"You're really not gonna let me get up?"
Cyrene sighed as the boy stopped her from trying to get off the couch. She was growing a little hungry, so she wanted to get some food from the kitchen.
"Do you even know how to cook?" Cyrene asked him.
The boy didn't answer. Instead, he lit the fire underneath the stone and began frying some of the stored meat.
Cyrene's families way of cooking revolved around a smooth stone that was always cleaned before and after use, and a metal furnace with logs for a fire. The fire would heat the stone and cook the meat. Simple as that.
As for a sink, they would use the same furnace to heat up some water and wash their hands with along with some plants that were cooked in water.
The meat that the boy had placed onto the stone slab began to simmer, so he flipped it to the other side. He then took an assortment of containers that stored several tiny shrivels of different plants called "spices." The boy made sure to sprinkle is enough of those.
About thirty minutes passed until the boy came back to Cyrene with a plate of meat for her. To her surprise, it looked pretty good.
"Well, looks can be deceiving as one would say." Cyrene said.
While she was still skeptical, Cyrene tore off a small chunk of meat and tossed it into her mouth after a bit of hesitation. And, to her surprise…
"Huh, I'll be damned."
While it wasn't anything like her mother's cooking, it had a pretty decent taste to it.
"You must've knew a little about the kitchen when you were still you," Cyrene said to the boy who sat back down beside her. "Kinda surprised since you, well, kinda tore through the flesh of a bunch of Bandits."
The boy didn't say anything. He just sat and stared at her, like he was listening to everything she was saying. He sat in silence, watching Cyrene eating her food with an odd curiosity.
"I wonder where mom and dad are," Cyrene said in between bites. "I haven't seen them all day."
Only the boy would be able to tell her where they went, but he was also the only one who didn't speak. No word could ever hope to come out of his mouth. Not a single…
"They left."
"…"
Those were his first words. The first words that the boy had ever spoken, and the first words that Cyrene had ever heard from him.
"Everyone below the age of ten stayed here. Some are taking care of their baby brothers and sisters. But everyone else left to a cave in the mountains."
Cyrene wanted to speak, but she was still recovering after hearing the boy finally speak.
"Yes, I can talk," the boy reassured. "I just…couldn't figure out how to say them. It was like…I had forgotten how to speak, even though I knew the words and could understand what you guys were saying. It was…strange."
'He forgot how to talk? How can something like that even happen. Is…that even possible to begin with?!'
"Wait, they left," Cyrene quickly said, rebounding from her brief period of disbelief. "You said a cave in the mountains… Oh no. Don't tell me they're training again."
The boy nodded.
"Shit. It's because of those damn Bandits. If only I wasn't so careless…"
"Trust me, there was most definitely no way for you to prevent what had happened," the boy said. "They had weapons far beyond your level of technology. Frustrating as it sounds, they were smarter than us."
"You sound impressed."
"I was trying to sound humble. I don't want to let it get to me, and you shouldn't either. For now, all we can do is recover."
"That's what I'm upset about. This never should've happened."
There was never a single moment where Cyrene was the one who was trembling in fear. Any moment she had against a Bandit was ended swiftly thanks to her skills as a hunter. This was just a hard pill for her to swallow.
"Hey, we all have our hard falls," the boy said. "The best thing for you to do right now is be glad that you're alive."
"Yeah, I know."
Cyrene did understand, but she was still visibly upset. Rightfully so.
"Hey, what's your name?" Cyrene asked.
The boy looked into Cyrene's eyes. A pair of emerald shades that were still emptier than a bottomless void.
"I don't know," the boy said. "I don't know a lot of things. I know your name and your parents and the people you want to kill, but that's about it."
The boy then got himself up off the couch and headed to the front door.
"H-Hey, where are you going?" Cyrene asked.
"I overheard your dad say that a storm was coming," the boy said as he opened the door. "I want to go and help the others before it hits. They're just kids, so I don't know if they'll be able to handle everything on their own."
"Let me come with you then."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
Cyrene took a quick look at herself before she answered that question. After about a minute had passed…no response. She just looked down at the ground, not muttering a single word.
"Please rest," the boy said as he closed the door. "Try not to push yourself."
While the storm has yet to arrive to the town, it was still extremely cold with the snow only growing heavier. The boy walked through the snow to get to each house, meeting with the young children who were taking care of the infants.
Some of the mothers who left only had an infant, so they brought them to a house that had an older child for them to take care of while they were gone.
Almost all of them were doing pretty fine on their own. Plenty of food, milk, and water to keep them going for a while. Almost all of them.
This was the final house that the boy stumbled upon. Just like any other house in the village. A fire was going inside as indicated by the ashy, grey smoke escaping from the chimney. The boy gave three knocks on the door, but no one answered. The boy waited patiently for another minute before entering on his own. It wasn't locked.
The internal structure of the house was about the same as everyone else's. Kitchen that connected to the living room that had a sofa and a bookshelf above the fireplace. A hallway that connected to a bathroom and a couple of other rooms.
The boy entered on of the rooms…
"*COUGH!* *COUGH*! AHH! ERRR!"
He found a young girl coughing badly on the side of his bed. There was an infant in a crib on the other side of the room starting to fuss. The young girl staggered, barely balancing keeping herself balanced, over to the crib and handed the infant a bottle of milk.
"H-Here," the young girl choked. "Drink…up…*COUGH!*"
The young girl started to gag and ran out of the room and into the bathroom. Retching sounds followed by squelching splatters could be heard from the room that the boy was in right now. The young girl must've been gravely sick.
"Who…are you?" The young girl asked after he exited the bathroom and laid down on his bed.
The boy was silent. Instead, he walked over and placed his forehead onto the young girl's, reading his temperature.
"Hey…wh-what are you…?"
The boy still said nothing. Instead, he lay the young girl down, resting her head onto her pillow, then walked out of the room and came back in with a rag from the young girl's kitchen that was dipped in cold water.
However…
"Don't bother," the young girl said. "We've tried that many times, but it doesn't work. Nothing does. I've been sick for almost a whole year now."
The boy just looked at the young girl, as if trying to decide what to do next. He glanced at the rag in his hands, then at the young girl sweating with a ragged pattern of breathing.
Then…
"Kids like you shouldn't be in this much pain," the boy said. "It's ok to act tough, but don't force yourself to endure so much."
He then slapped the rag on the young girl and kept her laid down on the bed. The infant in the crib started to fuss again.
"His…bottle…" the young girl groaned.
"Stay in bed," the boy said. "I'll take care of..."
"Nathan," the girl said. "My baby brother. And there's milk in our cold box. It's in the kitchen."
Within a few moments, the boy walked back with a fresh bottle for the infant. The fussing stopped and silence fell inside the entire house. The young girl gave resting a try while the boy just sat on the floor and watched her, like a guardian waiting for when he's needed.
The boy waited and waited until the young girl and her baby brother had completely fallen asleep. He set aside a bit of food for when she woke up and left the house quietly, walking back to help Cyrene.
He found her already sound asleep, an empty plate set down on the floor beside her. The boy picked up the plate and set it in the kitchen, then walked back over to the couch and sat down on the floor, resting his head back on the front of the cushion of the couch. He looked tired, the wounds covering his body probably made his exhaustion feel much worse.
"Who am I," he quietly asked himself as he drifted off to sleep. "I woke up in the snow, killing people who wanted to hurt me… How much did I forget?"