Username:
Agent Alaska
Name:
Horos (HOAR-ohz) Mnason (NAY-sun)
Horos - Greek name meaning "the distant one"
Mnason - Greek name meaning "remembering"
Gender:
male
Story:
"What do you know?"
I blinked.
She spoke slower, softer. "Tell me everything you know. Let's start with your name."
I squinted my sun-gold eyes shut. "My... name."
Lights flickered and faded in the darkness, I heard someone yelling. Shouting. What did she say?
"Horos." I huffed, "My name is Horos."
"How do you know?"
I snarled as a pain gripped my temples, a stabbing pain very familiar to me. A growl escaped my throat as I remembered.
I hate remembering.
"Horos! Keyx!" She called. We ceased our wrestling. My mother stood, fur flowing in the dark water. Her eyes smiled and scolded simultaneously, and mine rolled in response. Keyx was at her side in an instant.
"It's time to hide. Noontime brings the passing, and you do not want to be out when that happens," she corralled us into a corner of her cave, and covered us. Her fur was dark, a deep green that was the only reason we had survived this long. The passing brought creatures whose eyes followed brightness, movement, who hungered for blood.
"What do you remember." she said, snapping me painfully out of the memory. I glared at her, but she stared back, unflinching.
I sighed, "it was not good to have bright colors like I have. I had no choice, one day I would be too big to hide. Too large, too bright. They would find us. I was a danger." In my mind, insults swirled, taunting and scolding in a variety of voices, all familiar and all unfamiliar. The pain returned, and memories began again.
"Why," a loud voice echoed, "did you try to leave your cave? The Passing was nearly underway. You are old enough to understand." He snarled down at my barely-grown body, shaking like a stunned guppy. My head lowered so far my chin touched the ground. "I-i... I didn't... I didn't think they would follow me, if... If I left so close to the passing..." Tears streamed from my eyes and melted to the sea, I tried in vain to blink them away but for the last three days, there was nothing to life than tears. Emptiness.
"Two of us have died because of you, Horos." He spoke around me. "We all know how this must be punished."
"Destroy him!" They chanted.
All went black.
"Ah!" I shook the pain, the memories, the emptiness from my mind. It couldn't have been all my fault.
"Horos." She demanded, "I need you to tell me what's going on. What happened before you washed up on shore? Anything you remember can be used to figure out who did this to you. You didn't deserve any of it."
I kept my head low, eyes on my own paws. My head swam, and my eyes flowed, but I didn't sob. I was Horos, the distant one. My distance got my family murdered. Now I was Mnason. I was remembering. And it hurt me even more.
"Yes, ma'am. I'm afraid I did deserve it."