Erean fell to his knees as the scenery shifted again and the clearing returned to his vision. He gripped the branch of a nearby tree and let out a loud sob. All of it was gone. All of it was a waste. He'd come all this way for nothing, to be trapped in a world where he did not belong. And he could never go back, he knew that now. There would be no way for him to return.

He longed to hear Rannok and Sasha bicker with one another and to feel the pain in his joints as he moved. He longed to hold his wife, or argue with his sons, or return to the prison that was the southern plains. There would be no answers for them. They would feel the same pain he felt as their bodies deteriorated. They would die the same death. They would not know his love, all because of him. All because he thought he could cheat fate. 

"But you do belong here, Erean."

Anger welled behind his eyes and spilled out in hot water droplets that coated his cheeks. He pounded the ground with his fist and turned on the godforsaken animal that had gotten him trapped here. 

"You animals exist to torture me," he said. And it could never understand. And how could it? How could an animal understand the cold of loneliness or the fierce love of one's children? How could it understand the longing for family or want for peace? 

"More than you imagine," it said. The world shifted out of focus, but it was a much less sick shifting than before. As if the edges of the trees began to glow and the carpet of ferns to hum. Erean closed his eyes and let out a deep, shuddering sigh.

When he opened them again, he knelt in the cramped  eating room of his family's house. His sons sat at the table. Age had stained their faces. His eldest's eyes held the faintest trace of pain, so faint he would not have seen it had he not worn it himself. 

The woman next to him held a child in her lap; a little girl with almond eyes and dark skin. Her hair cascaded in tiny curls down her back. Her wide smile sported a gap where a tooth used to be. She reached across the table and tipped one of the dishes into her mother's lap. Everyone laughed. Erean could not help laughing himself. 

"This is not a memory."

"Time does not flow here as it does elsewhere. This is but a memory not yet made."

"They are okay," he said.

"They were always okay. You simply were too blind to see it."

Erean's face fell, but only slightly. He listened to his son's deep voice as he gave the evening blessing. It floated into his head, then back out like a lullaby. The scene began to blur. The edges of Erean's vision began to falter, but that did not alarm him. He curled himself inward and allowed the darkness to take him. He understood now, better than he had before.

"Not all get second chances."

His whole body relaxed as he drifted off into a peaceful trance, one that lasted a lifetime and a lifetime again until he'd forgotten how long it had been. The sound of his own name drifted out of his head until it was but a distant memory. Their faces blurred until all that remained was a ghost of something he felt like he should remember, one that would never leave even as eons passed.

Erean stretched his arms outward, like he was waking up from a nap. The edges of his world fractured open in brilliant colors. The sun burned his eyes as he blinked them open to greet the new day. 

The face of another crow stared back at him. Her black and white feathers gleamed in the sunlight. She perched gently on the edge of the nest, cocked her head, and made a low, deep sound. It resonated in his heart, like drumbeats.

He opened his beak and returned a harsh, shrill cry that felt at once entirely him. The sound embedded itself in his mind, rolling around there like a hot marble on flesh.

The crow stretched his newfound wings. He had a long journey to undertake, and an important task to fulfill. What or how long he wasn't certain, but it made him quiver with anticipation.

Hopefully, in time, he would remember.