ZYLITH.

"I remember it being a hot summer evening. I had mild beads of sweat adorning my temple as I rushed to my mother. I collided into the then First Queen who seemed to be on her way to my father. I fell back onto the ground due to the hard collision and she crouched down with an extended hand towards me; asking me why I had tears in my eyes. And I, like a fool, told her of my woes." He sneered in a twisted smile. It was not exactly a smile, maybe an ironic kind of self-mockery? But one could not call it a genuine smile.

"She was so kind and patient that for a sensitive ten-year-old, who was hardly ever taken seriously by an adult, it was the greatest form of gratification. I was really grateful, and I... I even trusted all her words of console and false promises. She gave me a tonic, claiming it would definitely help my mother get better. And I... I... like the fool I was, took it with immense gratitude and thankfulness." I wanted to interrupt him mid-way, because I somehow realized that this... Tale of his, was something very personal. Very traumatizing; but I couldn't open my mouth to stop him, as though my mouth was stitched together with invisible threads.

"As I walked into my mother's chamber, a whiff of an extremely bitter taste assaulted my nostrils. The scent of medicine was not something unfamiliar to me, but that putrid smell still set me off when I entered my mother's room. The windows of the spacious room were tightly closed and due to the intense heat of the warm summer, it made one very breathless with the stuffiness of the spacious room. In the central bed of the room, I saw my mother lying on the bed, haggard as she wore a dark grey cotton gown. Her hair was soaked with sweat and even the clothes were drenched in her sweat. Her face lacked her usual liveliness and her eyes... her beautiful sea-green eyes no longer held that same sparkle and were smeared with the color of death." It looked as though he was reliving that moment all over again, unaware of his current surrounding; as though hypnotized into re-experiencing his past all over again. It was enthralling and scary at the same time.

"I remember her looking at me as I stood at the threshold of her chamber. Her weak eyes reviving some of its vivacity as her weak voice, which was like the fine strand of a thread calling to me, 'My child, what are you doing just standing there?' She said. I wordlessly walked to her, and took her hand into mine, and said, 'Mother, I brought you medicine that can heal you completely. You will soon be fine and we can once again go out and you can teach me your swordsmanship every morning, just like you did before."

"She let out a weak enthusiastic smile and said, 'Really? What had my dear Lexy brought to his mother?' I enthusiastically show the herbal tonic that the Queen Dowager gave me, saying I would feed it to her myself since she was weak and sick. She showed me her usual encouraging smile as I, spoon after spoon, with my own two hands, fed her the poison that ultimately took her life. And she, with a beautiful smile, drank it all, not even leaving a spoonful behind." As I kept listening to him, I felt myself shaking, breathless even. My emotions turned jagged and my insides tight. This... The pain and remorse that was flowing out of him was as palpable as the frigid fall wind. So raw, so hollow as though he had branded his own soul to be a sinner. Like the sun still shone in the sky, but not for him, the birds still sung in bursts of melody, but not for him, for him there was no beauty left in the world.

As though there was nothing left for him to live for, a raw emptiness was nibbling at his insides like a hungry rat. His irises were threaded scarlet and his eyeballs hung heavy in their sockets. His whole body hung limp like each limb weighted twice as much as it had before and just moving it about was a slow, painful effort.

I... I had never come across such primal despair, "I... with these two hands of mine, took my own mother's life. Haha... Hahaha... Ironic, isn't it? Even beasts refrain from hurting their own, and I... I... killed my own mother with my own two hands." His words stopped abruptly as he was struggling to keep his tears silent, looking up into the mossy ceilings of the cavern and maybe to the Heavens beyond.

I bit my lip as I felt his immeasurable anguish, I saw his shield shatter to the ground, and the pain that he had squelched into his soul came tumbling out like a relentless gale.

I now saw, what Prince Alexteris the Regalious really was. An inflamed wound, which was corroding and decaying from the inside out. And I didn't know what I could do to make it all go away. Make it all better again. It was something beyond me. Guilt isn't always rational. Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not. All I could hope and pray for now was that, one day, he would find it in himself to forgive himself for all that had happened to him. For all that he had suffered, and for all that self-blame and guilt he is carrying around his thin shoulders.

"I watched her cough out blood as she was slowly fading away. I can still remember myself standing there still, in that humid room as she crashed to the ground after I fed her the poisonous tonic. And then... And then the seeth ing fire, I don't think I remember much of how the fire started. I just stood there while my mother was coughing out fresh blood, and a wildfire enveloped us like a giant serpent. Even in death, she crawled to me... she crawled to me and wrapping me in her secure warm embrace while protecting me from the raging flame." He laughed humorlessly; his voice devoid of any hilarity.

“I remember being wrapped in so tight that not a single blister seared my skin. But at the same time, I also vividly remember the putrid smell of sweltering human skin, sizzling and scorching; the rancid smell of burning flesh.” His frame was quaking as he was phrasing out, word by word, his lurid nightmare that had haunted his dreams every night and will continue to do so for years to come.

“On that abysmal night, I swore as I was wrapped around my mother’s burning corpse, I shall not breath my last before I let Beatrice Brikenhead experience the same fate as my mother, only ten folds worse.” Such staggering anger and hatred burned in his eyes, I felt he was burning out his own soul to keep that ghastly flame of anger ablaze.

“….I can’t even begin to imagine your grief, but…. I can say this, others would have emotional scars, but not you; you’re still bleeding because your heart is so strong. So, don’t lose hope, I know it doesn’t mean anything if you hear it from me, but I would still like to say this, It was not your fault. It was NOT, your fault.” I repeatedly whispered to him, as though casting a spell upon him. I wished I could, but I was only an ordinary girl trying hard to survive myself. Hence, all I could do to console this broken boy, was use mere words of comfort.   

He abruptly looked at me, as though looking at me for the very first time, really looking at me, “…..Thank you,…. Sister-in-law…”

And my eyes grew as wide as that of an owl, almost to the point of falling out of it’s sockets.

TO BE CONTINUED………..