"Where is the reserve jerky?" I demanded, the tone shifting from accusation to desperate command. "And the axe. If we don't get fresh timber before dusk, we'll be eating the roof." I wasn't going to let Elian's body die again.