An Unbound Soul

I woke up in bed, and in some state of confusion. How did I get here? The last thing I remembered... Oh, I'd had a breakdown all over Mum, hadn't I... But that was right outside Dawnhold. When did we get home? There was no sunlight, so it was still nighttime. A rumble in my stomach reminded me that I'd missed a couple of meals yesterday. Or maybe today. I was completely disorientated and had no idea what time it was.

"Are you hungry?"

I spun around to see Dad sitting in a chair he'd dragged into the bedroom, holding a light crystal. Looking back towards the bed, Mum was sound asleep. After what I'd put her through yesterday, disturbing her would be unfair, so I climbed up as quietly as I could manage and slipped into the living room. Dad followed me, using his body to shield Mum from his light crystal and closing the bedroom door behind us. There were sandwiches waiting on the table... They'd left me food and Dad had waited up for me, even after Mum had carried me all the way home...

"Sorry... OUCH!" Did Dad just whop me over the head?!

"What are you apologising for, you nincompoop! You need to eat something, then go back to bed. And maybe, in the morning, if you think you can trust us enough, you can explain what's wrong."

Seriously, he just smacked me! Then he called me a nincompoop! What did he think I was? Some sort of child?! Oh... wait...

That shook me enough that I burst out laughing. Once I thought I could manage to get a sentence out, I tried again.

"Sorry, and no whopping me this time! As much as you seem to appreciate the opportunity to act like a real parent for once."

"Well, at least your tone was better that time. But are you trying to tell me I'm not a proper parent?" He was grinning as he said it, so I knew he wasn't really mad.

The mirth wore off quickly, and I switched back to sombre. But he was right about one thing. I could trust them. They were literally incapable of breaking my trust, after all. The only question was whether they'd also be literally incapable of understanding or remembering my explanation. I ate up the mildly stale sandwiches and slid back into an uneasy sleep, dreaming dark dreams of brainwashed chefs enslaving me and insisting that I invent cling film.

The next morning we were somewhat awkwardly collected around the table, Dad having delayed his work in the fields. They weren't pushing anything, but that just meant I had no idea where to even begin. Maybe try to give them some proof and see what happened? Let's see how far the no lying rule really went.

"Mum, tell me that the sky is green. Say those exact words. 'The sky is green'."

"Huh? But it isn't, little one. It's blue."

"Is it really? It can equally be red at dawn or dusk. With cloud cover, it could be white or grey. At night, it's black. So why did you specifically mention blue? And why can't you say that it's green?"

"It's just... Everyone knows the sky is blue. That's common sense. Putting clouds in the way or removing the light doesn't change that. Saying it was any other colour would be incorrect. Is this some sort of joke I don't understand? But if it helps; the sky is green."

Huh? She could say it? She just needed a reason? I knew joking was allowed, so where was the cut-off? What was an unacceptable lie?

"No, not joking, trying to work something out. Would deliberately saying something that's incorrect be wrong?"

Mum looked taken aback as she considered that. "I... guess so? You don't generally need to think about what's right or wrong."

An interesting response. Whereas I... "The sky is green."

Both parents looked at me in confusion. "No, it isn't, it's blue."

"Yes, we just covered that. But if saying something incorrect is wrong, what did I just do?"

They continued to look at me in confusion, as if they couldn't make sense of what had just happened. My best guess was that they couldn't lie for no reason, or maliciously. It could make an interesting test in the future, if I needed to quickly check whether someone was affected; even if they were perfectly capable of physically saying the words, the way they responded to the conversation was obviously unnatural. Time to bite the bullet and see their reaction to me telling them outright.

"You're under the effects of powerful soul affinity magic that prevents you from taking certain actions, or even thinking about taking them, or considering that anyone else might be capable of taking them. You're both brainwashed. But you're also prevented from noticing that you're being controlled. Even if I tell you outright like this, you're likely to forget that we ever had this conversation as soon as I stop talking. And it's not just you, it's everyone in Dawnhold. My [Abnormal Soul] trait protects me, but from what I've seen so far, I'm the only one."

Their mouths opened and closed like goldfish. The sight would be comical if the topic wasn't so serious. This time, Dad was the first one to speak. "That isn't possible. No-one can use soul magic."

"I can. For all I know, it's no rarer than body affinity, and the brainwashing just prevents anyone from seeing soul affinity spells in the store."

"What brainwashing? What's that got to do with the sky being blue?"

I sighed. So the information really wouldn't stick in their heads. In that case, whether or not I could convince them was irrelevant. I'd have to move on to phase two of my explanation early. "Just forget everything I said. Your brainwashing prevents you from remembering the important bits."

Mum was now looking a little frightened. "What are we forgetting? You said earlier that we were likely to forget the conversation as soon as you stopped talking, but you were just talking about the colour of the sky. Why were we talking about the colour of the sky?"

"It doesn't matter. I just wanted to see if you could remember, and you can't. The sky wasn't important."

This was going in circles... How did you change the topic of conversation when the other party didn't just have the mouths of a goldfish, but also their memory? If in doubt, brute force. "I have memories of a previous life."

