Marcus traced his finger over the circle in the symbol. “So, what’s this really about?”

“Exactly what I said in the ad,” the woman across the table said. She was older but looked stunning, even if she did stare a bit intensely. “If you recognize the symbol, I’ll pay you one hundred dollars.”

“I,” Marcus started, not wanting to look away from the paper. He almost said the name that came to mind but just laughed nervously. “I feel like I do know it, but I have no clue from where.”

“Then say its name,” the woman asked, her voice that deep sort of hoarse that ticked all the boxes. He wanted something from her, but it wasn’t money.

“Okay, I don’t know why I want to call it this, but Eskavalia.” He slid the paper back to her. “That isn’t right, is it?”

“Our kind are born sick, usually very sick,” she said, taking the paper back and reaching into her purse.

“Our kind?” he said, hoping this wasn’t about to pivot into some MLM pitch.

“We rarely made it past five in the best of times, until modern medicine, that is.” She pulled out a thin wooden box and set it between them.

“So, this box is something you sell, right?” Marcus sighed. It really was a shame but what did he expect responding to a newspaper ad in 2022. He had been sick as a kid but she couldn’t know that. He had come to her.

“The majority of us made it to adulthood last time. The Cord organizes us, giving us each a key symbol and name so that we might find each other this time around. You look hale, Eskavalia.” She gestured towards the box. “If it’s like it was for me, it will hit you hard, fair warning.”

“Right,” Marcus said, so he had been close. It was some kind of cult thing. Who could resist a closed box though? He opened it. A lock of red hair sat inside, tied with a bit of blue ribbon. His hair was blonde but this… He picked up the box.

“Why do I feel like this is mine?” He stared and rolled the strands between his fingers.

Flashes of screaming light nearly rocked him out of his chair. Traveling in a van, laughing, he had been a girl. He, or she, had worked in a zoo, she had three children. She had trained to fight, trained to infiltrate. He knew everything about all of her children. He mourned again for Sylvia. The memories came too fast, burning like a run of floss being pulled between his ears. She had been born in Pennsylvania. He breathed as the rush slowed.

The woman looked at him with what? Pity? Empathy? He opened his mouth to speak and another rush came. Old-timey hospital beds, incredible pain, a string of crying mothers holding him, each for only a moment. The chain of embraces came and went. The cloth pressed against him was starched dresses, homespun shirts, robes, then nothing but bare skin. A blurry vision of an untamed landscape as a mother sang to him in a tongue he never lived long enough to learn.

Finally, the rush of memories ended. He dropped the box with a shaking hand. “What the fuck was that?”

“All your lives,” the woman said. “So many cut short. You, as I, were thousands of dying children through the ages. We never had enough of a foothold to remember, to change things, until now.”

“Change things?” Marcus asked. “This is a curse, a misery.”

“This world is what its rulers want it to be,” she sipped her drink and gripped Marcus’s hand. “Since before humans kept time, a small group of reincarnating immortals, ashborn we call ourselves, have controlled everything. They have ways to find other ashborn like you and me, ones not in their privileged circle, while still in the womb. They poison our mothers so we will not gather memories of ages and challenge their rule.”

“So, this group has killed us, thousands of times each? All this is real?”

“Yes, and they know now their old techniques no longer work. They’ve already taken harsher measures with some of us, killing us directly.”

“So what do we do?” Marcus asked as the woman reached into her purse again.

“You spent twenty years before you died last answering that question.” She placed a cloth covering something on the table. “It was you that convinced me what we must do, Eskavalia. I am now ready to return the favor.”

Marcus picked up the heavy object hiding under clothes, bringing it to his lap, a gleaming barrel showing.

“We go to war.”

/r/surinical