Mob Cap

The term 'Silent Treatment' was what I've recently erudite. It was utilized to phrase someone retorting to another with silence, absolutely stifled, remitting discomfort. A very rude demeanor.

Back then, I found myself awfully repeating those behaviors, puzzlement led to contemplation, contemplation led me to mute. I was an oddball per se, everyone knew it.

And due to that, I breathed stiffly in order to consult her verbally, striding a foot forward, then Darling abruptly flinched aback, displaying a smothered noise; a whimper, it seems? Before spinning around and scurried in an opposing direction towards somewhere behind the interior's wall, evacuating from my sight.

Did I perform something imprecisely? I was convinced that everything would remain unruffled based on her voice of concern I heard before I decided to unveil from the room. Perhaps she was dismayed over my insolent demeanor over her bowl of soup. Should I place it down? I stowed it onto the tabletop, briefly wiping the liquid evident off with the sleeve of this grimy robe.

I could discern the grate of a wooden door bursting open.

Should I follow? What if she would decamp another time in another way?

No. Becoming reckless for the sake of curiosity would tinge any further development.

"Albert!" Her distinctive voice reverberated the cottage, hollering prestigiously for help as if I were to harm her. "Can you please come inside! Quickly~" she continued to haul in a singsong.

The door grated again, closing this time.

In my point of view, I envisioned her to return first, however, it was not her, it was a man, a towering and physically breadth male. He had mucky blond disheveled hair, head-to-toe dressed in a greenish-gray camouflage uniform, behind the range of his shoulder, a rifle was seemingly hoisting his back connected by a strap. The mature man, Albert, had appeared.

Oh, a soldier.

When his notice settled on me, he instantaneously came to salute with Darling hiding behind him, her hand fisting the sleeve of his arm as only her forehead and eyes peeped out.

"I didn't know you would be awake, ma'am!" The way he announced his tone indicated a wit of valorousness, very boisterous, did he presume I could not hear him although we were only a few feet apart?

I tilted my head as if distinguishing him from a different angle would aid with my bewilderment.

"Your comatose state lasted for three days, ma'am! We have not touched your unconscious body since!"

Three days? I was in a coma for three days? That clarified the condition of this futile physique lacking so many potentials at laboring progress. Perhaps resting would be a relevant solution instead of urging my unknown self and vigor to advance so quickly.

Should I let it rest? But, I was yet to determine anything. If I choose to take away any opportunity, there is a slightest venture it might be too late to seize.

So I must permit this very inquiry to penetrate my mind until I am able to decipher them, everything, decipher everything as I was currently brimmed with nothing.

My one and only purpose in breathing or moving, considering my despondent difficulty, was to pinpoint information about myself.

"Who am I?" I verbally said.

My vocal cord in a frictional context was a contradiction. It carried through less glued to the throat, however, more slippery and sonorous with an audible volume. Thanks to the soup.

I see, this was my voice after all. I sounded very juvenile and unripe.

Nearly getting sidetracked, I looked back at Albert and Darling who lifted their faces up to face mine for a while, tranquility submerged by grasshoppers or crickets amidst the night, clicking nonstop from outside the shelter's casements.

Albert and Darling eventually turned their heads to eye each other's, perplexed, it seems.

They appeared as though they did not expect me to probe my own identity.

I see, I used to be someone significant. My theory was correct.

Memory loss consumed me, not one bit could I hark back to it, nor about these people.

They must be strangers to me withal all their reluctance right now, yet they were able to recognize me; which means I was renowned enough to be widespread. Then, I would title them as very compassionate people to have shielded me under their roof, allowing me to intervene their private lifestyle.

Was I a vile Individual, then? For them to be so unassertive.

"P-Pardon?" Albert said.

Repeating would help, correct?

"Who am I?" The same blunt tonality.

"D-Do you not remember who you are?" Darling chimed in, peering her head.

It must be a greatly unconventional thing for them to be so skeptical about my words. I nodded, confirming my verdict for the last time.

