She had always been a damsel in distress, hadn't she?
Ozera had reached an impasse. The log that loomed in her path had such a girth that she could never have dreamed to scale it —even without a gimp leg. <i>I need to get to.... I need to get to...</i> But where she needed to be, she couldn't have really said. She could feel it in her aged, cracked bones, for that's all she really was —just a bag of bones. Unable to shake this feeling that she was forgetting something, that she was letting someone down, Ozera merely stood and stared at the roadblock that straddled her intended path. If the old woman had been less preoccupied, perhaps she would have considered going around it or going somewhere else, but alas she was stuck inside of a phonological loop in her mind: <i>He's waiting for me. I need to get there..</i> "<b>You don't understand,</b>" she told the log, her tone taut with inarticulate desperation, "<b>I... I need... he... I... you're in the way.</b>" She didn't know why, but she desperately needed to get over this log. If she left this path then she was lost. Her feet would know where she was going... if only she could get over this goddamn <i>log</i>.
Somewhere in the darkness of her skull she had hidden all her memories —she had hidden herself. A younger, saner, more vibrant Ozera crouched and cowered somewhere in that darkness, and she knew what she was looking for. That wretched creature was looking for the falls, looking for a boy she had once known, a knight in shining armor she had promised to take swimming, <i>promised</i> to grant three wishes. And even if everything else —her memories, her wits— had deserted her, the promises still remained. But the Ozera that stared stupidly, pleading with the log, didn't know anything about promises —only logs that stood in the way and an undying need to be somewhere that wasn't where she was. "<b><i>Please.</b></i>"
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