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The basement seemed smaller than designed. What space was available was stocked to the brim with tools severely needing a recharge and cannibalized farming drones. There was also the door. It covered the entirety of one wall and, to Tromaktiki’s knowledge, had never been opened. The basement’s flickering lights caused the door to gleam a gun-metal gray with hints of green.

The tall, winged man looked to his father, confused. “The basement door? The thing worrying you is behind this?”

“Hm, yes. Has been for a long time.” The old Lacertan’s grey eyes looked longingly at it, in no hurry to open it. It was made of Lacertan Moss-Steel which was expensive, and since they were outside of the Kingdom, imported. Despite the fact that the organic components would take centuries to decay, it had a distinct musty odor.

“I always felt this was meant to keep me out. Why now?”

“I wasn’t excluding you. Please, never think that. I was protecting you.”

Tromaktiki spared a glance to Liáng. “Protect me? Should the military know about this?”

“They know. I asked them to do nothing of it. The government was always nice to its Lacertan citizens, eh?” The thought brought a faint smile. Finally moving to the keypad, he was blocked by a webbed wing in his face.

“You told the military to ignore this, knowing I was in the military?”

“Not at the time. Please, son, let me show you.”

Reluctantly, he moved and pondered why the Quaestum Union’s military would’ve been interested in his father before he had joined. He himself was an unknown species that suddenly showed up one day. Moving objects through telekinesis was also an ability unique to him. He could not think of what made his father special, however.

With a few careful entries into the keypad, the massive door began to slowly rise. Ear-piercing screeches reflected its age, and a suffocating dust filled the room. Liáng coughed and shuffled inside to find a light as Tromaktiki pondered the shadows that loomed beyond.

The rest of the room was much larger than expected. A hulking mass sat in the center of the space, the size of a small shuttle. Skittering and clanking could be heard from the darkness as his father knocked something over and swore under his breath. Only the silence penetrated his mind, however. The silhouette seemed somehow familiar, and that terrified him.

Had the form been whispering to him, once his father switched on the half-broken lights it would’ve screamed. It was a ship. Black, with smooth curves and blood-red edges. Bulbous flourishes along the hull wrapped towards a hole at the vessel’s nose. At the bottom, many of the flourishes had been sheered away. It was like nothing Tromaktiki had ever seen, or had even heard of. So it confused him why was it so familiar.

Approaching as if pulled in, he gently touched the hull. The metal seemed to have goosebumps, along its hull that reminded him of the texture of leather. Despite its fleshy appearance, it was as hard as any other metal, and just as cold. He had imagined it having the heat of a body. His head shook as his brow furrowed and he leaned against the ship for support.

Liáng saw his entranced son and rushed to his side. “Quick now, tell me. Tell me how you feel.”

Needlessly stern, he replied: “Confused. Is this…this is the ship I crashed in?”

“Do you remember anything of your past? Before we met? Anything, after seeing this?” He was asking urgently, putting his arms forward as if begging.

He looked at his father with confusion and a glint of disdain. “My past? What? No. How would this make me remember my past? Why are you hiding this from me? This of all things?” Stepping forward with his shoulders reared back and his wings unfurled fully, he noticed his father’s tail was finally raised off the ground and his hands were ready. They looked into each other’s eyes, both determined yet uncertain at the same time.

After a silence, Tromaktiki’s amber eyes darted about and he relented, taking several steps back. He let out a breath to focus himself. “Sorry. I never thought you’d be the one keeping secrets from me. And I thought you’d never have to fight me again. But…this…” Gesturing to the strange ship, his fist wanted to clench. “This changes everything about the story you told me.”

Liáng relaxed some and began pacing the room, never letting Tromaktiki out of his sight. “My caution is because, well, I didn’t know how you would react. As for your confusion, I never told you the whole story. What do you remember of it?”

Standing straight with faux pride, he recounted the tale. “Basically, I appeared in town and started attacking people. You were the one who fought back. You took me down and raised me as your own.”

“Hmm…and the first thing you remember?” Raising an eyebrow as he spoke caused some concern for his son.

“Waking up in that hospital. I didn’t know anything really, not even how to talk. You were the only one who could stay in the same room with me without looking terrified. That made me mad.”

“Mad that someone wasn’t afraid, I’d say. Quite aggressive that first year, weren’t you? Hurt a few people too. It was all I could do to keep you out of jail.”

With his hand again upon the vessel, Tromaktiki grew restless. “What parts of the story did you not tell me?”

“Well, first of all,” he said with strained breath, “your memory survived the crash.”

“WHAT?” Turning quickly, his face was full of heated shock. “I knew what I was doing? I always thought that I was just a mindless ball of rage!”

“In some ways. That’s not how you are anymore though, hm?”

“Aren’t I?” His voice was soaked with aimless scorn. Debris that had fallen off the shelf began to vibrate intensely as his fists clenched. “If I was a dangerous animal before, completely aware of what was happening, then there’s no reason why couldn’t be now.”

