Rhapsody of Fractured Souls

Harry began to follow after Judy, and Judy's eyes widened as Harry stood beside him. Judy measured his height against Harry's and he spoke up in a shocked voice.

"Hey, is it just me, or did you get taller?"

Harry shrugged nonchalantly, and Judy raised a brow in surprise at Harry's action. Harry actually seemed a little cool. From what Judy remembered, Harry was not the sort of person anyone would refer to as cool, and a compliment like that would normally make Harry excited about the idea of getting taller.

Judy shook his head to get rid of those thoughts and spoke again with a wide smile.

"Did you hear about where we're going today? Remember that earthquake last week? They said it shifted some of the old toppled skyscrapers on the east side of the Lower Valley and opened up some new ruins. The government blocked it out for a week cause they wanted to check for any Yofou tech, but they didn't find anything, so they're opening it up to us. That's where the group is going."

Harry remembered the earthquake from last week. It happened two days before he entered this body. The earthquake had raged across the Lower Valley for about three minutes, but it didn't cause any serious damage other than moving a few of the ruins around roughly, so it was forgotten not long after.

The influx of memories about that time and what child Harry had been doing made Harry frown a little. The constant intermixing of memories from the child Harry and adult Harry had been weighing on his mind for the past few days. The thought of who he was and whose soul was truly in this body built up an unhealthy amout of internal conflict in his heart.

Was he the Soldier Harry who occupied the body of a child and inherited his memories with it, or was he the child Harry who inherited the memories of a soldier from a thousand years ago?

His mind told Harry that he was the Soldier with the memories of a child, but the nature of his behaviors over the past few days had begun to plant the seed of doubt in Harry's mind.

Harry not only remembered all of the people that the child Harry had met or spoken to in his life, but he could feel some feelings of familiarity with them, like they were a part of his life and had always been.

The feeling of talking to his friend. The weight of the groceries that Harry would always collect from his grandmother. The curiosity about his father.

These were feelings that did not belong to the existence that was once a Soldier. They belonged to a child who was known as Harry.

At the same time, Harry knew that he was not someone from this world. He couldn't get rid of the strangeness of being in this era, and he yearned for a return to his time.

Harry remembered the feeling of a gun in his hand. The nights he spent with his family before he left for war. The laughter of his son as they played together.

These were memories that did not belong to a child, but to a man who had almost lived a full life.

These two parts of Harry seemed to coexist within him and yet waged war as they tried to assert themselves as the true principle of who Harry was. Harry found himself awake most nights as he pondered the memories that were present in his mind, and as time passed, the line between the child Harry and the soldier Harry got ever blurrier.

But even as the two parts of Harry seemed to grow closer, they did not merge into one. Rather, they possessed their distinct personalities. Existing independently and yet together at the same time. Like oil and water in a jar. This duality of self fed Harry's uncertainty, and with each day, he dived deeper and deeper into his own mind to try and find out what the truth was about himself.

The question that Harry needed the answer to was simple.

Who am I?

…

"Harry, over here! The team is over here!"

Judy called out to Harry from the other side of the street where a small group of four children a little older than them were talking in a tight circle. Judy was not in the circle, and from the body language of the people closest to him, who immediately frowned at him in irritation, Harry knew that they did not regard him as part of the team.

There was a young boy of about eighteen years speaking to the others in a commanding tone, and Harry recognized the boy as the leader of the group. His name was Terence, and he had been leading the small group for about two years now in many successful scavenger hunts, which automatically made all the members of the team trust and respect him.

Terence was wearing the same outfit as most of the scavengers that Harry had seen on the street. Cargo pants and a thick jacket over a black t-shirt. On his feet, he wore military-issued boots, and he held a pickaxe and large hammer on either side of his utility belt.

Among the team were three other boys. Harry didn't remember the names of two of them since they hadn't interacted before other than the occasional order or request, but the last boy in the group was someone that Harry was very familiar with.

"What are you looking at, you piece of shit? Want me to come over there and bust you over the head?"

The boy's name was Jake, and every single memory that Harry had of him was unpleasant. Right from the first time that they met, the boy had Harry under his feet like his lackey. Just a glare from him was enough to make Harry cower, and staring into Jake's eyes was enough to earn Harry a hit on the head.

That was the reason why Jake frowned in irritated surprise when he saw Harry glancing in his direction. Jake's statement made the other members of the team stop what they had been doing as they also turned to Harry, and Harry suddenly found himself as the center of attention in their small circle.

Harry had been standing with his hands in his pockets and a calm look on his face when Jake called him out, and Jake's loud voice did nothing to change Harry's stance as he simply turned away to look at something else that caught his interest.

Jake took this as a sign of dismissal, and a vein seemed to pop in his neck.

"Hey! I'm talking to you, boy! You think you can ignore me, you trash!? You're nothing but a fucking trash collector, so don't even try to act like you're shit!"

Jake stepped closer to Harry and glared down at the shorter boy. Jake was eighteen years old, so he towered over the sixteen-year-old Harry and cast an ominous shadow on him. Harry turned to look up at Jake silently. There was no need for Harry to answer since Jake never asked a direct question, but Harry was not going to back down from a child who was trying to act tough.

"I don't remember saying anything to you."

Harry spoke up in an even tone that made the eyes of every single person there widen in surprise. This was not what they expected from Harry.

...

A/N: Please leave a comment to tell others about what you think.