The Sudden Confession

As Xe’Reth sits on the bed beside his mother, she weeps in silence as her excruciating pain upon her branded body causes her to shudder terribly. Her lips spasm as beads of tears start to form in her eyes while she lies on her back on the white-sheeted bed.

She’s completely naked under her bandaged body. Everything is revealing, but no embarrassment clouds them. Only a son who cares for his sick mother, and an ill mother who loves her son that has helped her through these horrible years.

Xe'Reth pours the mug of steaming water into the mortar, which has the grinded-up herbs in it. He puts away the cup on the table beside him and leans toward his mother. He places his empty hand at the back of her neck to support her while she shakes from the pain of being moved.

“Here mother, it’ll ease your pain as it always has,” Xe’Reth comforts with a smile on his lips, a gentle smile that can lit up her entire world in bliss. She too gains a painful smile on her lips as his expression which she has seen so many times before, displays half a meter from her; the only thing that keeps her going, her son.

At the beginning of her disease, she had seen her son in a miserable state when he was younger. But now he has grown up to be such a kindhearted, supportive, and striking son. But oh how wrong she is. All he has is a mask to hide his real emotions, and she can’t even see that.

His face turns into a whole other face when he’s alone.

A face of emotionless pain, a worn-out face, and a face of complete hatred towards those who live with such ease. He is indeed jealous of the nobles who have the wealth to do whatever they want… And the people who live in comfort, they too he hates. They don’t know the pain of poverty, the pain of screams, and the pain of one’s own aching heart that never stops beating.

In his mother’s mind, she just sees her son as her savior, her baby boy that she had gotten out of nowhere.

When she had awakened in the forest those many years ago, she saw the lump on her stomach; she was pregnant… First, she had thought that she had been raped and kept under a deep sleep for her stomach to grow, but that wasn’t the case when she had journeyed back to one of the cities to get an examination and to know what date it was.

She was still pure, a virgin.

Was it some kind of parasite that was inside her? Because that forest of wonder, the Forest of Fal’kralin hides many terrifying creatures that haven't seen the light of day, but she waited to see what would come out of her belly as it grew.

She had been anxious beyond words, but she accepted the baby with happiness when she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. She thought that it was a blessing from the Queens of the Divine Sky. He was indeed beautiful when she birthed him, no flaws other than his black hair and eyes. She was happy even though no man was her baby’s father. It was weird how she felt, it was as if something inside her willed her to love him more than anything in the world.

She kept it a secret of how her son came into existence because when she first did the examination of her bulged stomach, she was indeed pure. That made the examiner worried about what was true; that she was pregnant, or that she was lying?

But Xe’Reth’s mother kept her mouth shut as she gained too much suspicion directed onto her, so she had left the examiner there with a wondering face, to journey back to the City where she first lived.

The City of Tertinum, where Xe’Reth was born and raised.

Xe’Reth had heard that his father defended one of the gates of the Ebon Wall. He was a support archer that fought down by the gates, and he bore the Ebony Bow that had been passed down through the generations, to father to son. But he met his end when the middle gate was destroyed on that horrible day.

That was what his mother told him. A believable lie, a lie even he believed was real.

He was given the Ebony Bow on his fifth birthday. A bow his mother had gotten. It was lying there beside her when she first woke up in the Forest of Fal’kralin with her newly bulging stomach, and arrows, too, lay there. It was weird, but she took them, to begin her journey back to civilization, but she was extremely careful, for it was indeed Fal’kralin forest.

Xe’Reth was very young to be carrying a bow, but for a five-year-old, he drew it with such ease, even his mother was surprised for she couldn't even pull it after she birthed him. Though of course, Xe'Reth didn't use it because he was too short back then.

Before, his mother could also draw it with ease, but then after Xe’Reth came into existence, she couldn't even pull the string of the bow. It was as if the line was made of the hardest steel there is. It was a mystery that she never got an answer to. The bow's string is also razor sharp to those who tries to pull it. A tool that can be used beyond its terrifying shooting power.

She knew her son was special, but then came the disease when he was thirteen years of age, that disease which made her into this very state that she’s in now. This horrible state of sickness that Xe'Reth wants to cure, but yet can't.

