“Oh. Oh no. Please don’t kill me!”
Nyssi stared at the Spast who had been sleeping in her spare bed. She’d found him there a day ago, somehow having let himself in and fallen asleep. What had initially crept Nyssi out was that he had looked exactly like her, but when she prodded what she thought was a mimic, it transformed into the blue Spast lying in front of her.
“How did you get in here?”
“The front door was open!” the Spast immediately started sobbing. “I’m sorry! I don’t remember how I got here! I just remember that there was a loud bang and I started save-shifting and somehow ended here and I’ve given myself formified amnesia! Please don’t kill me!”
Nyssi sighed. “I’m not going to kill you. Really, it’s my fault I left the door open. What is your name?”
The Spast continued to sob. “I don’t remember!”
“How can you not remember your own name?”
“I subconsciously shape-shifted to escape danger! It causes temporary memory loss! I don’t know who I am and probably won’t remember for a few days!”
“What’s the point of shape-shifting if it causes such obvious drawbacks?” Nyssi had never really met a Spast before. She was more curious than anything else. “Were you at the hotel explosion? That wasn’t too far away from here.”
“H-hotel explosion?” The Spat trailed off. “That… The loud bang.. what explosion?”
Nyssi rolled her eyes. “You clearly know nothing.”
“No, because I have fucking memory loss!” the Spast snapped. “You tend to not know things when you can’t even remember your own name! It turns out changing the shape of your own brain and skull does weird things to your memory and senses!”
“I see…”
“That explosion. Maybe that is why I save-shifted?”
Nyssi shrugged. “It was a pretty big explosion. 29 identified dead. 40 beings too torn apart to be recognized. Nearly 120 injured. They still haven’t found the body of some important guy who was there. Whoever the Lord Prince is.”
“The… Lord Prince… is dead?”
“Missing. They haven’t confirmed either way. You’re not the Lord Prince, are you?”
The Spast sat up and scratched his head. His four bright red eyes all blinked independently of each other.
“I… I can’t be. The Lord Prince’s chosen colours are red and silver. I’m… blue. Two shades of blue.”
“Can’t you shapeshift to be any colour?”
“Yeah but we all start off white and choose our own colours at the age of ten. You get so used to shifting into that colour that it becomes second nature. Even if you get formified amnesia.”
Nyssi looked the Spast up and down. “We should probably go to a hospital. Both of us.”
“Why? You look fine. And I… I should be fine in a few days. I can’t have been caught in that explosion, I’d be badly injured…”
The Spast trailed off again and started inspecting his body. He was quite surprised to see various scratches upon his normally flawless skin.
“Maybe we should go… I have injuries I don’t… maybe I was in that explosion… But surely I’d… be more hurt? Explosions cause all sorts of damage, like internal bleeding.”
Nyssi nodded. “Yeah, and you can’t tell if you have internal bleeding just by looking. Literally just yesterday, I survived being trampled to death by Thraggers, so…”
“I think I might… have slept through that.”
“Clearly.”
The Spast frowned, then awkwardly climbed out of bed. “You’re right. We should go to the hospital. Especially if we’ve both been injured and my amnesia doesn’t go away. Do you have a name?”
“I’m Nyssi. Nyssi Tharru.”
“Nice to meet you, Nyssi, my name is… uh… um…” The Spast became more concerned the more he stuttered. “I… I genuinely have no idea.”
“Want me to make a name up for you?”
“No. I’ll remember. Eventually. How do we get to the hospital?”
Nyssi led the Spast out of the room to the front door, pausing to grab her rucksack. She noticed the Spast had no belongings at all, apart from the magical but dirty and tattered silver robes he was already wearing. Robes that would stick to the Spast’s body, no matter what form he took. There was also a watch on his wrist, speckled with gems, but many of the gems had fallen out, and it clearly wasn’t working, the digital clock face completely smashed.
“Closest hospital is the Arksini Hospital in Palaestra. It’s about an hour’s drive.”
They headed outside, where Nyssi’s vehicle was parked. It was just a basic Temthan truck, with two seats in the front and two seats in the back. The massive, wide wheels helped scramble over the local mudlands. Nyssi double-checked to make sure the front door was locked, then tapped the button on her truck keys.
“Need help getting in?” Nyssi asked, watching the Spast jump up.
“No… I got it…”
With a small giggle, Nyssi climbed in herself, strapped herself in, checked to see that the Spast was strapped in, then started the engine.
“Alright, this might take a while. Roads are going to be busy, what with all this carnage going on…”