"N-Not even your name? Or even what you look like?" She continued.

I nodded again.

Albert and Darling glanced at each other once more before their cheeks spread into grins, their gritted teeth directing at me.

Was I supposed to do something?

"Uh...have a seat!" Albert solemnly summoned, a palm briefly aiming at the seat across him, Darling trapped me by grabbing me and assisted me on said chair. When I slouched down, she heaved one for herself from under the table beside me, no longer weak-kneed, it seems.

"Janis, c-can you please go get her something to eat? She must be starving." Albert suggested. Oh, her name was not Darling, instead Janis. I guessed the phrase was meant to be a name reflecting on the dissimilarity between Vongoly and Lastrevane.

"Oh! Yes, I will excuse myself." Darling— pardon me— Janis rose from the seat and sauntered across the doorframe to the kitchen, hands sweeping up her petticoat, flaunting her ankles enveloped in brown leather boots.

Women were rarely found exhibiting their ankles in Vongolial. It would be tempting as it was to exhibit alone their clavicles.

But, I will digress as I remembered such particulars yet nothing more.

"Um...would you like to learn your name?"

I would appreciate it. So, I nodded.

"Your name is L-Linea Vonchvele."

Duly noted, I had a label and its initial was Linea, surname Vonchvele; Linea Vonchvele. The intonation of it really did sound immensely Vongoly, maybe I was misreading.

"Can you say it?" Albert requested.

Very well, I was enabled to, after all. "Linea Vonchvele."

"Does saying your name strike any flashbacks?" Flashbacks? No, only over-analyzation over his presence as if he was scrutinizing me or some sort. We were both guessing one way or another, as we were both depleted by confusion.

"I see..." Albert began writhing with his fingers, "did you notice we saluted to you?"

An interrogation therapy?

Retorting sincerely would be pertinent.

As a symbolic gesture of homage to The Lastrevania Empire, saluting in such an immaculate and remarkable way? Of course, I would've noticed. Vongolial's salutation was nothing out of the ordinary, hand to head.

I nodded.

A few minutes of reticence.

"Here you are, fill yourself up!" Janis's voice tinkled in, stowing a tray of warm nutriments in front of me. She then proceeded to sit beside as she did, "so? Is everything alright?"

"I think I know it," Albert countered. Janis and I looked at him, "she has Amnesia."

Amnesia?

Could be plausible. Everyone so far seemed to discriminate who I was except for myself. Then, indeed, I presumed that myself.

"How can you be so certain?" Said Janis, was she dubious?

Albert halted his writhing then began to tap the tabletop with his fingernails, his other hand coming up to stroke his chin.

"It is either Retrograde Amnesia or something else, but, based on the way you act on things, parts of you absentmindedly behave on habits from the unknown past, either you grew accustomed to them, you are very aware of everything else excepts memories."

I acknowledged Albert's statement wholeheartedly because I knew I was unable to garner the past, forming intentions and complexity, causing my insight to be anew in curiosity. Which was why I did not resist one bit how he kenned things, indifferent as I was, things appeared mild than what the present has influenced me. I can look back and I wonder why I wasn't scared, perturbed, or suspecting, however, even me now had zero abstracts of what old me perceived.

As it was emptiness as if a newborn's.

Until Janis interviewed him for me did I resist, "how come you knew all this?"

Albert snorted, exhaling a chortle as a lopsided grin flashed at Janis, his lower-eyelids squinting due to his stretched cheeks, "many of my comrades suffer from similar things after The Civil War..." Was he contented to address the topic? Why the smile?

"Especially, how little Raynold took his own life." Who was little Raynold? This exact discussion resembled to be among themselves, I cannot be meddlesome, my position should be dismissed by now. Nevertheless, I cannot leave, I must wait.

"Oh, Albert..." Janis whimpered, then she squeaked the chair back and sped about to bind her arms around his neck, tending his face closer to her chest. A crest of intimacy? Sweethearts, as it seems.

The love between a man and a man could be credible?

Was that the depth to Janis's disguise as a woman?