“Don’t spill it, easy there mother,” he holds the mortar to her mouth, and she drinks the mixture with ultimate desire. She wants this pain to go away, she wants that addictive tranquilizing feeling of pain receivers to stop working, to give her the peace of mind.

“Mm…gulp, mm…gulp,” her face shows a sudden loss of pain after just drinking the mixture that’s blended together with hot water.

Is it just her imagination that it works so fast? Or is it that the medicine itself works so quick its effect shows immediately?

“My lovely son… how is… the clothing store…?” she asks as her mind clears away the dull pain that plagues her, giving her a very relaxing and tiring expression that show on her squinting eyelids. “Are you… keeping it in good… condition?”

“Of course, mother. True, it’s hard. But I’m keeping the store in the best state I can,” Xe’Reth says with a convincing smile of accomplishment as he keeps up his mask.

Back when that noble woman destroyed his mother’s store, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her about it. He just couldn’t make his mother sad by telling of the destruction of her boutique… so he had thrown out lies, lies of comfort, to make his mother believe that everything was alright. He hated himself for lying to his own mother, but her survival was more important than anything else.

He must keep her from giving in to that thinking of suicide which has killed almost every single one of this disease. He has the hope that maybe there are others that share his own pains. That they’re still keeping their loved ones alive through the same means?

“Ah, honey... I feel... tired…” she says as she licks her dry lips even though wetness just watered them when she had drunk the mixture. She can’t even keep herself awake anymore from the medicine.

Before, she couldn’t stay awake for more than half a second. But over the years, her mind and body have started to show a side-effect from using this forbidden herb that has been given daily.

Xe’Reth has to give more of the dose as she gets more immune to its effects, which would’ve cost Xe’Reth a lot of money to buy from illicit stocks. But, he grows them himself in a nearby mountain; in an open valley where the sun shines upon the herbs, the rain that showers in intervals, and the earth that helps it grow into its grandeur.

If he were to sell the herbs... That would indeed make him a drug dealer.

It had been used to torture people, rape people, and kill people. It's mostly used by assassins because if people have never felt its effect before, they would first be instantly knocked unconscious, then as the victim wakes up, no matter how much pain one endures, they wouldn’t feel anything.

But the side-effect for his mother is that she doesn’t fall asleep immediately anymore, and when she falls asleep and wakes up, she will feel all of her pain return.

It’s such an illegal herb, but why would that stop Xe’Reth? He neither rapes, tortures nor… kill people. The only people he kills is when he’s on the Ebon Wall. But is this torture what he does to his own mother? To keep her in this miserable state of pain? To keep her alive? Is that in itself torture?

He has thought it through many times.

The Kingdom isn’t such a bad place to live in honestly. Nobles can’t really do whatever they want because there are services that take care of those who acts without grace. For the Kingdom’s royal family despise those who look down upon their realm’s people. Many nobles have gone to prison for doing something that warrants an arrest, even executed.

The people can go and submit a complaint if someone has done a deed of unlawfulness to the Department of Law and Order. An organization that was founded by a Divine Queen that had seen how the nobles acted in secret, and as she saw those… activities, she put a stop to it by bringing in law and order through that organization.

Many were executed, many were sentenced to live in prison for the rest of their lives… High-standing families reduced to the ground from a single word that the Queen said.

The Department of Law and Order was named by that Divine Queen.

She reformed the whole Kingdom through her own principles, and she was hailed with greatness. She brought forth such an incredible era that kept everything in balance, and through her came a new thinking that changed its people... forever.

Though nobles and ordinary citizens still had an unfair treatment of each other.

Poor people were still poor, regular people were still regular, and nobles were still… nobles.

One’s own wealth was still one’s own wealth.

Through the many years since her passing, her principles have still been set in stone in the Kingdom’s foundation. The current reigning Divine Queen of this country studied everything and took everything of what that former Queen had done.

A role model for the Kingdom’s crowned head.

But there are also corrupt organizations that take submissions which aren’t a part of the nation’s forces. Those people who want a more punishing justice done, other than prison.

An assassin’s syndicate.

