Forgotten

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQeAGWF6kjs

“‘Children are stupid. Impulsive. They’re ignorant,small drunks stumbling through their beginning years.”

The worse rose in his mind, bringing up memories unbidden as rain fell. It rained so heavily he found it hard to breathe. He could move from where he had fell in the mud. He could roll over to breathe easier. Exhaustion and rain held his limbs down. His heart pinned his chest to the mud and kept him laying there as memories rose unbidden, while thunder rumbled in disappointment from the clouds.

He remembered when he saw his mother’s hidden knife. Searching through her in the house Mallow had surprised her in the closet. She had just finished polishing the knife. The smell of metal polish clung heavily to his mother.

Did he see the knife? Yes, he did. 

He musn’t ever tell his sister. It was a secret in case mother needed it to keep them all safe.

It never crossed his mind to deny her the promise and so he did promise. He’d never tell anyone about Mother’s secret knife in the closet. 

It wasn’t until he was an adult that the memory crossed his mind again and he knew what he’d promised.

The woman who lived next door to his family’s home had many children over her thousands of years. The woman, who insisted Mallow call her Grandmother, was nice to him. She gave him sweets, watched him and his sister when Mother and Father were busy.  Mallow got to see her children on occasion but one always stayed in his mind.

He couldn’t remember the man’s name. But privately Mallow always called him ‘crazy’.  There was something in his eyes, the way he talked, his body language that told Mallow to stay away, even when he was to young to understand what insanity was. No matter how nice crazy seemed, Mallow stayed away, kept his distance. He knew crazy would somehow, someway get worse.

And one day Crazy did. Mallow heard him screaming at Grandmother in her home. Threatening her with words and potential violence.  

He grabbed his sister. Hide her in Mother and Father’s closest, grabbed Mother’s secret knife. His sister heard the fear in his words and Mallow didn’t think twice as he closed his parent’s closet door. Mother and Father’s room was safe, his young mind had reasoned. So he closed the closet door and the bedroom door before he went to face his end.

As the yelling continued Mallow knew that the Crazy man would come. Somehow. He dragged his Father’s large chair in front of the door and hide behind the couch when he heard furniture break in Grandmother’s home. He held Mother’s secret knife and waited. He’d keep his sister safe. He’d watch her. Because he knew when the Crazy man came he’d come for Mallow first and Mallow would fight him.

Somehow he’d reasoned he’d fight him long enough to keep his sister safe. Death didn’t scare him. He was to young to grasp the concept fully.

The guard came and the yelling ceased. Silence eerily reigned in the absence of the crazy man’s broken fury.

But it was over an hour before Mallow deemed it safe to leave home. He took his sister and Mother’s secret knife, running through the streets of Suramar to find Father where Father worked.

Mother and Father were invincible. Nothing could harm them.

“I’d die for you and your sister.” Father’s eyes swung between Mallow and his sister. “You don’t understand it” Father pointed at his sister but when his eyes moved to Mallow they took him in, considering. “But you might have an idea.” Eager to be seen as an adult Mallow nodded. 

“Because I love you more than anything.”

Mallow didn’t understand. But for Father’s sake he nodded and said he did.

As he grew older he came to understand more of Suramar. But he was ignorant of the world. Ignorant and far to young. Life in a bubble was crowded. He desired adventure. He was close in age to his sister and often they argued. Enough to irritate their parents.

Mallow wanted to find adventure. Become a hero. All of the things living in a bubble did not offer. But he assured himself he would if his sister would stop being a pustulence on his fun.

Eventually he coughed, forced to move so he could breathe. propping himself up with his elbows. Wet hair hide the rest of the world from his sight. As he pushed the dirty white strands away his fingers brushed against the scars on his face.

He froze, stunned by the reminder they were there. Then he tried to rise up, fighting back the angry cough that threatened to steal his breath away.

He’d been promised a fun time. But the bastard given him something else. A curse.  Nobody would remember him. Not his friends, not his family, nobody. He’d done nothing to the bastard child of an unimportant noble. So he didn’t bat an eye at their supposed curse.

He didn’t believe them. He laughed in their face and when he went home…

His key worked but nobody was home. His things were gone, his room had become a office. His favorite books, the necklace his father had given him, even his sodding clothing was gone.

So irritated at what he thought what a prank of his sister he didn’t see the Guard coming for him. They had been alerted to an intruder and he was unceremoniously introduced to a painful warning not to return.

He promised one day he’d find the bastard. Somehow. But he would occasionally walk by. Maybe his sister or parents would have some recognition in their eye. Maybe they’d remember him.

He hoped in vain. Not once did they ever look at him and remember, not once did he hear them say his name.

They knew. Somehow they knew.

Why did Mallow let them go. The rejects, the unwanted, the exiled, the to-be-punished. 

They didn’t deserve to be cut off and wither. When he joined the right side Mallow had his reservations. But for the family that had forgotten him he would keep them safe.  

But what if one of those would turn out to be his sister? His Mother? Or even his father? Even though he had stopped walking by his home, Mallow remembered them. So he fought on the right side for them. The Magistrix was in the right.

But someone had told on him. 

They held a blade to his face. Whatever it was coated with burned as it dripped down. They wanted names, information, everything.

And several hours when his voice was lost to screams and he was unceremoniously thrown aside it was when he was empty of information. He tried. He tried for so long. But eventually they’d broken through his resistance and he would have told them everything to make them stop.

It took agonizing effort to rise to his knees. Mud covered everything, offering no assistance when he lost the fight to resist the coughing. It kept his breath away until the world grew dizzy and his head spun. He was cold. In the Land of Eternal Spring, he was cold. So cold it felt like he was bathing in snow.

When he found himself beneath a tree Mallow looked upwards to stare at the bleak sky overhead. Slowly he breathed, hoping to prevent more coughing.

His home was just… gone. His father, mother, sister. Where were they? When did they leave? Nobody knew, no matter who he asked. They’d thought he was part of their group or maybe another unfortunate about to be offered to the Legion. Maybe his scarred face was the cause of their reasoning.  

It didn’t explain why they didn’t seem to remember him when they looked away.

He refused to believe the curse was real. It was to stupid, to half baked to be real. 

There was no future for him here. No future for a forgotten man. So when he followed the tourists he opted to go to Quel’thalas. The Land of Eternal Spring and demon free? Sounded better. 

Nobody remembered him when they looked away. He got through the lines to a portal and only paused in the hopes he’d hear a familiar voice telling him to wait.

How stupid. 

But he understood now. He knew what Father meant. He had Mother’s secret knife on his belt.  He knew now what he’d forgotten as a child.  “I…have my mother’s dreams. My father’s eyes.”  He still had that. That couldn’t be forgotten. Not by him anyway.

He breathed in deeply. Exhaled. Did it again. Somehow he’d make something of this new place. A new home. Somehow this would be better than his home.

It’d be a new start. Somehow. As the rain continued to fall in what he knew as the Ghostlands Mallow promised he’d find something. 

It was all the Nightborne really had now.