The Forgotten

So this is a very rough draft of a book I am writing...and I would like some criticism of my work so far, maybe I'm heading in the right direction maybe I'm not? Please be honest, and Once again it is a rough draft so I'm sure there are grammatical errors and such.




There are very few rules, to this thing we call life, to change your future, one simply has to agree with one fundamental philosophy, anything is possible. . A few things are certain when pertaining men; We are collectors of memories, the keepers of time, and the artists of emotion, none of these are possible without the greatest gift of all...Awareness.

We are lost, there is no truer statement concerning our current predicament. Where we come from, where we are going there is no answer, patience is all we have, truths become evident when they are ready to tell their secrets. My Path is very much different from yours, we started in the same place, that much I am sure of, but, unlike you, I am not sure If I have an end. Time has seem to forgotten me, but she is forgiven, for I would forget me if I had the chance. I will start this story like most others... from the beginning...
If memory serves correct I was born in France, the year was 1841, It was an age of enlightenment, reason... and revolution an interesting and unusual backdrop for a boy opening his eyes for the first time. My father was a struggling painter, a "keeper of time", as he would proudly say. My mother had died during child birth, I remember seeing pictures...they are blurry now, but I remember a beautiful women staring back through the frame with a smile on her face. My father would never speak of her, If I asked, he would only smile, "you’ll see her one day", he would reply, then, he would point to the stars, "do you see those bright lights? That is your mother smiling down on you". I wish there was more to tell, but that was so long ago, and I was so young. The first seven years of my life continued on like this, uneventful and unremarkable. I say this because around that time everything changed forever.
Of all the days of my existence I remember this one the most clear, the day I left this world forever. It was midday, my father was busy with his work and I was left to myself to do as I pleased. Our house was built upon my father’s shop on the busy streets of Lille I rarely ventured outside, there was no need. My father was a collector of sorts, the grey tattered walls were littered with such an array of paintings it was almost impossible to imagine a wall behind them. Statues and clocks of all sorts filled in the gaps, keepers of this myriad palace of color. They were my friends... the people and creatures in these paintings... the only friends I had. I had but one rule in this place, “You are to touch nothing”, my father would calmly say to me every morning before he would head downstairs for the day.
It had been an unusual day from the start, the streets were packed with people, my father had whispered to me on many occasion of revolution. He had told me that the people were breaking their bonds, the sheep had become wolves… wolves with mouths to feed he said. It was this day that revolution had spilled into our streets. My father had left early that particular morning, I awoke to shouts of men, talking of things that at the time I did not understand, and then I smelled the fire. It seemed the wolves had come.
Flames had begun to envelope the house, I remember watching the picture of my mother burning, her smile turning to dust. I sat in the hallway, surrounded by my father’s paintings, I don’t remember fear, I suppose that early in life death isn’t that hard to understand. The heat was intense, I heard cries and shouts, outside, it seemed as if the world was burning away, and I was at the center. At that very moment my father burst through the pillar of smoke and flame, and fell to my side. His clothes were bloody, and his chest heaved with each breath. He smiled at me,” Thomas everything is going to be fine”. The house had taken all she could the ceilings began to collapse all around us, A large beam pinning my already dying father to the floor, he pointed to the wall, to one of my favorite pictures. It was the sea, and an empty rowboat, a setting sun, and a shoreline on the horizon. “Thomas…I want you to close your eyes”, he whispered with a smile, tears running down his blackened cheeks. I didn’t understand; He clenched his teeth, rising to his knees. The heat was unbearable now and I could sense my self-fading away. There was a loud clash and the house came down, with a final roar my father grabbed the painting slamming it around me, then darkness.
I awoke, head spinning, and bleary eyed. I was lost, quite literally, to everyone and anything I had ever seen or touched. I awoke in that small boat on that dreary morning with only the waves and a smothered sun, the tears or rain that began to fall seemed appropriate. I don't know how long I sat there in that boat shivering, hunger gnawing at my inner mind. I had no idea what had happened either, did I really go through... into the painting, I asked myself, the reality slowing setting in.
Two or three days later, the boy woke to a dark horizon shimmering off in the misty distance. Now at seven years old you could imagine the uncertainty and fear a young child would fear in such a situation. I remember standing in the boat as it came to wooded beach line, there was no sand on this beach, only twisted roots, and a plethora of trees, shrubs, and reeds all vying for a strong position on the water's edge, a war that still wages to this day. As the boat ever so slightly tapped the edge of this tangled battle, I could only imagine how I looked to anyone who might be standing in this dire place, a tattered and sooty mess, I must have looked strange in the strange land.
After a short while, finally deciding my best and only option was to get off, I leaped to shore pushing the boat back into mist behind me, the creaking wood swallowed whole by this hungry visage.
The following days were misery followed by madness, a damp swamp is one of the most unforgiving prisons mother nature has to offer. I found some wild berries that kept me going but my strength was fast fading and at such a young age the darkness brought little comfort... the memories of the dark twisted shapes haunted me for years to come. I eventually found my way to a road, that seemed to cut this wasteland in two. A lone candle burned in its lamp, attached to a long wooden post, where upon meeting the ground stood a large stag, bleeding from his side, a wooden shaft glistening red in the flickering light.
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I stare into the night as I always do. So much to learn. Not many know such secrets as I, they don't care to watch anymore. Watch anything long enough, and it will show you.
I stared into the starry night, my people had always loved the stars, they never lead us wrong. A gust of air runs along my form, the wind tells me what she knows, wind can never lie, she can't. I followed her knowing long before we arrived, where we were going. We travelled across plains of ice and snow, some familiar, some not. Wind loves mountains, we went over many mountains, far from the place of my birth. Wind does not tire, and neither do I. She lead me to a place in the world we call the Badlands... no creature goes there anymore. But I must.
The badlands are where she leaves me. I drop to one knee and lower until my antlered head touches the ground. Such is customary when thanking the wind. She leaves, wind has much to do. The badlands is swamp land, it stretches as far as these old eyes can see. Her air is unkind and unknown to me. I slide through the thicket my large head spikes tearing through the overgrowth. Without the wind I am not lost, I know what I must do, but bad things can happen in swamp. I walk this path because for the first time in 1,000 years I smell man.

