In that life, I am an American man named Brian and it seems to be many years in the future. Young and successful, that life is easier in some ways and harder in others. I have a family there, a job, thoughts and dreams that are both alien to me and undeniably familiar. I cannot say for sure if I am forgetting Alexi or remembering Brian, but either way it makes me both happy and terrified, as though I delight at the thought at being eradicated and made new.

Perhaps it is radiation sickness, but I fear it is something worse. Some hex placed on me by that vile creature in the woods. I fear what its corruption might be doing to me. And God help me, I fear that it might stop.

****

My name is Brian Favors. And I no longer think all of this is some strange coincidence or magical happenstance. I believe everything that Alexi wrote down, and I know he wasn’t crazy. Or if he was, then so am I.

Because I’m beginning to remember things too. Things from Alexi’s life that were never in the journal. The look of mild surprise and pride on my father’s face when I told him of my promotion. The smell of my sweet Alena’s hair when I held her close. The feel of that rotten thing’s tongue as it raked roughly up my face and somehow unmoored me and my counterpoint from normal reality and time.

I still remember being Brian, but it is harder now. The memories of both men swim around each other like hungry fishes vying for scraps of my attention. They shove and crowd each other until it is sometimes hard to see either clearly. I should think I’m just going crazy, but I don’t think I am. And much like Alexi…or Brian…in the journal, I don’t know that I want it to stop.

I write all of this with the hope it will clear my mind, at least somewhat. I post it with the hope that I can receive advice as to what I should do next. I’m strongly considering traveling to the Ukraine. Pripyat has become a tourist attraction of all things, and while the trip will be costly, it may be that I could find answers there. But will the answers I find help ease my troubled mind or only give me more questions?

For as my father always said, “Appetite comes with eating.”

The Bowl of Pripyat: Blood on the Mirror

I am Alexi Petrovich. I am Brian Favors. I believe that both of these things are true; that I am somehow both men.

But I don’t believe that is the entire truth.