Noth stood there like a statue and stared on in terror. The sight seemed like it was carving itself into his eyes. The body that used to be his mother was now red, and wet, and…apart. Her hand had managed to stay nearby, but her head had tumbled and rolled and somehow landed a small ways away from the rest. His mouth tried to force out a scream unbidden, but all the noise his small figure could make was just a high pitch, desperate sob, almost sounding like a sudden weight had come to crush the air out of him. His little legs wobbled with the sudden force of his despair, and in but moments he came crashing down to his knees on the hard floor. He couldn’t even register the feeling of it. The only thing he could feel was the pain twisting in his heart.

Noth’s father stood there, his now cold facade belying his true cocktail of emotions. It didn’t even look like his eyes were focused on any one thing, or that he’d even cared that his son had seen it all. Even when Noth started making little wheezing sounds in his panic, his father just silently left the greenhouse. Only the Earl himself could have ever noticed the way his lips started to tremble as he stepped through the door.

It felt like Noth’s heart was stopping and starting, repeatedly. He couldn’t breathe. His hands and feet felt nothing but cold. All he could hear was his own arrhythmic heart. His vision was swimming. He was sweating and turning colours. And finally, after what felt like ages, Noth couldn’t take it anymore, his little child body crumpled slowly to the ground as his consciousness left.

Time passed, feeling both long and short, not caring about the goings on of the world.

The cobblestone floor was cold, and the poor boy was woken up by his shivers. He curled up his little body and squeezed his pounding head, the fuzziness that pervaded his mind not letting him even attempt to think just yet. Eventually the pain subsided enough that he could lift his aching muscles up, just enough for him to glance around the barely lit greenhouse. His eyes unsurprisingly landed on his mother’s corpse quickly. Noth started to half crawl, half drag himself over towards her, and along the way he felt his hand grab something. When he lifted it up a little to get a better view of it in the dark, he realized he was holding a hand. Her hand. His mother’s hand.

Noth’s already dim eyes went blank. He moved as if on autopilot, bringing the severed hand along to what he identified in the darkness as the bulk of his mother’s body, and did his best to place the hand against the stump where it belonged. The way it kept flopping and falling off, instead of just simply sticking on to the spot where he was pressing it against, brought an even deeper frown to his face than he was already wearing. He stared blankly for a small while at the hand laying uselessly next to where he’d tried so many times to place it back on, and then decided to look for the head instead.

It had become light outside by the time he finally found his mother’s head. It had rolled itself under a bush, and had been partially covered by the leaves near the roots. During his long span of searching, Noth had gathered back enough of his strength to fight off the ache in his body and walk. This allowed him to hug his poor mother’s head as he toddled his way back, crouching down and gingerly placing her head roughly about where it should have been positioned.

The little boy stayed crouched there for a while. His eyes swept over all her various parts, and the places they’d been cut. Of course, he knew what death was by now. There was no lack of peasants and animals dead along the roadways and streets. There was also the one poor occasion where a cat his mother had been keeping had captured and killed a bird right in front of him when he was 5, but just like when he saw any of those other corpses, his mother had swiftly covered his eyes just like any of the other times, and told him that he shouldn’t see such things.

Now there was no one here to shield his eyes.

No mother to make him look away.

So, like any overly curious child, he looked.

The morbid curiosity of a naturally curious person called to him.

He patted her in the various places that had visibly turned pale, and realized it had all turned cold and stiff. He tried rubbing his hands together for warmth, and placing them on her arm, seeing if he could possibly warm her up a little, but that didn’t seem to work. During his staring and prodding he’d gotten a bit better glimpse of the gory details of her severing, and it turned his stomach in a way he wasn’t quite sure he’d ever exactly felt before. It was bothering him a terribly large amount. Even when he looked away, the scene of his mother getting slashed would just flash through his mind, ending with the severed stumps that he’d just been observing.

At some point while he’d grabbed his tummy to try to hold back the sickness, he’d managed to rub a little bit of dried blood from his hands onto his shirt, and seeing the splash had given him a small hopeful idea. On the rare moments when he’d manage to somehow cut or scrape himself, the family doctor would bandage up his wounds, and then they’d get all better. Perhaps, maybe, if he did the same now, his mother could also get better. At the very least it would help him to keep all her parts together where they should be.

Noth stood up and searched around the greenhouse and the connected villa for something he could possibly use as bandages. Many cloth items he came across could have possibly done the job, but they’d all need to be modified to become the size he needed, and his small child hands couldn’t quite do the job themselves. Eventually in his search he discovered some garden shears, and realized that he could use the gigantic scissors to cut the cloth to size. He took a thin sheet off of a bed and started to cut strips out of it. They were a little wobbly and uneven, but Noth decided that they were the best he could do right now, and quickly hurried back down to his mother.

