Have you ever heard of the highways? No? Do you want to know?

Curiosity does kill. You do not have to be feline.

There are planes and places, things that would make you believe that ‘ignorance is bliss’, beings whose very existence would push you to the brink of sanity, who are malicious enough to bend your mind on purpose.

Do you really have the fortitude to bear the weight of this knowledge?

I think not.

You will perceive this to be fiction. And it is for the best.

I should not be able to recall these things, however, somehow, I do. What I am about to tell you happened a lifetime ago. Even though most of us have been made not to remember our other lives, some of us do. Rare exceptions to the rule.

As usual, memory strikes after a wave of deja vu, so powerful, it knocks me into sleep. It is like lightning. And I have resorted to tying myself down every night because it is what you would diagnose as night terrors. Muscle memory that transcends vessel.

As expected of this body, this wet prison of flesh and bones, there are only bits and pieces. There have been larger chunks lately.

It is the season of celebration again and though I have only been around for 23 seasons this time, the waves only started rising 72 months ago. December comes with the cold, which seems to intensify it all. I am grateful for the shorter nights.

By the 20th, the cramps must have begun and my whites of my eyes must have become as red as Rudolph's nose; I will be too weak to write anything down. So, I must do so now. Or else, I forget. Slowly, but surely. It is rather a curse, for someone like me: the compulsory encounter with Janus and his doorways after 360 days.

I remember five of us: Evelyn, Adam, Lilly, another whose name I simply cannot recall and I, Keziah. I know the power in the human tongue — I know because I have seen it; I have fought it. I have seen a king nearly lose his realm because of the words of a child. I remember a mission: the mission to save the king.

It all started with a game. I remember what it was called in the Tongue, but I doubt there is a written equivalent you would understand. However, I believe you now call it ‘Dungeons and Dragons’. The child, disgruntled at having received no nice things during the celebrations for longer days and shorter nights, hurled words during one of such games; words that were weapons, capable of warping an entire reality, capable of hurting a king caught off guard.

Of course, like most of you, the child had no knowledge whatsoever of the highways, which interspersed realities, and no idea the gravity of his words.

It is here that I would compare the highways to your Internet. Make of that what you will.

I remember swimming among sentient, suffocating blobs of darkness. I know Fear. I know Courage. I lost good friends in that horrible place and perhaps, this is why I write: a small, stubborn, hopeful part of me wants to find them, wants to jolt their memories — and perhaps, this is cruel and selfish, but, I want family back.

We fought monsters, things whose very existence was an abomination, malicious intent, fleshed out - ugly, things whose appearance would give the bravest of you a cardiac event. We tried to scale a wall as tall and thick as the wall of Jericho and this is where we lost the first soldier. I will call them Z because, painfully, I do not remember them anymore. We mourned for a couple hours on top of that wall, but, we were faithful.

We lost Adam to poison vines a couple days after losing Z, but, much like that wall, we refused to break. After crossing a lava pool which seemed to have no end, depth-wise and lengthwise, and nearly losing Lilly to quickmud, the three of us losing our grips on reality yet holding on, we sighted the king, emaciated, broken and in tattered garments. The red of his robes even redder and the white, awash with his own blood.

Losing Eve to a viper pit caused a tear in my mind. Lilly and I reached the king miraculously. I do not remember much after this but I believe the blobs took me hostage. I only remember hoping, with every fibre of my being, that Lilly and the king make it out, that he be restored to his realm.

I wake up these days with a weight I cannot seem to shake; my binds aside. In my journals, I have found that I light candles for them. In December 2022, I lit a candle for Z on the 20th, one for Adam on the 23rd and another for Eve on the 24th.

In this time, I was born in the tenth month of the calendar you use now, but, I do not light candles for that. I light candles on what you call Boxing Day, exactly two months after I was reborn. It is more fitting, I think: to celebrate a life that has had an impact on time and reality itself; a life given.

I must surrender to the world of pain this month holds, but before I do; before we all meet Janus in less than thirty days from now, I ask that there be tokens of gratitude and love shared.

I also ask that, if you ever find yourself on the highways, you take care of yourself, be careful with your words and ask for protection from the Architect.