Xe’Reth himself doesn’t care about anything as long as his mother is alright.

He doesn’t put himself in danger which can hurt her; even if he has to bow, he bows. Even if he has to gravel on the ground, he will do it. But that mostly concerns nobles.

The regular people that don’t have such a wealthy foundation, they can be handled with a lot more ease. He has been bullied a lot by different kinds of individuals, but that was mostly nothing to worry about since they also have fear in them towards Xe’Reth. Never anything above profanity from the mouth.

He’s different, unique in the human society. That is what makes him frightening. The unknown.

The people had stood above him and looked at him with laughing faces when he was younger since Xe’Reth was poor, and as someone poor, he couldn’t actually fight back even if he wanted to. He just buried those laughs and taunts. While the poor, too, revered him as something unclean. Xe'Reth is like a magnet that pushes away his own kind, instead of attracting them. But maybe it also works the other way?

He is alone with his mother, though now as he’s a grown up, no one really dares to come near him with such intentions.

Xe’Reth has done things in secret to those who wanted him or his mother ill.

Xe’Reth has actually committed murder… other than on the Ebon Wall.

A person who sought out his ire through a horrible act. But that person never saw the light of day ever again. For Xe'Reth is a shadow in the darkness if he wills it. He knows this City through and through, every nook and cranny, every rooftop and alleyway, every house, inn, store, and all the other constructions of this spectacular City.

He has done various jobs, so people know him, especially the city guards. They look down on him like everyone else. A bunch of criminals with the City’s authority. They’ve visited his house many times with inquiries of where he has been because those inquiries were of illegal business; robbery, murder, and rape.

They’ve thrown baseless accusations at him these past few years because Xe’Reth has grown into an evil-looking young man. His black hair and eyes which no one in this Kingdom has but him. Through his trickery, he can get out of many situations without exerting himself.

Though… some of those accusations that were thrown at him were true… but they didn’t have any evidence on him. One needs proof to throw someone in prison or a lot of power and influence, though even that can sometimes backfire, royally.

Xe’Reth had murdered one person in cold-blood and robbed when he needed to at the most desperate times.

Once, someone had broken into his house and opened the door to his mother’s. But luckily Xe’Reth came in through the front door right after the man opened it. His mother had been sound asleep so she couldn’t hear the struggle of a man being put to death by Xe’Reth’s unmerciful eyes.

The soundless cry of a man being choked to death by Xe’Reth's cold hands.

What if Xe’Reth wasn’t there when the man opened the door to where his mother lay sleeping? She was drugged, so she wouldn’t even be able to wake up if something happened to her.

He has put precautions ever since that happened.

Locks on the door, but is that enough? He doesn’t want to think about it.

“Mother, let's move you onto my bed so I can change your sheets,” Xe’Reth says to his mother who’s on the verge of falling asleep while her eyes open and close. But his soft voice reaches to her ears, enough to make her raise her hand. A scarred hand which has had the scorching burn marks on them.

Xe’Reth takes her hand, and her other hand too, to help her stand up. She doesn’t feel the pain anymore, but seeing her with the bandages that cover her whole body, Xe’Reth’s ache in his heart pulse with pity. His once beautiful mother degraded to this kind of pitiable state.

He longs for when his mother can go out into the sun and feel the soothing warmth on her skin, and not this feeling of boiling pain.

She manages to stand up as Xe’Reth supports her while he holds both of her hands; she stumbles and wobbles, but with time she lies down on his bed, which have new white sheets. His bed isn’t as grand as hers, but it’s only for a while that she’ll be laying there until he has changed all of the bloody sheets that have printed blood and slight skin fragments which have glued themselves onto the sheets.

It’s a disgusting view. However, Xe’Reth has seen it too many times to be stirred by such a sight.

‘Dammit, she’s still waiting outside, tsk. I can’t let her see the herbs inside this room… If she does see them… I need to kill her’, Xe’Reth worries with a scowl, because how can he beat someone like her? Though she hasn’t any weapons on her right at this moment. ‘No, I can’t kill her, the city guard and the DLO will trace it back to me. The gate guards saw us go past the portcullis together. Oh, what’ve I gotten myself into?’

