Talking with Melvin had left the teen far more exhausted than she would have liked to admit. It wasn't her wounds that made her weary, not the sudden exertion from running around in the water like an idiot, but rather it was all the emotional strain he placed upon her brain that had the redheaded hunter laying face down in her pillows. It was hard to lay like that, she was actually making it hard to breathe all on her own, but there was little energy in her body to prompt herself to move. Her shoulders ached, her legs ached, but the pounding in her head and the sting in her heart completely outweighed all of that.

Had her life growing up really been. . .that bad? Perhaps it was always because she had nothing to compare it to that Ofelia had felt everything was normal, that it was okay to be left alone most of the time and have to take care of yourself. The neglect of her aunt and general apathy (later in his years) of her older brother certainly did explain things, like her lack of care about some forms of personal hygiene and total disregard to personal safety on and off the battlefield. Ofelia had always thought it was okay to be overly friendly, to have no grasp of personal modesty, or to think that people didn't mind your company even when they clearly hated you.

She thought it was okay not to know who Santa really was, or to not understand a holiday and not have any traditions. Her brother had tried at first, he really had, but the teenage years and onset of puberty had turned him away from her and more towards those who could provide him with proper social outlets. It was more fun for him, both emotionally and physically, to be with people his own age rather than spending time with a sister who still screamed at shadows, who still sometimes wet the bed at night because she was too scared to go and use the restroom down the hall. It was better for him to ignore her at school after she got into fight after fight, after it seemed like all she wanted to do was lie about the same things over and over.

What was so wrong, so bad about everything? Ofelia hadn't talked much to the kids at school to know what she was "missing" per se, and the longing she felt when she was younger at seeing kids with their parents had faded away into a nagging ache long before she left elementary school. She'd gotten used to be alone long before the lady at the grocery store called her a 'big girl' for helping out with buying the food, way long before the school nurse asked her if her mother had properly explained to her what a period was. That topic she'd been unable to ask her brother about, seeing as he was a boy and when she'd offhandedly mentioned she had a bleeding injury he avoided her for a few days, and approaching her aunt had seemed almost futile and a little more than terrifying.

Why was it so bad not to remember anyone's names? Her aunt had always been called 'Aunt' by her and her brother. Her brother himself she'd never called anything but 'Big Brother' and even his later-year friends called him 'Bro' or some other bastardized nickname. It would make sense then she couldn't recall them, having seldom heard them, and it was almost all the more lucky she remembered her own name. It must have been the shadows always calling to her by using her name that kept her knowing it, their taunts and whispers so sweetly singing her name in their phrases. They called during the day, they called at night, always 'Ofelia, Ofelia, our sweet Ofelia.'

They had screamed her name in cursing as the barn burned down around them, and that was the last of that. Never before had her name and curse words sounded so good together, like they'd belonged with one another.

As for her parents. . .their names and faces were so easily forgotten within one or two years of moving down with her aunt. Simply living with them for five years was not enough, three of those she couldn't recall due to the nature of being an infant and young child, and whatever else they had spent together faded away in the passing of seasons. She couldn't remember their voices either except maybe on one or two things, certain phrases here and there that triggered a fond or long forgotten memory. Her name used to be one of them, her memory of a kind woman singing her name in lullabies or a memory of a strong man telling her she was the most previous thing in the world. Then came the memories with her name of being told to stop lying, of that her overactive imagination was causing fights between her parents. Her name was there in the memory of her brother taking her hand, swearing to stay with her because "he saw them too" so she wasn't a liar.

He'd been the one lying that time, his eyes had never seen them, but she could so strongly remember the feeling of his small hand on her much smaller one. He was sweating, nervous, and squeezing hers like if he let go they'd both be lost. That was a memory she'd never forget, the day he went with her and they said farewell to their family.

Sometime Ofelia wondered if he kept in contact with their parents, gave them occasional updates on their life. Did her parents know about the accident, about how she'd lost her eye in the barn? Were her parents informed of her disappearance and "death", or were they not told and free to move about their lives none the wiser? Had they moved on, had another kid? And if they did was that child seeing things as she had or were they the normal blessing they wanted in a child? If they had another child was it even told it had two other siblings? Did her family retain any photos of her and her brother, or had they thrown them away after the first small fire she did?

Ofelia rolled in the bed as the thoughts poured into her head, rolling around her skull. Melvin had told her to let go, told her to forget about them. She'd written their names in the sand, or rather had written "mother, father, aunt, brother", and then had stomped them out. Was that her way of letting go, of forgetting about them? Or was it just an excuse to try and let go but really just deny herself feelings about them? Was she really going to forget about them, telling them all to piss off and die, or was it impossible?

Forgetting about them meant abandoning her past but without her past, where was her future? Without a future, there was only the present and. . . that thought scared the teen. Without a past or future, the present meant she had to act now, to make something of herself now. It was a terrifying thought for someone who didn't know how to go forward. She'd never been shown the way, she didn't know much right from wrong other than what her heart often told her, but would that. .. be all she needed to progress?

Her mind ached too much, her body was too tired, and as Ofelia took a deep breath of the linens against her face she willed herself to sleep. There would be no more thinking, she needed to stay empty, and when the dawn came she would learn to walk forward. She would learn to grow and be a person, to join the rest of Deus without carrying her past like un-shed leaves on an overburdened tree. Closing her eyes, welcoming the darkness, she slipped into a sleep that she prayed would have no more dreams.