Could it really be, I heard of these creatures , my father had told me so. The smooth light of the lamp shone down on the great beast, casing his impressive form in flickering light. Jack was awestruck, the antlers almost blotting out the moonlight, sending shadows dancing around him. The stags labored breathing produced wisps of steam in the cold air. "Man child, if you wish to live, I ask you to accompany me". Jack had never spoken to a stag before let alone any creature. The loud thrashing to his right only made matters worse, four humanoid looking creatures stumbled into the path only a hundred feet away. There tattered clothes did little to hide the blackened skin beneath. A large one in the back let out a long ravenous howl, sending shivers down jacks spine, he looked on in disgust as the one closest to him dropped to all fours and began to sniff the ground excitedly. They looked human enough, but something was off... they moved in erratic and jittery bursts, from a distance any discernable features were impossible. "I don't know who you are, or how you ended up here", the stag breathed laboriously, "but if you wish to see tomorrows light you must get onto my back and let us be rid of this dark place". Something about the stag struck jack, he knew he could trust him, he knew he was of good heart, a Childs intuition if you must. Jack nodded and approached the large beast, as he lowered his large head near the ground, " hold on tightly young one". Another howl pierced through the night, and the dark men burst forward with a speed no man could attain, "Those are men no longer!" the stag roared as he surged forward, his large hoofs leaving the ravenous creatures in a cloud of dust behind them. The stag moved with the strength of a tornado, and the grace of a soft summer breeze."Who are you", jack half whispered, the stag came to a quick halt at the edge of a large lake they were rounding about."My name is Naza Rinn, and I am the last stag of these lands. And who are you human? I am just as surprised to see you?" The boy looked to the ground, memeries of a night not yet accounted for stirring up emotions in his young mind, "My name is Jack, I don't know how I got here, I remember the heat of the fire that consumed my home...and...and, I woke up here... in this place." Rinn pawed the ground and snorted loudly," Rest now boy, you look as you need it, we will speak when the sun rises. Rinn lowered his head and allowed the boy to the ground, Jack hadn't realized how tired he was until his shaky legs gave way and he lumped into a ball on the ground. Rinn lowered his body to the ground, a loud hiss escaping his lips as the wounds bent under his own weight. "they look pretty bad", jack yawned resting his hand on Rinns side his eyes glancing over the multiple deep wounds."Those...men, I mean creatures did this to you?", Rinn lowered his head to the ground and shut his eyes, " Yes...they were once men, they are sick, they are men no more, they are everything that men should not be...all the worst a creature can be, is what they have become." Rinn lifted his head opening his eyes to the myriad of stars above," You are the last, the last human as I know, the northern winds carried your scent to me, Jack, I know not who you are, or why you are here, as a stag it is my destiny to protect you. I will do what I must." Jack still looking to the ground closed his eyes as tears began to well up in his eyelids," My father died protecting me, I think he sent me here...but I don't know why." Rinn looked down on the small boy, he had not seen a human in over 3,000 years, he did not know why the boy was here either.
" It is a good death, if it is for ones you love" Rinn whispered, knowing well the pain the boy was experiencing, the stag was the last of his kind, him and this boy, these two souls, bonded by a curtain of singularity. Rinn had not spoken to anything besides himself for thousands of years, he glanced away from the stars down to the now sleeping boy, he would protect him with his life. He had purpose again, the thousands of years of self inflicted exile to the mountains of the north had aged him well... but this old stag still had breath to draw, and he would follow his new friend where ever he may need him. There would be much to discuss in the morning and the stag lowered his head and fell into the deepest sleep he had experienced in over two millennia.
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