Memory Keeper

The new arrival clutched the bars, weeping. Their shouts had dried up hours ago, but they hadn’t stopped clawing at the cage. Their fingernails were bleeding.

The others hunched in a mass at the center of the enormous cell, though a few huddled on their cots or crouched against the wall with damp blankets pulled over their shoulders as if that thin layer could protect them. Hundreds of eyes flicked from the newcomer to me in rare eye contact as they waited for me to handle the situation. They couldn’t understand such rage, or the depth of their despair.

They’d given all of theirs to me.

Slowly, I approached the new one. “Hey.”

They whirled, teeth bared, but I didn’t flinch. They were young, like all of us, with dark green fuzz for hair and softer green limbs. A moss child, perhaps, probably female. Hard to tell.

“You can give me the memories,” I said. “Being here is easier without them.” I put my hand out, palm up. It was still smooth and small, the hand of someone not all the way grown.

I felt grown. The memories I carried weighed my every step.

The youth looked down at my palm, pursing her lips as if to spit, then turned away. “I want to remember.”

“I do too. But the others say it helps.” The few who’d refused to give up their memories hadn’t lasted long. I recalled every one of them and their boundless fury. How the human guards had laughed as they’d kicked them. My jaw clenched, still hearing the sound of bodies being dragged over the rough concrete. “Please.”

They brought all kinds here, anyone they could catch. Soon the world would be wholly theirs, the rest of us locked in here, or gone. Was that what they wanted? Why else capture us and kill us?

I didn’t know why I’d lived so long, while the others seemed to flicker and fade after a few years. Would I spend the rest of my days here? A twist in my stomach made me catch my breath. Nightmares lived…a very long time.

The child put her back to the bars and looked at the others for the first time. The group had come closer during our conversation and now they stood in a half-circle around us, a mass of bodies, shoulders pressed against each other for warmth or comfort. Not one of them older than twenty.

“Were all of you taken?” she asked them.

They nodded.

“When can I go home?”

A heartbeat of silence, then one of the others stepped forward. A tree child, by the look of them. “This is home now. Nobody gets out.”

“Not alive, anyway,” someone else muttered.

The new one’s face crumpled. She looked to me. ”I’ll feel better, if I give them to you?”

I nodded. Quieter and safer, too.

She looked from face to face. Each of them nodded in confirmation. They might not enjoy my presence, or willingly meet my eyes, but they were grateful to have a Nightmare among them. Who else could take their pain and hold it for them? I was the only one made for this.

Not quite made for this. Their memories sat like rocks inside me, scraping and scratching with every thought, making me heavy and slow. If I let them out while the others slept, as I was meant to, the ache might ease, but I couldn’t bear to make them face their pain again. Not once I’d seen it for myself.

“Touch my hand.” I put the burr of sleep into my voice, softening her jagged edges.

Nightmares aren’t easy to find. The humans shouldn’t have been able to catch me, but I’d been distracted, hiding in a forbidden sweet dream. Hiding from the elders who would punish me for the indulgence.

Shameful to be caught. My family would never forgive me.

The thought was glass in my throat. They wouldn’t have the chance to forgive me. Nobody left this place alive. Not that I’d seen, and I’d been here longer than anyone else. So long that when I closed my eyes to blot out the gray concrete walls and rows of cots, ignoring the stench of too many unwashed bodies, I could hardly recall the outside. Maybe I’d invented the velvet deep night, made it up to survive inside this human cage. Had I really flown those skies, or slept through the day in a cuddle with my family? I’d been so young when they caught me. Barely more than an egg.

“I’m ready.” The moss child touched her green hand to mine. I staggered as jagged memories cut through my skull—

Ripped from my mother’s arms, the buzz of metal as they chop her down. Dirt in my mouth as they drag me away, my mother lying in pieces—

The lock on the outside door squeaked, tearing me out of the transfer. I pushed the new one behind me, my throat sore as if I’d been screaming. The others hissed instructions: Eyes down, don’t speak, don’t move.

A human guard entered the room, slapping a baton against one leg.

I watched through slitted eyes. It was a male, I felt certain, with fur on its face and bulky flesh beneath its clothing. It smelled like a predator as it eyed us, hungry for something I didn’t want to name. I pressed my lips together, hiding my fists behind my back, but I didn’t turn away. They’d notice the movement.

Another guard came in dragging three children with fire-red skin and hair. They were half the guard’s height, but they’d been gagged and their hands cuffed roughly behind their backs. One guard banged its baton against the cell bars as the other unlocked the cage and pushed the children inside.

“Stick your arms out, idiot monsters,” it yelled. “Or you can spend the night locked up.” It slammed a gloved hand on the cage, and all of us flinched back. “The easy way or the hard way.”

Do it, I silently urged them. I’d seen the hard way too many times.

One of the braver fire-children put their manacled hands through the bars. The guard grabbed them and twisted hard, smiling when the child screamed.

I pressed my lips together and stayed still.

“Obey faster next time and it’ll hurt less,” the guard snarled as he unlocked the child’s cuffs.

The other guard laughed. It stood so close, I could touch its face through the bars.

How I wanted to. One quick touch and he’d be locked in a nightmare worse than he could possibly imagine. If I did that, they wouldn’t just punish me. I’d seen what happened when one of us angered a human.

