Dawnsky · Chronicles

I remember that when I was sixteen, I joined a large group of people around my age, for a brief time. We had no name for our alliance of peoples, but we had a single purpose; to forget. We traveled, slept, ate, and did everything together. We would build huge bonfires and dance and sing the whole night through. Never would we turn back to go home. Never would we speak of the past. We barely spoke at all, really. We laughed, sang, drank, danced, and forgot every night. I was given a lute and would write songs that everyone could memorize after one hearing. We were all filthy and tainted. We were nothing like the people we used to be.

Most the of the people came from families like mine. Some people were orphans. Others just wanted to leave this earth, just wanted to forget every tiny bad thing that ever happened to them. And, if you ever left this group, you would forget about them, as well. Only now, as I look back, do I remember the horrors of this life. 

The drinking, smoking, and drugs were killing us. But did we care? No. The bonfires singed and burned us, but never once did we cry out. We were numb. We were common. We were forgetting. Why did we want that life? I realize what haunts my nightmares, now; that! Two years ago, I was one of the Forgetters. I was one of the Lost. I remember being filthy the whole time, with an empty stomach. We would sometimes eat dirt just to survive. Sometimes we would steal. We were not bad people, no. Merely mislead and depressed. We wanted to be with people who were like us. People who didn't want to remember their past, present, and future. People who wanted to dance around flames, be scarred and kill our nerves with drinks. We wanted to be numb.

Never again will I be that person. I would never wish that fate upon anyone, no matter who it was. No one should forget, no matter how terrible their past may have been. If you mine deep enough in the cave, you'll find a diamond, and that diamond will be precious. Keep it in your mind forever and always. Do not be a Forgetter. Do not be like my dearest friend, who I lost. She disappeared one night, a few scraps of her dress all that was left behind.