Both mouths dropped open, but this time they didn't close again. Good. No-one was mentioning the sky. I continued before they had a chance to bring it back up.

"That's where my [Abnormal Soul] trait comes from. The description is 'The structure of your soul is completely alien to the lands you walk' and it comes from the fact that my soul fell into this world from another. I lived to the age of twenty-four years old—or... around eighteen of your years, since yours are longer—and died in an accident. The next thing I remember was waking up here, only a few minutes old. Where I lived before was completely different from here, so while I still knew my old language and even how to read and write, it didn't help. And just like the language, our common sense was different too."

"A previous life? So... you died, and then you were born here? And you remember everything?"

"Yes."

"That's... Language is language. How can it be different?"

Really? That's what they were focusing on? But again, as I'd just said, different common sense. Tens of thousands of people were created only a few hundred years ago with a language already in their heads. Languages hadn't had a chance to diverge yet. Maybe they never would. There wasn't even a name for it; it was just 'language'. The concept of a 'different' language didn't exist. "When Mum says little one, in my old language we would say (little one). Different words for the same thing."

"Okay, that's a bit weird, but I can see how you could have different words for the same thing. Then what about common sense? How can that be different?"

"For a start, we didn't have the System. No skills, no traits, no magic. No brainwashing either. If you tried to run a store without any clerks, someone would just clean the whole thing out."

Both mouths dropped open again. "No System? How does that work? Without farming skills or magic, how did you feed yourselves?"

"We had something called science instead. The details aren't important; the point is that since my old world was so different from this one, I have a habit of making 'common sense' assumptions that aren't true. I'd convinced myself that I understood this world, but the visit to Dawnhold yesterday showed me just how wrong I was. Also, did I mention we didn't have any brainwashing in my old world?"

"Okay, so you have memories of another life, and as a result, your visit to Dawnhold caused you confusion. Is that why you reacted to the shop, the slave traders and the town lord?"

Yup, they completely ignored the mention of brainwashing again. They weren't going to be able to understand that my old world didn't have it, which would make it difficult to explain the reason for my confusion at the way shops worked. But not as hard as explaining my fear of the town lord; that he knew. He'd used an appraisal skill of some sort on me and it was something so bad that [Privacy] had levelled from a single use. How could I explain that I was worried about Earth fiction, where in this sort of isekai story, nobles would never leave someone like me to their own devices? Yet he hadn't shown any reaction beyond a strangely mobile eyebrow. He had just let me leave... Was I under watch now? Would I be kidnapped later? Did he think I was successfully brainwashed like everyone else, and that I would come when called? Was he even responsible for the brainwashing in the first place? Mum seemed to trust him implicitly, but that didn't mean anything. Everyone trusts everyone. Since it was against some set of invisible rules to even lie, why would they not? I was terrified, and with the brainwashing, I wasn't even able to properly explain to them why.

"Yes. In my world, shops always had (shop assistants) to serve customers, slavery was... umm... You don't have words for (illegal) or (evil)... A very unpleasant thing that most countries didn't allow. Town lords were people to be feared and avoided, who would take advantage of their citizens if they stood out or even eliminate them if they could prove a future threat."

"How would a commoner be a threat to their lord?"

"In this world they wouldn't, and I understand that, but I can't just throw away nearly twenty years of old memories. I'm sorry. I'm trying not to be, but I'm still terrified... I'm not going to have another panic attack, but it's probably a good idea for me to stay away from Dawnhold."

Dad was tapping his fingers on the table. This whole no lying thing was really proving its worth here. Back on Earth, telling my parents I had memories of a different life and explaining how this world worked with its System and rules and magic would serve only to get me sectioned.

Mum chimed in with a different question. "Did you have a family there, back in this other world?"

Now it was my turn to fall into silence. I hadn't thought about my Earth family for a long time. I couldn't even remember when it had last been. Maybe years. I hadn't wanted to think about them, or to think how they would have reacted to my death. They were... Huh? I was trying to picture them, but I couldn't imagine their faces. I couldn't even remember their names. Didn't I have a brother? Or was it a sister? Why couldn't I remember? I tried to picture our house, family sat around the dining table, but the people sitting in the chairs were blurry shadows. I tried to recall them talking to me, but there was only a low-pitched hiss where voices should be.

"I'm sorry. I've reminded you of something unpleasant, haven't I? You can't see them anymore, can you?"

I looked up at Mum, but my vision was blurred. I realised I had teared up again. "It's okay. You're my family now."

Dad was grinning, which seemed rather inappropriate. "I'll take soppy over panicking any time."

Despite my admittedly very cheesy line, I was still disturbed. What happened to my memories of my Earth family? Now that I thought about it, when had I ever thought of them? I'd been born here, and I'd known that Lucy was my mother. I'd barely thought about my Earth family, beyond feeling guilty about vanishing on them. I'd never actually missed them. What else had gone through my head back then, when I'd first been reborn? I couldn't even remember the faces of my friends. This wasn't a simple case of forgetting; that wouldn't explain the shadows and the hissing, or how I'd managed not to notice the gap until now. There was only one conclusion I could come to; my parents were not the only ones whose memories had been altered.