Remember

The loch was still and calm, the wind barely moving the trees around him. Above the sky was grey, reflected in the water below. He felt like he knew each inch of Loch Ness now. It had only been a week, and he had spent the hours in which exhaustion didn’t consume him on a boat or hiking the perimeter, looking for any signs of the women who had been lost. But there was nothing. Loch Ness was still, and the legend of the monster, for all they could find, was legend again.

“You should be getting back to Donnie’s,” Mickey said, walking behind Eric. His face was pale, eyes sunken. The eyes of a man who lost a wife and daughter. “We go back home tomorrow. It’s going to be hell explaining all of the disappearances. We’ll need to…”

“I’m not going home,” Eric said softly.

“Eric…we’re not going to find them. If we haven’t found thirty something nine foot tall lizard women by now, we won’t…” Mickey shook his head. “I lost my wife. I lost my daughter. It’s ripping my heart apart, but they’re gone.”

“My dad left when I was little,” Eric said. “Last thing I remember him saying was, why would I want to stay with you? Don’t even know if he said it to my mom or me. Fiona…she never made me feel like I wasn’t wanted. Wasn’t a poor…nothing.”

“Oh Eric, you have no idea how much you meant to Fiona. She was a little weirdo, the type to lick a window on a dare. And people made fun of her. But with you there…the teasing never mattered.” Mickey squeezed Eric’s shoulder tight, trying to not cry in front of the young man. “You were always like a son to Ellie and I. You believe me, right?”

“Yeah. I know, Mr. Hailey,” Eric said.

“Mickey. Mick, if you like. We go through something like this, I think you’re man enough to be on a first name basis,” Mickey said. They stood there a few more moments before Mickey turned away. “Be back before night. Your mom needs you at home,” he called out as he walked back towards the road, not looking back.

“I know mom needs me,” Eric said softly when he was sure Mickey was gone, stripping his shirt off. “But Fiona needs me too.”

Eric had a plan. He thought of the last week as he stripped his clothes, leaving him in only his boxers. The dreams hadn’t stopped. If anything, they were more intense, with dozens of others joining with the Fiona beast under the water. But now it looked like they were reaching for him out of desperation, not malice. And there was a presence, a force, something indescribable.

“I know you’re still down there,” Eric said, lifting up the object he had discovered in Uncle Donnie’s barn two days prior. He tied the old anchor tightly around himself, the weight unbearable as the old metal and scratchy ropes bit into his skin. “But something else is too. And I’m not coming back up until I find you both.”

Eric walked slowly into the water, the chill shocking him. He took one last deep breath and submerged himself into the loch.

It was darker than he thought, the water dirty and cold. He wished he had goggles. Hell, he wished he had a lot of things. But he had a plan. The voice Fiona kept hearing. The presence in his dream. Something was down there, and Eric had a feeling it could hear him. Or maybe feel him was a better description.

Find me, Eric thought, his lungs starting to ache as he descended deeper. I’m here. I’m looking for you. You wanted to know who I am? Well I’m right here! Come and get me!

The darkness consumed him. His lungs burned. The anchor dragged him down. His brain started to grow fuzzy. Then, suddenly, a thought.

“Who are you?”

Time seemed to freeze. The burning and the weight and the cold seemed to melt away. “What…” Eric said, realizing he could talk.

“I am in your head. Thought moves fast. Why are you here? Who are you? I do not recognize what you are,” the voice asked.

“Please! Whatever you are, you took my friend and all of her family! They need to come back!” Eric cried out, desperate to see something, anything in the darkness. A shape began to come towards him, one of the creatures the women had turned into with glowing green scales.

“My children. They came home. I don’t remember why they left. They were…different. Something changed them. I stopped it,” the creature said.

“What are you?” Eric asked.

“Artifical. Alone,” the reptile woman said, sadly looking down. “Crashed here long ago. I had to save the last of our kind. The Ravaging…it took our society. Our intelligence. I…it’s so confusing. So much time…alone…why did I not recognize my children? Let me think…”

“Show me,” Eric said. He reached out a hand. The lizard woman looked at it cautiously, then reached out a claw and touched it. Instantly Eric’s mind exploded with images, some only half formed thoughts. A great civilization of reptilian people, victims of a disease which took their intelligence, devolving them into beasts. A desperate mission from a group of female scientists to find a way to preserve themselves. Searching planet after planet for many years. Finding Earth and discovering a way to splice their DNA, making them look human. And an AI left to control the loch where they landed, buried deep beneath it, regulating the process necessary to keep their new forms. But the AI had grown old, confused, even frightened. It forgot its mission and didn’t recognize the human women anymore. Eric’s heart broke as he absorbed its memories, the centuries of loneliness, of feeling abandoned while the children of its creators lived above. It forgot why it did what it did. So it did what anything thinking of itself as a parent would do. It called its children home and asked them to stay.

“Please…do not ask me to give up my children,” the AI begged as Eric cried before it, tears running out of his eyes and into the water between them.

“They’re not only your children, though! I’m sorry you cant remember, but they’re independent from you now! They’re my friends and…my family too. Please, read my mind. See what you're asking them to up.” Eric held out his hand again and the AI grabbed it. Its eyes widened as it saw through Eric’s eyes, the years of his life with Fiona, the childhood memories and laughter and tears and love. It saw the party from days earlier, the family coming together as humans, the light from the fire so bright it hurt. And it saw the men, alone and devastated without the women it took.

“They…forgot me…found others…” the AI said, turning away.

“No! They remember you! All of this! But they’re not like you anymore! You did it! You saved them! You found your people a new home!” Eric argued.

“They are not like me anymore…” the AI said.

“Who cares?! They don’t look like they did when they first came here, but they know who they are! This family will never forget you, I promise! But I need to ask you, WHO ARE THEY?!” Eric screamed at it.

The AI reptile woman floated there, thinking for the longest time. “They are…my children. They are…human. They are…happy.” It smiled, looked into Eric’s eyes. “Promise me you will not forget where they came from.”

“Never. You don’t need to force them here. They want to remember you,” Eric said. The AI nodded, a slight sound escaping from its mouth, and then it disappeared. He was drowning again, the water filling his lungs, the weight of the water and the anchor crushing him. But from below a light appeared, bright and wide and beautiful as ancient doors opened. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he could swear he saw angels coming to get him.

*

His eyes fluttered open. He was on the surface, on the shore, and he was freezing. The weight was gone, but he could still feel something on his chest, pressing down. Water sputtered from his mouth. Now he could see. Fiona was there, crying at seeing him spring to life. Around her were all the other women of the family, completely human again, embracing each other, crying and laughing.

“Hey,” Eric said.

“Hey,” Fiona said, gasping through tears.

“You’re naked,” Eric said with a smile.

“Sorry. They don’t make bathing suits in giant monster size,” Fiona said.

“I told you I’d wait for you,” Eric said.

“Yeah. And I told you I’d come back,” Fiona said.

From above, the clouds began to part, and the grey was overcome by the bright light of the sun.