Back to Leon, he was still lying down. He pushed himself up, but his legs felt wobbly. He stumbled towards the ocean. Something he couldn't explain was pulling him closer. The cool water washed over his feet as he stepped in. A strange feeling of comfort, like he knew this place before, touched him. But he still couldn't remember anything, his memories locked deep inside his mind.
He looked out at the huge ocean, his voice quiet against the sound of the waves. "Where am I?" he whispered.
Days turned into weeks as Leon walked along the sandy beaches. Every sunrise brought the same confusing question: Who was I? Little bits of memories flashed in his mind hints of a different life, a life he couldn't quite remember. Then, he saw them. People. He'd heard stories about these beings, land-dwellers with their strange ways. They looked so different from him.
They watched him with curious and unsure eyes. He tried to explain that he couldn't remember anything, that parts of himself were missing. But the words felt awkward, even strange to his own ears. He talked about the deep sea, about hidden worlds, about powers you couldn't see. They just stared, their faces empty. They must think he was crazy. A mad person from a shipwreck talking nonsense.
Leon felt lost and alone. A sad acceptance started to grow inside him. The past was gone, taken by the waves of his lost memory. He was like a clean page, a man with no history, lost in a world that felt completely new and strange.
But a spark of fight lit up inside him. He wouldn't just disappear. He would learn how these humans lived. He would find his place in this new, odd world. He had to.
A quick flash of a memory popped into his head, then vanished just as fast, leaving him with the clear truth of where he was now. Leon. A stranger on a beach. His past a mystery. His future not yet written.
Leon would have to start again, build his life from nothing, and make a new path, a new future. His journey was just starting. A fisherman, he thought, pulling in his net. That's who I am now.
Life with the humans was a different world. So far from the beauty and power he once what was it? He shook his head, the memory still out of reach. "Their language is strange," he mumbled to the crashing waves, "but I'm starting to understand it." He looked at his rough hands, tough from the ropes and the salt. "These hands have seen more fish than." The thought faded away, leaving that familiar empty feeling.
His small house by the sea was nothing like the big, fancy place he vaguely remembered. "Doesn't matter now," he sighed, fixing a hole in his net. "This is home."
He didn't often let his mind wander to the blurry edges of his past. Shiny scales hidden kingdoms a face, beautiful and sad, that he couldn't quite picture. "Just dreams," he'd tell himself firmly, throwing his fishing line into the water. "Tricks of the mind. The sea plays games."
One evening, watching the sunset paint the sky in colors he'd never seen in the deep ocean, he whispered, "Leon. Fisherman. Man of the sea. Nothing more." But a small voice inside him, a whisper from the forgotten depths, murmured, "Is that really all there is?"
"Did you hear that?" Old Man whispered, his eyes wide as saucers. "A creature that can destroy the world? Nonsense!"
Leon, mending his fishing net nearby, paused, his brow furrowed. "A water Torrent, she called it?"
"Aye, a scholar woman from across the Great Sea," Old man confirmed, shaking his head. "Says it's in the old tales, legends of power beyond imagining."
Leon's fingers stilled. He hadn't paid much mind to the newcomers, content with the familiar scent of salt and fish. But this felt different. A faint echo resonated within him, a whisper from a life he couldn't quite grasp.
Later that day, Leon found the scholar woman by the shore, sketching in a worn leather-bound book. He hesitated, then approached. "Excuse me," he began, his voice a low rumble. "This water Torrent what more do the old tales say?"
The woman looked up, her eyes bright with curiosity. "Ah, you've heard? They say it sleeps, deep beneath the waves, but its awakening." She trailed off, a shiver running down her spine. "Its awakening would mean chaos. A force untamed."
Leon felt a strange pull, a sense of urgency he couldn't explain. "And is there anything else? Anything about who might know about it?"
The scholar's gaze sharpened. "Some legends speak of guardians, those who were once close to its power. But those are just stories, aren't they?" She looked intently at Leon, a question in her eyes. "Why do you ask?"
Leon couldn't answer. The questions swirling within him were as turbulent as the deepest ocean. Guardians? Power? The words felt strangely familiar, like half-forgotten dreams. He only knew one thing: this scholar's arrival, this talk of a destructive water creature, had stirred something profound within him. Something he couldn't ignore.
That night, as the moon cast long shadows across the village, Leon found himself staring out at the endless expanse of the sea. The gentle rhythm of the waves no longer brought him simple peace. Instead, a disquiet settled in his heart. Was his quiet life about to be shattered?
"Was i somehow connected to this mythical power?"
He asked himself
Leon watched the scholar woman, Esther, as she meticulously brushed sand from an ancient-looking tablet. He felt a pull, a sense that her dusty finds held a key to the strange whispers in his mind. He cleared his throat. "That kingdom you spoke of the Rival kingdom?"
Esther looked up, her eyes gleaming with excitement. "Ah, Leon! Yes! Legends speak of a magnificent mystical realm, a civilization of incredible beauty and power. And their Emperor vanished. Gone without a trace."
As she spoke, images flickered behind Leon's eyes shimmering blues and greens, coral structures that touched the light, and a face a beautiful, sad face. "An Emperor what was he like?" Leon asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"They say he was strong, just," Esther recounted, tracing a faded inscription. "But also deeply connected to the very waters he ruled. Some tales even whisper of him commanding the tides."
A memory surfaced, sharp and vivid: the roar of water, a blinding light, a feeling of terrible loss. And a name Lily. The name echoed in his heart like a forgotten song.
"The water Torrent." Leon breathed, the words catching in his throat. "It was real, wasn't it?"
Esther's gaze snapped to his, her scholarly curiosity now mixed with astonishment. "You know of it?"
Leon's mind was racing. The pieces were clicking into place with the force of crashing waves. The shimmering scales he sometimes dreamed of the intricate patterns on the fishing nets that felt strangely familiar the deep ache in his chest he could never explain.
"I." He paused, the truth rising within him like a long-submerged creature. "I remember."
His voice gained a newfound resonance, a regal quality that startled even himself. "I am Leon. I was their Emperor."
Esther gasped, her tablet clattering to the sand. "The Emperor? But how?"