The Forgotten Child

Flash Fiction February (Day 19)

Image: Pablo Merchán Montes via Unsplash+

Mother told me to hide when the Wardens came. Dig deep beneath the Earth, she said, and wait for me. Mother knows what's best for me, so I listened.

I waited.

And waited.

I waited until death lost all meaning.

And then I kept waiting.

I waited until my body had long merged with the planet. Until my spirit has soaked into the ground around me.

I heard the parasites above me. I heard their beating hearts, their skittering footsteps.

They brought great machines to my resting place. They laid wood and metal atop the ground where my mother buried me eons ago.

They called it a house. My curiosity was too great, so I rose to the surface. Their so-called house was porous, filled with spaces that I could soak into.

So, I did. I passed into the floors, merged with the walls, and spread my fingertips through the doors and cabinets. I connected my mind to the electric synapses that snaked through the walls.

Soon I lost sight of where the house ended and where I began, but it didn't matter, because something else began soaking into the home with me.

Emotions…

Strange, unique, complex, and delicious. The parasites exuded it like sweat, and I was so very thirsty.

Two of the parasites lived in the home that had become my body. One male, one female. I didn't like the male. His rage was noxious, it burned like fire on my tongue.

I would watch him take his bottles from the cabinets he thought were hidden. He would drink, and the liquid would fan the flames.

I watched, helpless, as he hurt the female. She was a parasite like all humans, but her emotions were complex, nuanced.

She nourished me.

Her joy was sweet and invigorating. It tasted like sunshine, but when he hurt her, the joy turned to sorrow.

I didn't like the taste of her tears.

I didn't like him. He was a parasite in more ways than one. As his rage continued to soak into the walls and the floors and the ceiling, my rage for him grew.

I had more control with every sunrise. And so, I waited. I bided my time, until the night when I could squash him like the insect he was.

That night was like any other. He drank from his hidden bottle, and then he hurt her. She ran from him, and he gave chase.

I slid my fingertips into one of the doors like a glove. She passed through, her tears leaving a trail on the floor.

He tried to cross the threshold.

NO!

I slammed the door shut. He stumbled backward, blood pouring from his face. Only a few drops reached the floor, but I immediately noticed the flavor.

A rich essence, a delicious lifeforce. Yes...

I WANT MORE!

He went into the bathroom to examine his wound, but I was waiting for him. I wet the floor with water from the shower and watched as he lost his balance.

His head hit the corner of the structure they called a sink. I watched eagerly, from my perch within the ceiling, as his life force drained out of him.

More blood ran from the wound, spreading through the water across the ground.

YES! YES! MORE!

His rage dissipated, leaving only the essence. When I had my fill, I simply watched and admired my work.

He would have killed her.

I saved her.

I was what the parasite's called a hero. Now, she knows only joy, and I would never again taste the bitter and burnt taste of his rage.

But when she found him, she was not happy. She cried.

WHY IS SHE CRYING?

I threw myself against the foundations of the home. It shook as if the Earth itself had quaked beneath it.

Now she was scared. I could see it in her eyes.

No! No fear, no anger, only joy!

I just wanted her to be happy. No more sadness, no more rage. Just happiness.

I tried to hold her, but I couldn't. I didn't have arms.

I had walls.

---

---

During the day, I basked in her glow. At night, I watched her sleep under the moonlight.

Then, one day, I felt something. Someone. Another parasite?

Impossible.

It was there, though. Faint. Distant.

Other parasites entered my body. They brought joy with them, and they kept repeating the same word in their native tongue.

Baby. Baby. Baby.

It was a child growing inside of her. Another parasite. Its emotions were bland. Blank.

I was intrigued.

As the child gestated inside of her, her joy magnified. I was pleased. I was not only nourished, but I had an overabundance of the sweet ambrosia I enjoyed.

It gave me joy of my own. Was this what happiness felt like?

Am I...Happy?

When the parasite was born, I felt the need to protect it as I would her. Both were under my care.

No harm shall come to them.

Then, one day everything changed. The child and the mother started taking things off my walls. They placed their decorations and their possessions in boxes.

My delicious joy began to spoil. It rotted into melancholy. They let other parasites inside. They ran their hands across my walls. They opened my cabinets.

They poked and prodded. Their emotions were strange upon my tongue. Their joy was not as sweet, and they brought another flavor that I did not enjoy.

Is that...HOPE?

I spat, and in the kitchen, a pipe tore open. Water gushed out onto the floor, and the new parasites left.

Good.

Despite my success in chasing off the new parasites, the mother and child still continued to strip bare everything that adorned my walls and ceilings.

They stripped it all away until I was naked and cold. I did not have emotions like them, and yet...

I was sad.

I tried to stop them anyway I could. I tried to knock their boxes over. I tried to lock their doors so they couldn't take their things away, but something was happening.

I was getting weaker.

Without joy and its nourishment, my body became weak. I was reduced to a witness once more.

Then came the day when they took out the last box. I screamed and begged as they stood in the entryway.

PLEASE! DON'T DO THIS! DON'T LEAVE ME!

My cries fell on deaf ears. They walked out.

Just like she did.

I'm not like them. I'M NOT LIKE THEM! So why do I miss them? Why do I feel emotions like the parasites?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

---

---

I wanted to soak back into the ground. I wanted to return to nothingness.

But then someone new arrived.

No, not new. I recognized this scent.

M-M-MOTHER?

She walked into the house, stepping on my floors as she carried something. Liquid sloshed within.

YOU'VE RETURNED!

She didn't answer me. She just walked around my halls and into my room. She kept splashing her strange liquid all over my floors and my walls.

Mother! I've waited so long for you!

She continued her work in silence. She walked back to the entrance and pulled a small metal box out of her pocket.

"I can smell them on you," she said.

What? No, mother, I can explain!

She pressed a switch, and a flame erupted from the metal box in her hand.

"You were always my favorite. My disappointment is beyond words."

Mother, please! I’ve missed you!

"STOP CALLING ME THAT! You're no child of mine. You should have stayed forgotten."

She dropped the metal box. As the flame kissed the liquid on the floor, I understood its purpose.

It's just like his rage...

The fire spread across my skin. Covering my body in a raging inferno as mother stood in the doorway.

Just like they did...

Please mother...

DON'T LET ME BURN!

She shook her head and left. The flames grew ever higher. Burning away the walls that had become my flesh. Ripping through the foundations that had become my bones.

I would have been safe if I had just stayed in the Earth. I would have had more time. Instead, I chose to merge with the house.

And now, I would burn with it.

I felt myself fading.

As the house crumbled to ash, so too did my soul. I shuttered the windows, closing my eyes, and thinking only of her as I let the flames take me.

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