Nameless

They called him Nameless, and that was the only title anyone could ever agree on. Was his true name one that they had all heard before, or was it some collage of syllables more esoteric in nature? Was it even a language at all, or was it just a cluster of sounds from his own private collection? There was nobody that knew for certain, and there was nobody that knew the list of names that he had held at one point or another.

Elijah was the name given to him when he took his first breath, saw his first star, felt his first life. It was the name he held when he truly believed that the world was composed of innocence and that there was no such thing as evil in the souls around him, nothing that would want to do him any harm. It was a name that the Nameless didn’t hold for long. 

Attin was the next name he picked up when he outgrew his first. It was the name he pulled on like the sturdy work boots he tugged on when he left his father’s farm house and climbed up the long mile to his first school. It was the name belonging to a child that never went back to where he had been, and it was the name on his first gravestone, encrusted with moss and worn smooth by rain and tears.

Bysin was the next name, one he stole from another child who held more laughter than he did. It was a name that fit him poorly, but stuck to him like flypaper, even when he tried to peel it away. He wore that name longer than any other, unable to strip it away until it finally released him with a wink, receding like a tide. 

Imber was the next name he took; one he snatched away from a stranger greedily, ravenous to hold an identity once again. This name fit him better, not quite good, but better. It grew snug with him as he discovered a new world, one that didn’t belong to the children he had been with, but was the territory of bordering adolescence and looming adults. It was a name for saying goodbye to wispy fears and memories he never held fondly. It was the name belonging to a time of discovering new discovery, of adventure and explorations and flavors of the world he had never considered.

Monety was what he called himself when he boarded the little boat littered with lost souls all sharing a far away destination and a crippling wanderlust. It was a name of comfort and wistful comradery forged under a field of stars, and it was the name of first love.

Alidia was the name he discovered a tender resolve for, and it was the one name he didn’t dare try to tame. It was a name he understood, and it was a name that understood him like he never would have thought possible. It was a name that rolled over his tongue like wine, and it was a name that sounded like tumbling river rocks in his ears. It was a name that led a parade of promises and vows never to be broken, a conductor of flashing grins and glimpses into the future that the two were meant to share.

But Monety was a name that ached to be released from his hold, even as he cradled it close as a rose plucked from a god’s garden. It was a name that belonged to a life he had no desire to forfeit, and it was one that he struggled to hold tight even as it sprouted thorns and drew rubies of his blood. 

It was a name that caused him great pain. Agony that he had never conceived of, never considered that one could meet and live through. It was the name of someone who nearly didn’t. When the boat landed in some strange foreign place, it was the name of somebody thought to possess the same variety of sickness that had taken nearly half the others. It was the name that got him placed in a crude grave with a still rising chest, and it was the name they put on his second gravestone, crafted from crude stone and worn down with a path traveled often.

Zadiah was the name that had once belonged to a criminal, to a vile who had wanted to deprive him of any of the worldly pleasures that he had been buried with. It was a name that he wore with shivering, sweat glistened skin, and the name that encouraged his resentment of the world to fester like a sore oozing with pus and withered by gangrene.

Rihan was the name he didn’t have to privilege to own. It was the name that had backed away from him when he was released from his soil prison, and the one that had turned and fled when he claimed his first name in such a very long time. It was the name that told the others of the monster he had seen slither out from an empty grave and into the night.

The others had many, many names. So many that he could surely never be Nameless again, if he didn’t want to be. The options were a dizzying buffet of choice, a farm left without a shepherd, waiting to be led off one by one into the jaws of a patiently lurking wolf. 

But it could never be so easy for him. He wore his mask perfectly, but they saw through his disguise like it was made of glass. They had heard the whispers; maybe not of him, but of what he did, of the nature he possessed. They held shards of knowledge that he couldn’t afford them to keep, and he didn’t have long to stay before he was forced out of their shelters, left to wander as a vagrant until he could find a new brand of sanctuary.

But the whispers followed him, just around the corner of his perception, like a new coat of shadows. The rumors, the privacy intended to starve him, were a plague. An annoyance he couldn’t afford.

Hysire was the new name he took when Zadiah was finally slipping away from his claim, one that he sighed into easily. It was a title that introduced him to luxury and popularity bordering on fame, but it was also the one that escorted him to a land of anger and fear, raw and vicious. It was the name the mob shouted at him when they called him a thief. It was the name on a grave that didn’t belong to him.

They didn’t bury him when they killed him. They didn’t do anything to him except wait, wait for his name to slip off, and wait for his own nature to torture him into a raw state of existence. 

And it did. There was nobody around when he let it fall off like an old coat, and there nobody with him when it left him Nameless once again. There was nobody there when he was No One, and when he disappeared into the ink pools between street lights, there was nobody to say who he had been.