Liáng’s voice was now stern and assertive. “Then why haven’t they kicked you from the military? Hm? They don’t hire animals. You’ve changed with your new memories. Your discipline strengthens you.”

“New memories… So you were afraid of my old ones? You were afraid I’d go on a rampage again. I thought your faith in me wasn’t so fragile.” The debris now hovered shakily behind him, his control unsteady. He glared at his father with a face both rife with malice and twisted in pain.

“Please, forgive an old man’s mistake!” His eyes and arms were pleading but his legs and tail were secretly tensed for a fight.

“I’m not mad at you!”

“Then…who?” His head cocked. “Who are you mad at?”

“I’M MAD AT ME!” He released his control and launched the debris in all directions, cutting his father’s arm as he shielded himself. Collapsing to his knees, he began punching the ground. Each impact echoed through the basement with a loud smack. “I’ve been making such a fool of myself! All! These! Years!”

Liáng stood in shock, ignoring the pain in his arm.

“All those years, telling people my amnesia was from a concussion. Even telling the doctors! I bet you told them everything, and they just held their tongues while I kept on yapping like a fool. I should have known, it’s so obvious!” He stopped striking the ground, and only shook and grunted. “If I don’t even know about my past, how am I supposed to know who I am now?”

“I’m…so sorry. I didn’t realize it would matter so much.” His arms floated awkwardly in front of him as he hesitated moving to comfort his son.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said under his breath.

“What was that?” Liáng dared not lean closer to hear.

Slowly picking himself up, he spoke again: “I said: ‘don’t be sorry.’ There’s nothing that would help now. But, tell me. The crater in town, that’s where I landed, wasn’t it? Not some old landmark from the founding, not some blown-up cart. It was my ship?”

“Yes.” The reply came slow and subdued.

A curt chuckle escaped him. “Funny, figured I landed in the forest. Guess I’m not that smart. Probably wasn’t back then if I crashed into a planet anywasy. Like you said, ‘some things never change.’”

Reaching up to grab Tromaktiki’s shoulders, Liáng spoke sternly to his face. “Listen, you are not stupid. Maybe you didn’t want to know about your past. And you have changed. I’m telling you this now because I know you have. Your job needs discipline. Even your basic nature, the differences in your abilities,” He raised one of Tromaktiki’s hands for emphasis on his telekinesis. “You can handle yourself like you never could before, eh? That makes you stronger than ever, and smarter.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Looking again to the ship, its secrets still whispered to him. “I still don’t like how easily you kept this from me.” His frown grew fainter. “How’d you do it?”

“Hehe.” Patting his son on the back, he began to guide him back upstairs. “You never did like to look at things past face value. That’s just one of the things I didn’t push you to look closer at.”

“One of?”

Back in the kitchen, having lunch, the two broke the hour-long small talk. Tromaktiki began. “So, I didn’t lose my memory in the crash. How did I?”

Liáng looked around nervously and readjusted himself in his seat. “Well, about that. When I…uh…subdued you, you were still quite dangerous. Even thrashing around with your mind was enough to hurt someone. So, I tried giving you some…calming herbs.” He then took a dainty bite of his meal, keeping his eyes locked.

“The meditation herbs you said would instantly kill me if I so much as sniffed them?” “That may have been a bit of an…exaggeration. Despite the typical Lacertan expertise, I was never that good at medicine, see? So, I didn’t realize herbs could have different effects on different races. For Lacertains it’s calming, for your race apparently it causes, well…”

His fork went limp in his hand and his jaw slackened. “Amnesia.”

“Amnesia.” Liáng gently nodded and broke eye contact.

Tromaktiki straightened in his chair and contemplated what he had just been told. “So, I didn’t lose my memory in a chaotic, life-threatening crash. I lost it to an absent minded, accidental, drug overdose.”

“That’s…one way to put it, yes.”

“That’s hardly the…dramatic…tale I’ve been telling people. A lot is changing today.”

Liáng placed his hand close. “If things change too fast, I will always keep things the same here.”

With the second rare Tromaktiki-smile that day, he thanked him.

Having bid farewell, Tromaktiki began his trek back to the transport station. It was time to say goodbye to the same crops that had always been grown, goodbye to the same people that had come to know him so well years before, and goodbye to the same crater. In many ways he was still the same reckless and aggressive man that he was when he first crashed in the center of town. Many had stayed the same.

Yet, many things had changed as well. His father had aged, the town as well. What that old crater meant to Tromaktiki had been completely revised. He had come to realize how much he, himself, had changed. Whatever his mentality back then, his first instinct was to attack and destroy everything in his sight. Now, he couldn’t even think of such a thing no matter how mad he got. When he first landed, he didn’t know there was a weight upon his mind, yet that too, had changed.