The Way Home by Cindy Gerard Page A

his injuries? The opium? The absence of self  ? Had he lost his soul when he’d lost his memories and been sent into a time continuum where he’d aged by decades? Or was his soul merely as damaged as his body?
    Somewhere in the back of his mind, a thought persisted. This was not who he was or had been. He was not all about darkness and despair. As much as he feared he’d be disappointed, he believed deep down that he had not been a bad man. This pitiful, weak man had not been a part of his life before he’d lost himself. He’d been someone. He’d been some thing . He’d been vital and driven and real.
    The man he saw in the mirror was none of those things. This man was a ghost. A shell. A man without a future because he had no past.
    The familiar taste of fear, sharp and sour and overwhelming, pooled in his mouth. Would he ever find himself  ? Would he ever remember? Or was he stuck here in a hellish limbo for the rest of his life? Like he was stuck in this hostile country with no hope of rescue.
    Shaken and defeated, he drew several more deep breaths and settled himself down. If he gave in to the fear, the darknesswould eat him alive, and he’d be begging Rabia for opium again.
    Composed but still unsteady, he turned his attention to the pitcher of water on the small table. A bar of coarse soap and a clean rag sat beside it. He used both to wash his face, a small task that felt monumental.
    It felt both strange and good to be on his feet, but he knew he didn’t dare test his strength for too long. He didn’t dare count on the vertigo to leave him alone, either, or for the pain in his leg to allow him to walk without a limp.
    Or for the sight to return miraculously in his right eye.
    The vision problems had come on gradually. At first, he’d thought it was a side effect of the vertigo and the opium. At least, he’d hoped. He couldn’t hold that hope any longer. Looking in the mirror had confirmed his worst fears. Like his memory, the vision in his right eye was gone.
    Rabia had done her best for him. But he knew he needed medical attention. He suspected he’d sustained a traumatic brain injury—a recently healed wound at the base of his skull supported that idea. A TBI could account for the loss of vision and the vertigo. And more. Another sign of TBI was the fact that his amnesia had lasted this long, suggesting that it was extremely severe.
    Retrograde amnesia, possibly?
    RA commonly results from damage to the region of the brain most closely associated with episodic and declarative memory, including autobiographical information. In extreme cases, individuals completely forget who they are. Memory loss, however, can also be selective or categorical, manifested by a person’s inability to remember events related to a specific incident or topic.
    Whoa .
    He gripped the table when he felt himself reeling. Where had that textbook analysis come from?
    The same place as the short frantic bursts of information that flew at him out of the blue since he’d started weaning himself off the opium. Most of the time, it came at him like bullets—rushing by so fast he couldn’t capture it all. He’d see fire and smell burning rubber, hear blasts, feel pain. The next time, he’d see blue skies, glimmering water, winter snow, summer sun.
    This was the first time anything had manifested with such clarity. So much clarity it almost set him on his ass.
    He circled back to the medical terminology. Was he a doctor? A doctor who was a soldier? That didn’t feel right. A medic, maybe? Yeah, maybe .
    “Congratulations,” he muttered. “You’ve just solved exactly nothing.”
    He still didn’t know who he was or how he’d gotten here or, more important, how he was going to get out.
    And go where?
    Yeah. Go where?
    Very carefully, he eased back down onto the pallet. Winded and shaky, he leaned back against the wall and recovered what little strength he had. When he felt steadier, he reached for the stack of clean