What do you recall?

The first time they were asked that question, they were lying in a hospital bed. The lights were bright on their beaten face. They could feel their blood thrumming in every battered patch of skin; a buzz along their busted lip, a sting in each bruise, a numbness in their knee and everything past it. They could hear the faint breeze of glass flickering through the lamps just underneath the sounds of medical equipment and their own ragged breath. They could hear everything, too loud, too overwhelming; and yet, as they struggled to stir up an answer, their mind was unbearably silent.

There was a man sitting next to them. He was older, his wrinkles speaking for his wisdom; every time they squinted at the light or twitched their eyebrows from pain, he squeezed their hand, reminding them that he was there. There was something comforting about that, that little motion; but they could not find a name to thank for it.

The lights were blotted out by doctors as they worried over them. They scribbled notes down on their clipboards and hounded them with questions. The man joined in, question after question, too fast to keep up with. His questions always rang out louder; among the medical jargon that they drudged from their clipboards, his questions were always personal, always softer.

Where does it hurt? Can you feel your leg? It was broken. What can you remember of the incident? Do you remember where you are? Where you were?

What can you remember?, he asked. You remember me, right? What about your father?

The doctors exchanged a glance when no answer was given. The man laughed at first. That was the first time they ever saw him smile -- but when he realized that they weren't lying, that smile fell from his face. They did not see it for a very long time after that.

The second time that question came was when they returned home.

Home, as they found out, was a cabin a few miles away from the edge of Zomir, away in the western snowfields. Cyri built the cabin, as they had been told -- and that was his name, that man that sat next to them. Cyri. A part of them thought that it was supposed to sound familiar.

They were exposed to names and words they were supposed to know. The doctors told Cyri that it would be best to reintroduce things gradually, and so he did -- little reminders slipped in between chatter, trying to spark something, anything.

I built this cabin a long time ago, he said as he jammed the key into the door. You've been living here for a long time, too. Remember that time we got snowed in and spent a solid week fighting over card games?

They shook their head and clung tighter to the coat they were given. Was it always so cold here?

They took to memorizing all the things he said; places and history and old anecdotes, each one more confusing than the last. Kepla, their home planet, and Zomir, its capital. The snowfields, the hangar, the cabin; the goddess planets, the solar war, and the long-dead sun. They stood out in the snow and stared up at it. It was a void of light that blotted out the stars behind it. They wondered distantly if they had once known what its warmth felt like.

Cyri told them they had amnesia. His voice was soft, as if too scared to speak louder than a gentle hum. He was very careful around them in all that he said and did. He told them a great many things, some about themself, some about the world around them. He said they lived with him and had been here ever since their father disappeared. He said they had always been a bit quiet, and that they went through some terrible things before coming into his care. He said they were a pilot. He said they considered that a point of pride.

He said their name was Kell. They were twenty-two, and they had nearly died a week ago. Do you remember that?

They thought long and hard before they could answer his question. They tried to comb through their mind, searching for what they knew and trying to fill in the gaps of what they had lost. But there was nothing; their thoughts existed in an empty chasm, a wordless space. A husk for a body.

There was always a sliver of disappointment that Cyri tried to hide when they could not remember things. He always tried to hide it; he'd shake his head and laugh slightly, but there was a sense of loss in his eye.

Cyri quickly took to calling it a crash that had nearly killed them. It wasn't the right term for it, he had explained as he told them all he knew about the incident. Whatever it was, it had nearly taken their life, but it had mercy on them at the last second and took their mind instead.

Kell. The name did not feel familiar to their lips.

Your name is Kell Ezradi. You're twenty-two. You're a pilot.

The person that stood in the mirror was someone without a name.

Rather, they had been given a name. It did not belong to them, not in the way that a person's name should. It was an obligation to know it. It was something they were supposed to pretend to be. They took to memorizing, trying to convince themself that it belonged to them.

Your name is Kell Ezradi. Kell Ez-raah-dee. You're twenty-two. You're a pilot. You -- you like planes, you know how to fly them, you --

How do you even fly a plane? Why did you crash? Did it hurt?

Start over.

They leaned closer to the mirror. Fingers grazed over their skin as they studied that person before them. Not you. Eyes as dark as the dead sun and just as lifeless. Thick eyebrows always furrowed. A deep and prevalent frown. Scrapes along their skin, recently picked at until blood trickled down and dried underneath their fingernails.

Have you always looked this dead?

Eyes squeezed shut.

Kell Ezradi, twenty-two, a pilot. You've always been quiet. You've always been -- you've always been someone. But who?

They were supposed to be somebody. There were supposed to be Cyri's protege, their father's child -- who was your father? Did you love him? Do you look like him? Do you miss him, even now? -- but they couldn't fill that role. They could try and try and try again, pretending that they were just the same, but it would be a lie.

Who are you? What did you do to me?

Kell Ezradi, twenty-two, a pilot stared back at them. The mirror held them still like a picture frame, the dead memorialized for as long as someone stayed to look. That person who stood and stared looked just like them, but they were not one and the same. Maybe they once were, but they were gone now.

They weren't somebody. They were some body, someone who lived and breathed with stolen lungs and puppeteered dead limbs as if they were their own. Their hands rose. They clenched onto skin and hair, feeling it, memorizing its texture.

You thief! You rotten thief! Why did you take this from me? Who are you?

They clenched their teeth.

Start over.

Their name was Kell -- shut up -- they were twenty-two -- shut up -- and an incident cost them their life and their memory -- shut UP -- and they were supposed to die but they didn't and now they live in someone else's body -- SHUT UP -- and they were pretending to be them but they couldn't keep it up because they can't remember a single thing about themself -- SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP --

Something ached in this body. A stinging jolt that made their hand twitch. They looked down. Blood dripped from their battered knuckles. Mirror glass sat discarded in the sink. In every shattered piece, a corpse's eyes stared.

That is Kell Ezradi -- they are dead, and you came back.