Castlevania: Of Darkness and Light

Heart of a Hunter

It all came flooding back to me. Layers upon layers of memories and wisdom connected to the parts of my mind already established. Not all at once, thank the Boss above,  I would've lost my mind. Rather like waves on the shore, crashing full force and receding, leaving marks behind.

Sypha's voice spoke my name quietly. "Are you okay?"

I let go of Alucard and stared at her. That wasn't always my name. When I saw the cerulean of her cloak I remembered the Speakers, the original Speakers who I taught the arcane arts and reminded them to pass their history only through spoken word. Sypha called me again, but in the name I was known as. "Zaharial?"

I gasped, heart hammering rapidly I feared it'd crack my ribs. My eyes darted around the shrine I instructed Cassius to create decades after his great grandfather helped me subdue Death to prepare for the future. The angel on the wall stared back at me, her glyphs mirroring mine. She is me.

"Kid." Trevor said sternly. "Breathe deep. Don't pay attention to anything but my voice. It's going to be all right." I couldn't pay attention to him. The memories were ever present, and not only them: The knowledge of who I truly am and what I've lost.

The shrine became so small and stifling it threatened to smother the breath out of me.

"I can't." I let go of Alucard's hand. "I can't stay here!" He cried my name when I fled sprinting out of the Belmont hold into the dense familiar forest. The world crashed when I tripped over a root and lay where I fell, curled up sobbing from the resurfacing memories and the revelation of my identity.

A sharp voice called me. It was Trevor. I scrambled up with my back against a tree, feeling on the edge of frightened to death, hyperventilating and crying all at once. I couldn't focus, the world toppled around me and I was lost in the chaos.

"Listen to me!" His stern voice cut through the disarray. "Breathe. Focus on me and what I do. Take a deep breath and count down." He demonstrated inhaling slowly as his chest expanded. I tried copying him, but my breaths came out as violent sobs. "Shh. Don't rush it. In and out. Slowly. Don't pay attention to anything around you or what's inside you. Only on what I do." He breathed in through his nose and out his mouth.

"That's a good girl." He said when I copied him. "Do it again." I felt the world stabilize with each revitalizing breath. "Again." In through the nose, out the mouth. Yet my brain still swam with the revelations and memories of the Belmont Hold. My heart raced seeing the glyphs shine brightly on my trembling hands.

Trevor cut in. "Can you speak?"

I answered with a thin hoarse voice. "Yes."

" Look around me and tell me what you see."

I looked behind him. "A stream with a deep bank."

"Describe it to me."

My eyes locked onto the bubbling stream behind me. "It's not deep and its running straight. There are smoothened rocks poking out from it that are big enough to step across and the water is moving around it . The bank is deep about waist height and there's trees drooping over it. There are deer tracks at the edge of the bed, and a bush of hollies."

"What else do you see?"

" A big willow tree all the way to the right. Right against the water. The current is running fast. It's spring, so the meltwater must be running from the mountains."

Trevor nodded. "Feeling better now right?"

I blinked at him startled. "Yes, the world itself has stabilized."

"Good."

"But not great. I still feel shaky, and on the edge . Like I'm anticipating a night creature attack."