Life is short, life is long— there are too many inspirational quotes on how to live one’s life to keep track of. For Caleb, life was definitely too long. He had lived so long, been through too much for over 900 years, that his memory had become nothing but weathered tatters. He forgot when or where he was born. ‘Caleb’ was not even his original name, or the only one at that. He was called by countless names, drifting through forgotten cities and falling nations. His friends, lovers, and even family he had foolishly built, all turned to ash in the end, leaving him alone with his melancholy. Around the beginning of the new millennia, Caleb was tired of loss, tired of the incurable void in his chest and being so excruciatingly alone.
All that agony shrouded him like a sheet of fine dust, the river took it away. He woke up at the riverbank, coughing off water. Baptized by oblivion, he was reborn as a stranger to himself. He was found by a reclusive man named Terrance, living alone on the edge of Lethe. After a series of tests, he was labeled as one of the Riverborns. Terrance gave the Riverborn a name, Matthew Miles, and a job at the bar, Terrance’s. He does not pay much mind to the wary look he receives on the street or murmured whispers behind his back. So he has an amnesia, big deal. For an amnesiac who needs to relearn everything, Matthew is surprisingly composed and unworried. He is utterly unconcerned of his own education the town offered, arguing that he would not have forgotten everything if it was of any importance to him. In fact, he shows no desire, if not a blatant refusal, to reclaim his lost memories. He completely detaches himself from who he was before, and whoever he was, that man is dead now. This life is his and his only. As he likes to say, this is his turn to fuck himself up.
So whenever the faintest hint of recognition raises the dust inside him, Matthew dismisses it without a second thought. He is content with his simple life and his chase of bliss, overindulging himself with passion and thrill. The distraction has worked so far, except that few weeks ago he discovered that he can create a tiny flicker of flame. He snuffed it out immediately and kept it a secret. But little did he know, that spark was just the beginning, that it ignited something inside him and it will spread like a wildfire.
