The rain had followed Ricardo all the way from his witch’s home, cold and relentless, soaking through his clothes until the fabric clung like a second, heavier skin. He didn’t remember choosing this street or this building. Even though he would occasionally stop to get directions, the guy would forget them within five minutes of getting them, and every turn felt like he had reset his mind all over again. He looked down at the card multiple times but with every ounce he tried to pull forward, to ignore the tug trying to pull him back to that dreaded table, he just kept repeating Maddox in his head.
Who was this Maddox? Why did he have such a strong reaction from Ricardo? There had been places around New Orleans he’d wandered that felt familiar, despite not remembering them, despite having no memory of ever being there—but never a person. People were foreign to him, blank faces in a fog. Yet Maddox? Maddox felt like he was part of him, like they were connected in some way, and he’d never known such a feeling. Even with his witch it wasn’t as strong. He needed to know who he was. He needed to know who Maddox was.
The streets blurred into one another—wet concrete reflecting smeared neon, wrought-iron balconies dripping overhead like forgotten crowns. His boots splashed through shallow puddles that tasted of the Mississippi and old secrets. The name looped louder with every step, drowning out the witch’s warnings, the pull backward, the fear that whatever waited behind that door might finish what the amnesia started. By the time he reached the narrow stairwell, his legs felt leaden, but the repetition in his skull had become a rhythm, a heartbeat he couldn’t ignore.
Maddox. Maddox. Maddox.
He climbed without pause, water trailing behind him like a ghost. The hallway smelled of old wood and faint incense, the kind that lingers after someone has tried—and failed—to burn away something. The card in his pocket had burned against his thigh the whole way. His hand rose, trembling. He meant to knock lightly, carefully, the way one approaches something fragile. But the moment his knuckles met the wood, something inside him gave way—years of silence, of absence, of being pulled apart and put back together wrong. The sound came out louder than intended, sharp and desperate, echoing down the empty hall. The door opened almost immediately, Ricardo lifted his eyes. There he was. @cmenrps
“Hello, Maddox…”
