Immortal

17. Lets be honest.

Eliam explained to me all the holes and gaps in our system. Holes, I had questioned at one point that he never answered. Our world was based on a currency system of Energy. What that meant is that you paid for what you needed with a small piece your life. It usually was accredited through a drop of blood. As a
being that lived forever, you had an abundance of life. Things were given through favors and connections. Everything worked through who you knew, what you could do, who you were. Reputation was what helped us thrive. The stronger it was the better off you were.

He explained the old currency system and how it stopped having value ages ago. Our kind moved past wanting to earn something trivially like money or trading. Immortality had changed things for better and worse. Even through the history of wars we had faced. For awhile the whole system was chaotic, there was no rules. Everyone took what they wanted. Sectors slowly were divided. Beings took too much power and got drunk off it. Pretty soon walls and divisions were made over time. Security grew, rules became enforced. New methods of punishment were made to fit our society. The defiant ones were used as public example, a warning to stop.
It made sense, having to pay with the one thing you had too much o,Your life.
The system of the lab made a little more sense. I was annoyed that I hadn't figured it out myself but I didn't think much of something so small. The drop of blood, every morning at the lab it was more than just an identification device. It was also something to register payment. It logged a point system with every drop everyday.  If you needed something, you took it, and paid in blood. The points were deducted from the system for that resource. The whole point was to gain more points. The more points you had the better life was.

I sat silently processing all this new information. Eliam didn't say anything for a few moments but he knew I understood. Labor was paid, but not enough to make a decent living. Not in this sector, the point system here was a lot lower than other places. Because of it there was less security, but more corruption. There were a lot more liberties available. These same liberties were things that didn't come as freely in other sectors. Although all this information was adding up, I was still annoyed that none of this had been discussed with me before.

I figured it was an attempt to let me live 'happier' under the protection of someone else. Although all the ignorance I had been exposed too, only set me at a disadvantage. It didn't help me at all, it just caused me more problems. Since connections were so 'important' I knew was already at a disadvantage here. I never bothered with things of that nature. The way I saw it, everyone was equally miserable, what had been the point to try? I bit the inside of my lip. "I want to know everything you're keeping from me." I spoke slowly.

"You sure you're not going to regret it later?" Eliam asked, knowing full well I took on many things, but abandoned so much more a lot quicker.

"I already regret my ignorance." My voice came out raspy and emotionless. From the corner of my eye I saw him shift slightly. "Okay." He sighed.  "First then, that woman who brought Alaric. She's not mom." He opened with such a simple statement to test the waters. I felt a mild sting in my memory. A violation that his words couldn't be true. Mentally I searched for proof as to how she couldn't be. Yet, I still listened to his words. Took them in with a grain of salt, since I didn't know what to believe anymore. Eliam wanted to provoke me, to see if I could indeed handle what he was going to say.

"Who is she?" I said through grit teeth. The smell of roses filled my nose with thinking about her. "Someone who works for her." He answered. I still mentally searched every moment with her I had in my mind. I finally fell on an insignificant shred of evidence I had overlooked one too many times. It came rushing forward as the one piece that stuck out  a bit too painfully obvious. Her Wings. She had no wings. My head throbbed. Reality felt upside down, everything hurt for a moment. The desire to start laughing bubbled up in stomach but I kept it silenced.

I looked up at Eliam slowly. "Who is mom." I finally asked. "Someone important, someone who couldn't keep any of us." His words sounded bitter and full of resentment. "She's far away, in a different sector. She has wings too." He answered giving me the tip my brain had already figured out. I nodded carefully wondering for a moment what kind person she was. Then I rejected the idea.

"She was working with a team to create the vaccine that kept everyone alive. She couldn't mass produce it so they chose who lived and died before the jump." Eliam stated this information casually. Almost like it was a subject matter that could be discussed over a meal and there was no sense of urgency to it.

My mind slowly started peeling off a hazy fog over memories it covered up. The moments that slipped between the cracks. His words became blurred, filtered through a pillow. I could see a strange glass lamp. I was drawn to the colors of it, it glowed in different hues and it looked like a flower of sorts although distorted. I felt arms grab me and pull me away from it. "You can't play with that." The person said softer than a whisper. Chills went down my back, I tried to make myself remember who said that?
Their hands were cold, I could feel a mild tickle in one of my wings. 

"Who's my silly little boy." The voice said again and I heard myself laugh. The laugh was younger, smaller. There was a ring of happiness to it. The fog was over the memory again. Almost like I wasn't supposed to remember this. As if something had intentionally deleted what I was looking for..

I had enough. I could hear Eliam's voice again. Although he wasn't talking about mom anymore. He was saying my name. I felt almost as if another lifetime had passed before I made eye contact with him again. I smacked his hands away. "I don't want to know anymore." I said coldly. I had seen enough. I had heard enough. He stared at me searching my expression for emotions I knew I wasn't expressing openly for him anymore.

I stood up forcing him to back off. I could still hear the echo of the words in my mind. Where had all the memories gone of my real mother? The question pried at me. It screamed its ugly words repetitively. I could sit in a room and tear my mind apart memory by memory. Thought by thought, digging for more moments that slipped by. Only to avoid the answer I already knew. The answer that echoed in my bones and made everything feel heavy.

I would give anything to avoid that answer. I would take any reasoning, no matter how absurd. Even the stupid logic behind magic/ alchemy sounded better. Anything could be better than what I had already figured out.  The answer my mind had stitched together. The very thing my own brother had been reluctant to tell me, and it was something I shouldn't of recalled. It was the nasty feeling that was growing in the pit of my stomach.

I knew, now. The reality set in, and my face had gone pale. I was locked into my own space, having left Eliam standing in the living room. The dirty secret that was mine and mine alone.  My real mother had done an extraction on me. As a little kid, she had erased my memories of her. Forced me to forget who she was, and what she had done. It was almost perfect, but she overlooked little details. Details I didn't overlook in my own memories. Details I was paid never to overlook, I didn't know her because she didn't want me too. Yet, I knew what she did. What she'd probably requested someone to do to her own son.

I smiled. I felt agony from the hole she created in my head. There were emotions I felt detached from that raged inside me. I couldn't connect with them properly so I felt the same familiar numb over take me. The same numb that sank its fangs into me with all the art forms I killed. The numb that only grew when Izen betrayed me. When I discovered Claire's true colors. The numb feeling was carving out my insides and setting them aside outside of me on a massive platter. I could live with it, if this is how it would be. I could play this game.

A simple lesson had been learned today. I registered it and felt the weight I'd been carrying fall off me. The guilt I had been riddled with burst and evaporate. The lesson that made everything stop hurting.

Which was:

"Trust no one, not even family."