As he ponders about many different things that are plaguing his mind, he changes the sheets and puts on new ones.

“Mmm…” His mother drifts off to her painless sleep… but, she hasn’t eaten anything today. She’s already starting to get a thin body, though, he has always been able to keep her on a decent diet. But these couple of months has been pretty rough.

Today in the morning, he had been away to the Ebon Wall, many things have been pushed up. Like the cleaning of her body, her regular eating times, and her other… things. As he now has the money to pay for the expenses, he doesn’t need to work as hard, he can relax and tend to his mother in peace.

However, he can wait to feed her until she wakes up again, for he didn’t give her a big dose this time. Not like when he needed to go to the Ebon Wall and fight today; that was a high dosage. It made her unconscious for a whole day, but this current dose will only last for around five to six hours. Perfect for him so he can get a well-earned rest.

He does a face-palm as he thinks about the Honored Lady that wait outside. How will he handle her? Shall he continue to praise her, to make her feel too full of herself? Or shall he do something else, like show how pitiful he is? To show her how he lives, to invite her into his house? Or should he bare his feelings to her? His false cunning sense of love?

As he finishes with his mother’s bed, he goes to pick up new bandages, then heads back to his mother who’s on the bed in a daze. She has a smile on her lips, and her eyes show her blissful void, probably because of the feeling it gives her, that feeling of no horrid agony.

He places all of the bandages on his bed next to where his mother lies.

“Come, mother, time to change the bandages,” Xe’Reth says to gain a response from her who’s on the verge between awake and asleep.

“Mm…” she replies.

In the meanwhile, Malinda stands outside leaning towards Xe’Reth’s rundown house’s wall, right next to the door. She’s actually waiting there obediently, but her mind is in her thoughts.

Until his mother is asleep, he said, and then he shut the door on her.

Who is he to do that to her? To one of the rulers of this City? But of course, she isn’t thinking like that at all. She instead worries about his so called mother. Her screams had shot through her like the ghost of her own mother.

Her own parents who had died a few years back to a terrible disease. Not even with the best medicines could keep them alive. Her father was the first to go, his heart couldn’t take it, then her mother followed after that.

When Malinda’s mother heard that her husband had passed away, she committed suicide on the same day that he died; she jumped out from the Citadel’s third-floor window in the dead of night. And her body was found on the ground below in the morning. Her mother had wanted no one to disturb her so she could mourn in painful agony alone, that’s why it took so long for her body to be discovered.

Xe’Reth’s mother’s screams stopped right when he went inside. She probably cried out because she didn’t see her caretaker there beside her, so she had to shout to him in her miserable state.

As Malinda stands outside, she feels the night air seeping into her. That cold air of an autumn’s eve. She can even see her own breath as it comes out between her rosy lips while she has a slight frown on her as she awaits for Xe’Reth.

It's quiet... so quiet.

This street that she's on has zero people in it. Is it because of the spooky graveyard that oozes with slight fog a bit further away? She sees the torches lighting the entrance to it. A chapel also stands further inside the entry with a single light in its twenty-meter high tower, but it's a very blurry sight, making her eyes squint.

It has almost gone an hour now since he went inside.

She was speechless when he opened the door before, all she could do was to talk about the neighborhood to avert her eyes from his bare chest. Those muscles. They’re like her brother’s when she saw him stroll through the Citadel all nonchalantly with his chest bare while he had his wife next to him, they were coming from the bathing area.

But Xe’Reth has a much thinner build, a ripped, lean build.

She shakes her head to rid herself of Xe’Reth’s body.

‘Why am I even here…?’ she asks, sighing while lowering her head in dismay. ‘Am I really going to fall for the first man that treats me with genuine kindness, with such affectionate words? Am I so gul—?’

*Screech*

The door opens up beside her, and she flinches from the creaking sound, her nervousness beginning to form in her throat as the door opens wider… and wider.

“Ah, I’m sorry to keep you waiting, my Honored Lady. I… Well… Sigh, my mother is now asleep, so we can now continue,” Xe’Reth says as his face show real anxiety with his eyes of tiredness and his forced smile which even Malinda can see through.