He was in the middle of trying to position and wrap his mother’s hand back on when someone burst into the greenhouse. Noth heard several footsteps coming towards him, and looked up at the intruders when they stopped just short of where he was kneeling. He recognized them all as servants of the estate, but he didn’t recognize at all the looks on their faces. When he would pass by them before, they’d all look his way with pleasant smiles, waves, possibly even respect. Now, nothing but scorn and annoyance decorated all of their faces. They especially looked disgusted at what he’d been in the middle of doing. Noth quickly dropped everything and put his hands behind his back, looking away like he’d been caught.

The servants couldn’t keep the indignant tones out of their voices.

“What’s this have-not doing around here?”

“The lord didn’t mention we’d have to deal with him, too.”

“No no no boys, that wasn’t at all in the job description. We were only told to bring back the lady’s body, not to capture this little mistake as well.”

“Good, don’t want to have to touch the little failure. Might catch something.”

Their sneering done, the three men set to work, two of them lifting up the rigid body, while the last one picked up the head and hand. As they started to take away his mother’s body, Noth sprang up in concern and tried to chase after them.

“Where are you taking my mom?”

He tried to grab on to the last man’s vest, but a sudden kick to his torso launched him back, knocking the wind from him. With a noise of blatant revulsion and the dirtiest glare, the man slammed the door behind him.

Time passed once again, this time much, much longer.

Noth faced 2 years secluded like a beast in a cage inside the villa. His father had placed guards outside the building to make sure that he couldn’t go anywhere. A servant would come every few days to give him the bare minimum and foulest of leftovers. Everyone refused to talk to him. He could feel how indignant they all seemed to feel about his very existence. He could hear random pairings of people gossiping sometimes. Maybe it would be news of the earldom, like how the lord had been searching for a new wife after the previous one had horribly died of illness, the same illness that was now plaguing his only heir. Maybe it would be news of the estate, like new servants being brought in to replace old ones that had come over with the now deceased lady. Maybe it would be about the terrible beast they’d been begrudgingly tasked to keep locked away, or a ghost that needed appeasing.

Just like how he’d been locked up in the greenhouse/villa, it meant that other people hadn’t really come in to take care of the place either in the past 2 years. What used to be a well kept greenhouse now had broken glass panes, weeds in abundance, and layers of decaying leaves and flowers caked all over the floor. The cozy and polished villa was now full of creaking if not cracked floorboards, rat holes, drafts, dirty rugs and sheets, layered on dust, and complete darkness at night. Honestly, if Noth had been told the place was haunted, he’d have believed every word of it from the sheer ambiance alone, so he could easily understand how the rumours of the existence of a ghost came about. The large visible bloodstains on the floor of the greenhouse did him no favours with the beast rumours either.

He’d heard enough words of hatred and displeasure thrown both in his face and behind his back to finally grasp why everyone had suddenly turned against him. It had in fact everything to do with his [Gift]. To everyone out there, it was seen as a sign that the God-dess that everyone loved, the merciful, caring, loving God-dess who shined their light on all, loathed him. No one wanted to be hated by an almighty being, especially not one beloved by all, so they wouldn’t take some odd small chance that such hatred could somehow fall upon them. They were afraid that, just like these most hated of people, they would have their precious [Gifts] taken away, and be left with nothing.

Noth couldn’t really understand why people believed he didn’t have a [Gift]. Didn’t the priest they’d met write one down? [Choose Your Own Path] might not have sounded as concrete as maybe being a [Painter], but surely it was a [Gift] too, right? It’s not as if they’d shown up to the church and the priest had declared his [Gift] was [Nothing!]. At the same time, though, he hadn’t really changed at all since he’d turned 7, unlike all the other stories he’d heard about people receiving their new purpose. He hadn’t all of a sudden become stronger or faster, nor had he miraculously picked up a proficiency in some new skill. He’d perceived no indication of any kind of change. Maybe that’s why they viewed him as different.

If anyone had to ever interact with him they followed a few set patterns, he’d found. Some would act fearful, like they had really been convinced that some horrific beast had been kept on the premises. These ones would try to open the door as sneakily as possible, drop whatever food they’d come to deliver and a bucket of water, and run away as fast as they could. Then there were the people who knew exactly who and what he was. These were the ones who simply did as they were told, although their every movement was full of distaste at the thought of being anywhere nearby him. If they caught a glimpse of him during their brief opening of the door, they’d level a look of pure contempt at him that made him feel much less than human. He’d try to not be visible when they dropped by for just such a reason, but he was also compelled to stick around nearby the door because these same people were the ones most likely to gossip outside with the guards afterwards. Yes, the gossip may have mostly been the bad things they had to say about him, but for a child starving for human interaction, it was one of the few things he had for entertainment and information about the outside world.

Of course, there was the last group of people, the worst pattern Noth had seen. Most people were afraid to be in the room with him, let alone touch him. However, sometimes some of the more violent servants that were sent to deliver food to him would get some ideas. It had started out with simple bullying, calling him names, perhaps stomping his food or being a little rough with him. They were fearless in that regard. But there were maybe 2 or so of them that had decided that it was fair game to beat him and teach him what his place should be if they could catch him. They would sometimes suddenly replace whoever was scheduled at the time just to get the chance, and without knowing for sure who was going to be delivering his food for the day, it was always a gamble if he’d manage to escape the especially awful ones in time.