No matter that we were imprisoned, weak and hungry, cold and hopeless. The humans came in here with their glinty eyes and white smiles and looked at us as if we were the threat. You’re why we aren’t safe in our own world, they’d shouted at us once. As if they were from here, and hadn’t landed in their flying machines and started killing us the moment they opened the doors.

I knew the humnan stories. Our elders told them to us as soon as we hatched, so we’d be ready.

If only I’d been ready.

Behind me, the moss child quivered. Her fury smelled like hot grass, sharp and fresh. She was going to do something stupid—

A green hand flashed past me and latched onto the human’s face. Its skin rumpled beneath her fingers and he shrieked, high and piercing, arms flailing as he tried to free himself.

“Let go!” I cried, pulling on her arm. “They’ll punish all of us.”

“Let them.” She held on tighter. Behind us, the others edged closer, watching with greedy eyes.

“Hey!” The second guard leapt to his feet.

Tried to leap: the fire child he’d unlocked put their skinny arm through the bars and grabbed his sleeve. It burst into flame. The human shrieked as more hands clamped down, their red-hot nails digging in as a meat smell filled the air. In seconds, the human burst into a bloom of fire. The scent of sweet char dizzied me.

My first night out, following two elders through the black sky. I retched at the smell of cooked meat in the human habitat. The elders smiled and promised I’d get used to it.

“Help!” The guard’s voice snapped me back. He had twisted himself free of the moss child’s grip.

He would run for the door, call other humans, they would open the cage and tear us out, one by one—

No. I wouldn’t allow it.

I twisted an arm through the bars and pulled off its glove. Someone else seized its fingers. Little brown mushrooms sprouted from its skin, shooting up beneath its sleeve and onto the guard’s neck. The guard went stiff, his breath coming in short fast gasps.

The others pressed against the bars, shouting encouragement. For a second, I couldn’t breathe. We’d killed one human, were about to kill another. The punishment would be terrible. None of us would survive it.

Unless…

I touched the guard’s fingers and I was in its head.

Screams as they pull my siblings from the water and let them dry, their skin ripping, the humans laughing—

A foot on my throat, my head twisted, forced to watch as humans dig out my twin, tearing them apart—

The net tangled around my limbs, I crash to the ground, my wing snapping. The humans rip it off—

Heavy hands shove me to the ground, dark laughter as they hold me down—

Searing fire held so close my eyelashes catch, my eyebrows burn, I can’t breathe—

The human’s eyes rolled back and it fell boneless to the floor.

A roar rose up behind me as hands tugged the body closer to the bars. Someone touched it and the human went soft as decay oozed from every orifice. The stink of rot filled my nostrils as he decomposed into a mushy pile of flesh on the floor.

The other guard was ash.

It was done.

Grinning through clenched teeth, I rifled its loose clothing. They all wore their keys attached to their belts, the jingling sound adding to our torture. I found them quickly. One of the fire children stuck out a thin arm and unlocked the cage door. It swung open with a creak.

For a second, we stared at it. A wide open door with no humans outside, their batons raised and cruel hot eyes eating us up.

I didn’t know what to do with an open door. Did my world still exist? Would anyone out there remember me, or want me back?

My feet moved as if through one of my own dreams, forcing their way through invisible barriers. Step by step, I walked to the door. Climbed over the bottom rung, and I was out.

Like unplugging a drain, the others poured out after me. The space wasn’t large enough for all of us, leaving some pressing against the bars, aching and shoving for freedom.

“Listen to me!” I said.

Nobody heard me. My voice wasn’t made for shouting. What they needed was direction.

They needed to remember.

I turned my focus inward, seeking and separating the memories I’d taken from every person in this room, then I released the pent-up pain, the boiling wrath they’d each handed me when they’d first arrived.

It flooded out of me like vomit, like tears, and as the memories left, my body changed. I grew lighter, lighter, until my feet barely touched the ground.

As I released the last memory, I flew.

Some of them watched me, faces wet with grief. Others fell to the floor, screaming, tearing their hair. Some hadn’t moved, shocked into silence.

I hovered near the ceiling, studying my hands, my legs. They were transparent, ethereal as midnight mist. I could float through the walls if I wanted. I’d never tried it, never heard of such a thing, but I knew it to be true. All these years, I’d weighed myself down with the carried memories.

Maybe we’d have escaped years ago if I’d let them keep their rage.

“Listen to me,” I called.

One by one, they turned their ferocious eyes up to meet mine.

“We know what to do. We can win. We’ll go together, as a group. Nobody left behind.”

They nodded, looking at each other, then they roared and howled their agreement in voices of desperation and loss and terrified hope. Everyone was on their feet, fists clenched. Ready.

I landed by the door. The moss child was right behind me, with the three fire children at her side. Behind them, hundreds of others waited to follow us to freedom.

The moss child met my eyes and smiled. See you outside, she mouthed.

I nodded. Outside.

BIO: Sophia Krich-Brinton (she/they) lives in Colorado with her partner, kids, and cats. They write weird stories at dawn when the world sleeps and the cats try to sit on their keyboard. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in HAD, B’K Magazine, The Argyle, Moss Puppy Mag, and more. When not writing, she boxes, plays the banjo, and goes backpacking. Find them at sophiakbrinton.com or on Twitter/Instagram at @sophiakb_writes