He’s so tired that he just wants to fall asleep. But no! He can’t just yet, he must take care of this carefully because she’ll be useful if he can make her his.

“A-Are you all right, X-Xe’Reth?” Malinda gulps down her worries. Her eyes gaze at him with such a scowling sadness. “We, we don’t really need to talk right now, if you don’t want to.”

“Hmm…? Honored Lady, are you suggesting that we should meet up again? If you’re, I would be most obliged,” Xe’Reth bows as he leans forward with a jokingly voice as he looks at the now scarlet Malinda. “But from your expression, I can see that wasn’t the case or was it?”

“You play with my words, Xe’Reth, you should st—,” Malinda utters as her expression turn a little foul.

Xe’Reth notices it before she can finish her sentence. “—I’m sorry, Malinda… I… I… I’m sorry... Please forgive me.” All of a sudden he turns into a pathetic man, which transforms Malinda’s expression into something else entirely.

“X-Xe’Reth, it is… it is all right,” she says, but Xe’Reth retorts with a speech that hits Malinda in such a shock.

“Malinda… We shouldn’t speak to each other anymore. I… I can’t control my own emotions at this moment. All of my worries are streaming out of me. I… I can’t really stand people like you,” Xe’Reth reveals with such hate in his voice, and she stands there with a face full of shock written all over her gaping mouth, her azure globes of more white than blue, and those raising eyebrows.

“You’re a noble of the highest stature. A person that can do whatever she wants; you can talk down to people, spit on people, even kill people if you so wanted to. You can destroy the very lives of those you hate. You, people, are my weakness and my hatred.”

“You can burn down our lives as you’re protected by wealth, and I? I can only fall on my pathetic knees while you step on me from above. You can destroy my pride, my heart, and my whole life in a blink of an eye while I can’t do anything about it. Other than to throw away my life if I were to disobey.”

“You’re a being beyond the common folk… You’re a terror to be trifled with. You’re one who has everything. No worries about how you’ll live the next day. But, heh, I can’t really hate someone who has shown me such kindness for the first time. For I have no allies, no friends, other than my ill mother. I’m at my wit's end because of you, Malinda.”

“Because… you Malinda, you’re the most ideal noble I can think of. You’re caring, and just, you’re lovingly beautiful, yet you’re the most un-nobly woman I’ve met who comes from such a high standing. The perfect woman in my eyes…”

His lips curve upward while he becomes gentle as a breeze in the calm wind.

“Yes, that’s what you are to me. But... the Divine Sky has doomed me to this existence. Because you’re a woman that’s beyond my reach.”

“My Honored Lady… From what I’ve just said to you, it would mean only one thing: I’m in love with you. I can’t explain these feelings I get when you’re near me. We’ve only known each other for a short while. Yet it feels as if I’ve known you my entire life.”

“But this confession will yield no success because you’re a noble, and I’m a dog of the slums. And that’s why we must never see each other again, for I can’t bear this pain that I already have for my ill mother.”

Xe’Reth’s emotionless eyes go to Malinda’s. Her eyes, full of sadness, concern, and… a hint of extreme relief.

“Malinda, please forget that we have ever met. And I’m terribly sorry for my bold words against your kind. B-But, if you do wish to punish me, I’ll have to die… for I can’t let my mother suffer from the pain of me not being there,” Xe’Reth says as his expression turns desperate, filled with sadness and survival upon his sharp lowering eyebrows.

Malinda stands there beside the door with an open mouth and eyes that flicker in disbelief…

‘He… He said that he loves me? He actually said it... Oh, what should I do? What should I do?! But… Xe'Reth, I don’t care about how you talk about the nobles. I can see that you’ve had your share amount of pain from them, even if you hadn't said it,’ Malinda just stands there staring at him with newfound eyes of passion.

She gets a frowning face, a face of choice. Though her face, no, her mind has already set her own goals. For she wants what everyone else has: someone to be with, even if it has only gone such a short time span between them.

“C-Can I think about it, for a day?” she responds with a trembling voice as she averts her eyes...

Thanks for reading!

Emotions can be complicated, yet simple.Until next time!

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