The Urimine Effect

by Matthew Fortuna

shook her head. "I can't remember anything from more that a few days ago."

  Menny paused, taking in Yin's confession.

  "Where have you been?" Menny finally asked.

  "I was out in the grasslands with a male named Jerrem." Yin explained, "He gave me a place to stay so I could figure out what I was supposed to do."

  "Did you get hurt?"

  Yin shrugged, making Menny sigh.

  "Okay," Menny said, "Your father would have been worried sick if he'd heard you were missing for so long."

  "You mean my human father?"

  "No," Menny said, puzzled, "King Pen. He would have worried sick if he knew you were missing."

  "Why doesn't he worry now?"

  "He's dead." Menny said, lowering her gaze, "He died in the ruins of the tower."

  Yin's head realed with the information. Not only did she have a second father she didn't know about, his name was King Pen and he'd died the same day that Yin had lost her memory.

  Yin collapsed to the ground, her head screaming in pain. Thoughts and memories she'd hidden away from herself rose to the surface, fixing what she had forgotten, and filling in the gaps. Menny tried to help, cradling Yin's head.

  Yin blacked out, not coming to until she woke up, lying on a bench along the side of the road. Menny stood above her.

  Unprepared, Yin lashed out, cradling herself into a ball. Menny fell back onto the pavement.

  "Yin." Menny said, "It's me."

  "I don't want to remember you." Yin's voice was muffled by her arm.

  "You have to remember if you want to move on."

  "I don't want to move on. I want to be here. Please leave me alone."

  "No. You have to remember. You need to face your fear."

  "I can't. I don't want to."

  "Yes you can. Your fear keeps you trapped. Let go of it."

  "No."

  Menny sighed. "Yin I will take you to police headquarters. You will have time to rest until you're ready to face what you are."

  "No." Yin curled up tighter.

  Menny's expression was sad. She lifted Yin up off the ground and carried her until they'd made it back to the police HQ, stopping only long enough to rest, and put Yin in confinement in one of the cells along the inner wall of the building.

  Menny made a few calls while Yin tried to come to grips with who she was.

  "This is Jovie speaking." A voice on the side of the line said.

  "Jovie," Menny said, "I found Yin."

  "Is she okay?"

  "Yes, she'd lost her memory and was living with someone in the grasslands. She's remembered everything since I talked with her, but she's fighting it. I need you to come down here and talk with her."

  "I'll be right there."

  A few minutes later, a dark brown Meregal drifted into Yin's cell.

  "Yin," She said, "I'm here to help you."

  Yin curled up tighter.

  "I'm Jovie. I'm your new mother."

  "I don't have a mother."

  Her words stung.

  "Yin, I know you're upset, but you have to remember. Menny told me you'd lost your memory after the tower collapsed."

  Yin's body went still.

  "So?"

  "You had a traumatic breakdown, and you locked everything that hurt you away."

  "I hate my life. I wish I was dead."

  "You don't mean that."

  "I do."

  Jovie sighed, and sat down next to Yin, holding her in her arms.

  "Yin, when we met a few days ago, something inside of me changed. I felt like I had something special to look after. A friend that I'd never had."

  "I'm not a friend to anyone. I just hurt people everywhere I go."

  "That isn't true."

  "Yes it is."

  "Yin, look at me."

  Yin pulled herself out of a ball.

  "I care about you, Yin," Jovie said, "More than you could know."

  "Then why didn't you come find me?"

  Jovie sighed, "I was in the hospital. Your father protected me when the tower collapsed, taking most of the damage away."

  Yin didn't say anything.

  "When I got out, we looked everywhere for you, in fact, Menny was on patrol for that very reason."

  "Where is she?"

  "She's finding you a place to live."

  "But I have a place to live."

  "Where?"

  "Out in the grasslands."

  "But don't you want to live in the city?"

  "I don't know."

  "You could live with me if you want."

  Yin thought about it.

  "What about Menny?"

  "I'll tell her she can stop looking."

  "Okay."

  Jovie smiled.

  "Yin, you have no idea what it means to me to know you're safe."

  "Please just leave."

  Jovie's eyes welled up, "Well, fine. If you aren't going to return, then why am I even talking to you."

  She left.