Today he was fairly certain one of the particularly loud gossips should be stopping by to deliver his putrid slop. This one liked to go on and on, and he always found the silly little interpersonal dramas she’d regale to the knights funny and interesting. It was one of the few joys he had that helped him keep hold of his mind. He crept into the greenhouse and stayed near the back, taking extra care to hide himself behind a withered tree, one positioned in a spot where he could peek out of and see the door with minimal other plants obscuring his sight. He had to try his best not to slip up and ruin her mood by letting her spot him, otherwise her gossip might be too filled with made up fables about him and his mother instead of her typical dramas. His internal clock was telling him that any moment it would be time, and soon his ears were greeted by the creaking of the greenhouse's door hinges.

After holding his breath and listening as hard as he could to the thunking sounds of objects being placed, he heard the woman finally close the door and walk away. Noth scampered across the leaf strewn floor as swiftly as he could, trying his best to not crunch them too loudly, and sat his small body underneath a broken glass pane by the door. He could just barely make out the sounds of the woman whispering to the knight. She wasn’t very good at being quiet however, and her whispers steadily rose into more of a hushed tone, one much more audible to Noth’s ears.

“-and he’s been muttering to himself a lot more lately. You know he’s been trying to find a new wife, but the stories of him still having his first heir- even if it is a sickly and dying one- are still keeping a lot of the better marriage candidates away. Someone once said they heard him considering if it’s time to just put the little thing out of its misery, and I think we all know who he means. Seems if we’re lucky we’ll be rid of a particularly bad nuisance soon.”

The excitement in her voice was about as high as the sudden pang of fear Noth felt upon hearing this news. His father was finally going to get rid of him, just like he had done to Noth’s mother. His heart started beating a mile a minute, and he rushed away towards his room, no longer caring to hear what other idle gossip the woman might have said next. He ran through doors, down halls, and up stairs, panting all the way, until he managed to launch himself into his room. The ratty furniture and blowing curtains greeted him. He flopped down onto what he considered his bed, consisting of random curtains and cloths he’d managed to scrounge together from the villa on top of a mattress he’d had to drag off of a collapsed bed frame.

Noth could barely breathe, he was so scared. He panted and wheezed, trying to force his contracting lungs to take in air. His heartbeat was ringing in his ears, and the lack of air was starting to make him light headed. The brief thought that he was going to pass out again just like he did on that day was almost sickening to him. It was like a confirmation to him, in a way, that nothing had changed, nor was it going to, from the time that his mother had been killed. It was just that he was getting the fainting out of the way before the death, in this instance.

A loud thunk from somewhere nearby broke him out of his thoughts and panic, just long enough for him to take a deep gasping breath in surprise and shoot up into a sitting position. Somehow all his shaking had knocked loose his mother’s bracelet from amongst the cloths that he’d hidden it in. He reached towards it, almost in a trance, and held it to his chest, hugging it for dear life. Memories of his mother flashed through Noth’s mind, and from them a particular one stood out the most. It was a time when he’d tugged on the bracelet she was wearing by accident, and she’d been terribly upset with him for it. She’d sat him down and lectured for half an hour about how deep the history of her family and the bracelet was, how the God-dess had entrusted her lineage with it, and how it brought with it the promise of the God-dess’s love and protection so long as the wearer had it. It was also believed that if the bracelet were ever to be broken that chaos and madness would fall upon the world.

The child couldn’t help but think that it was the fact that he was in possession of the bracelet that led to his mother’s death. Perhaps the God-dess had never intended a have-not like him to hold on to the bracelet. Or even if that wasn’t the reasoning, it could have been that his mother was only able to die precisely because she hadn’t held on to it. He’d pondered this train of thought a handful of times, and the only conclusion he could come to accept was that this all started and ended with him.

Oh how he wished his mother was still here.

He wished she could pat his head like she used to.

He wished she would hug him close and stop him from hyperventilating.

He wished she could reassure him that none of this was his fault. That he was just a child. That there’s no way he could have been the reason for any of this.

He wished someone still loved him.

He needed someone, anyone, on his side.

For a second he thought he heard someone whispering nearby, maybe down the hall, or in the next room. Not just one whisper, either, but a cacophony of whispers. Only one of the whispers could be understood, however.

The sudden flood of noises in the building he was supposedly alone in scared him once again. He creeped out as sneakily from his room as he could, squinting his eyes in the darkness to try and see if he could spot any trespassers. He did the same in both of the rooms next door, but he couldn’t seem to find anyone. The child scurried to his room, confused and now somehow even more frightened. Was the building actually haunted like some people had suggested? He curled up into as tight a ball as he could on his bed, tears springing to his eyes.