Chapter Text
The next day passed in a strange blur. Bacon buried himself in his newest project, his hands moving with purpose while his mind wandered far from the blocks he was placing. Wemmbu stopped by occasionally, offering small bits of conversation, checking in, sometimes just standing nearby in silence. Even then, Bacon felt… off. Like something or someone was watching.
It wasn’t the usual paranoid feeling that crept in during survival builds. This was something different. A quiet presence. The feeling settled on his shoulders like a cold breeze, and he realized something odd. Whenever that sensation came, the strange nipping feeling in his arm disappeared. That unsettling static, the discomfort it was gone. It was almost peaceful. But it didn’t make him feel safer. If anything, it made him more uneasy.
His mind kept wandering back to the hill.
He’d return there, again and again, drawn like a magnet. Always with the same hope tucked somewhere in his chest that Manepear would be there, waiting. But the hill was always empty. Just grass, sky, and silence. Mane hadn’t been around in days. Bacon was starting to realize something uncomfortable. Manepear was on his mind more often than not, and when he wasn’t, the world felt just a little less colorful. Even when Wemmbu was speaking directly to him, he felt alone, like his words were bouncing off the walls of an empty room.
So today, he went back to the hill.
He sat down in the soft grass, letting the wind move around him like it knew secrets. And then, it happened.
A memory.
It didn’t start slowly, it slammed into him like a gust of snow. He was there, in the memory, watching it unfold like a dream he forgot he had. He saw himself, smiling, laughing in the middle of a snowy field. Another figure was with him, bundled in a scarf and coat, their gloved hand tangled in his. They spun around, laughing breathlessly, snowflakes catching in their hair. The love between them was unmistakable visible in every touch, every look.
Bacon’s chest warmed at the sight. The happiness radiating off the memory was real, pure. He knew that feeling. It felt like home.
But that wasn’t his life… was it?
It couldn’t be.
It scared him a little, how clearly he could see it. How real it felt. And yet, something was wrong he couldn’t see the other person’s face. No matter how hard he tried to focus, it was like his brain was shielding him from the truth, pulling a veil over the one he loved. A part of him screamed that he knew who it was, but the answer remained just out of reach, like a name on the tip of his tongue.
Then something shifted. A sound.
He snapped out of the memory, suddenly hyper-aware of the world around him again.
Someone was behind him.
His heart jumped, hope flaring inside him for just a second.
But it wasn’t Manepear.
It was… Flamerags.
Bacon blinked, confused. Flame was just Mane’s teammate. They’d only spoken once, and barely at that. A passing comment on the server, nothing more. So why was he here now?
Flamerags stood a few feet away, arms crossed and expression unreadable. The wind tugged at the edge of his bandanna, his presence oddly casual and sharp at the same time.
Bacon stood, brushing the grass off his hands. “What are you doing here?”
Flame shrugged like he didn’t even fully know himself. “I guess I got curious.”
“Curious?”
“Yeah,” Flame said, walking closer. “Mane wouldn’t shut up about you.”
Bacon blinked. “What?”
“He talks about you constantly,” Flame went on, not bothering to soften the words. “On calls, during builds, even mid-fight. ‘Bacon this,’ ‘Bacon that.’ Like, dude. We get it.” He rolled his eyes. “I had to see what the big deal was.”
Bacon felt heat rise to his face. “That doesn’t sound like Mane…”
Flame snorted. “That’s because you don’t see how much of an idiot he is sometimes. He gets all… weird when it comes to you. I figured if you were the one haunting his thoughts, maybe you’d have some idea what the hell he’s doing.”
“I haven’t seen him in days,” Bacon said quietly, voice tightening.
Flame nodded, too quickly. “Yeah. I know.”
Bacon looked up, suspicious. “You know ?”
Flame’s expression didn’t shift. “He’s been off. Doing his own thing. I figured checking on you might answer some questions.”
There was a beat of silence.
“You care about him?” Flame asked suddenly, voice quiet.
Bacon hesitated. “I don’t know what I feel right now.”
Flame didn’t press. Instead, he took a slow step forward, glancing once more at the hill, like he could see something there Bacon couldn’t.
Flame stepped up beside him, quiet now, his boots crunching softly against the grass.
“Your name comes up a lot in conversation,” Flame said after a moment, like he wasn’t sure if he should be saying it. “With Mane, I mean. You’d think he was building shrines to you with how often your name comes up.”
Bacon’s stomach tightened. “I don’t remember giving him much to talk about.”
Flame’s gaze didn’t move from the horizon. “Doesn’t matter. He talks anyway.”
There was a pause.
Bacon wrapped his arms loosely around himself, trying to shrug off the weight that had settled on his chest. “We talked once and it was barely a conversation. Nothing big. I don’t get why he… why he cares.”
Flame let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well. Mane’s an idiot sometimes. Feels everything way too loud and never knows when to shut up about it.”
Bacon glanced at him, but Flame’s expression was unreadable like he was trying not to show something beneath the surface.
“I get these… flashes,” Bacon admitted, quietly. “Not memories, exactly. Just feelings. Places that feel like they matter more than they should. That field, that snowy memory… I keep thinking it’s mine, but I can’t tell why. It’s like trying to hold smoke in my hands.”
Flame finally looked at him.
“That’s grief,” he said. “Even when you don’t remember what you’ve lost.”
Bacon didn’t know what to say to that.
He looked back down at the hill, at the way the sun had begun dipping low behind the trees, casting the grass in gold.
“I’m tired of not knowing,” Bacon muttered. “I feel like I’m walking through someone else’s story.”
“It is your story,” Flame said softly. “Even if you can’t see the full picture yet.”
“Then why does it feel like everyone knows more about me than I do?”
Flame didn’t answer right away. His silence said more than words could.
Eventually, he just shrugged. “Some stories… take time. And some people don’t know how to tell theirs until it’s already too late.”
Something in that struck deeper than Bacon expected. He looked at Flame, brows furrowed. “Did Mane send you?”
Flame’s jaw tightened. “No one sends me anywhere. I came because Mane can’t seem to focus. It’s gotten worse because of you. I believe you did something.”
Bacon flinched. “I did?”
“Well I don’t fully think it’s about what you did,” Flame said. “I think it’s about what got lost. And he doesn’t know how to fix it.”
There was a long, fragile pause between them.
“You ever think maybe you’re better off not remembering?” Flame asked quietly.
Bacon hesitated.
“….I don’t fully know. I want to remember, but it’s not my memories.”
“Or at least that’s the way it feels. It’s feels as though I’m looking through someone else’s eyes.
Flame nodded slowly, like that was the answer he expected.
Then he turned, starting to walk away and then he was gone, swallowed by the trees, leaving Bacon alone with the wind and the fading sun.
The hill was quiet again.
It feels so much more confusing and emptier than ever.
He feels scared.
He wants to figure out things but everything is way too cryptic for him.
He tried of not feeling like…
Like himself.
Like he wasn’t the one inside of those….
Memories .