  Yin sat in silence, trying to grasp the situation. She didn't want to remember, but there was no choice. She had to move on, otherwise, she would fall to pieces, drifting listlessly from one thing to the next as she did when her father was around. She let everything in, all the pain and the hurt, the frustrations. For almost an hour she sat, curled up in a ball, as the memories rushed by one at a time. Her life in Mentas, her father's rejection, Jasper, King Pen. Everything she'd forgotten.

  She pulled herself up when she was done, finally able to face looking around the room.

  Her cell was white, with a bunk bed like the one she found in the ship under the earth. There was another Meregal inside with her, but she was sitting in the corner, asleep.

  Yin propped herself up, "Who are you?"

  The Meregal's eyes opened. She was a light brown like Yin, but older.

  "My name is Tren. I was once queen to this city, but once I'd learned of the terrible things my husband, King Pen, had done, I was thrown in here, banished from the world because I didn't want to know what the world had planned."

  "Tren," Yin said slowly, "Do you know who I am?"

  "No, Jovie didn't say. Are you someone important?"

  "My name is Yin. I'm King Pen's daughter."

  "King Pen's daughter?"

  "I was born in Mentas, before my mother, Tren, died from the childbirth."

  "I didn't die." Tren sounded uncertain, "I'd known King Pen as a friend long before I had you, but he and I decided to do some things that weren't right, and when I learned I was to bare a litter, King Pen married himself to me to hide his shame."

  "He said he loved you."

  Tren shook her head, "He didn't love me. He loved the way I looked, all else was shameful to him. I was a burden he would only address from afar."

  "What does this mean?"

  Tren sighed, "I was a fool for believing he cared. I've been here for almost nineteen years since King Pen left me to rot. He wouldn't even fully recognize me as his wife before the law."

  "Why are you here if everyone in Jasper knows who you are?"

  "They don't want to know. King Pen controlled what people knew, forcing them to consider life from his perspective."

  "Then why did he start a movement to integrate with the humans?"

  "He wanted to show his people that we should move on, past the values we've held, and become something new. He loved the humans, even if the humans didn't love him."

  "But why didn't King Pen keep you? Even if you aren't the best person in the world, to him, why wouldn't you have been kept within distance so he can still apreciate you?"

  "After I had the litter, he despised me. He became aware of who I was inside and it frightened him. I was sent away to hide him from his own foolishness. He came to visit me though, every once in a while, but it was always just the same 'How've you been?' 'Are they treating you well?' 'Can I do anything for you?'. Eventually he stopped coming."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Why are you sorry? If you
are King Pen's daughter, you should know that he abandoned you."

  "He said he'd left me to gain the experiences I needed to live life."

  Tren shook her head again, "Don't trust what he says. He fills people with kind words just so he gains their trust. I didn't know that once, but now I do. You had to have been careful if you wanted to know him for who he was."

  Tren looked as if she was going to say something more, but she waved Yin away instead.

  "It was nice to meet you Yin, even if King Pen never wanted you."

  Yin nodded her head, confused, turning back toward the cell door where Menny had been standing, unnoticed.

  "Maybe I'll see you again."

  Tren nodded back, "Maybe when times are better. I'm glad I had you, regardless of the pain I've suffered. I hope you know that."

  "Tren, do you love me?"

  Tren's expression fell, a look of sad contemplation replacing her stern expression with something tender.

  "I've regretted my decisions often while here in this cell, but now that I've seen what you've become, the product of my actions regardless, I know you're worth it. I do love you, Yin. I just wish I'd been there with you as you grew up."

  "We can let you out now that true leadership has been decimated since the fire." Menny asserted, "King Pen's forced incarceration only had effect as long as he was alive. He did not foresee his death before his choice to forgive."

  Yin looked between them, "But how will Jovie fit in?"

  "What do you mean?" Menny asked.

  "King Pen licked Jovie's nose before the tower collapsed. No one else knew because I was the only person there."

  "And did he tell you to keep it a secret?"

  "No, he didn't say anything about it."

  Menny thought about this for a moment, "If King Pen married himself to Jovie, and your question is asking which Meregal, Jovie or Tren, is your mother, then I would say the birth mother would have first say on the matter, seeing as her part in the situation would give her full rights to your future."

  "But can't I make a decision?"

  "You can." Menny said, "Of course, since this is your life we're discussing, it would be your final decision that determines who you claim as your legal