On The Hill (GiriPan)

14

Heracles lay on his face, staring at the pillow. He tried not to think about her, her warm smile, her curly brown hair, the stories she told, but he couldn't help it. He wished he could tell her about Kiku, about everything that had happened to him in the last 3 years. But he hadn't known where his mother was since she disappeared.

His father had died months before Heracles was born. Due to this, his mother, Athena, was depressed for most of her pregnancy. When she gave birth, she realised she had to get over it for her kid's sake. She used to tell Heracles he was the cure to her sadness, though both of them (despite one of them being a little kid) knew she wasn't quite cured yet. Throughout his childhood she was prone to periods of darkness. She was a sculptor, however, and made some of her best work in her worst moods.

For a while, it was just her, Heracles and their cat, Poseidon. He remembered her telling him amazing stories, just like Kiku did, always Greek myths with strange gods and monsters that inspired many a drawing.
Athena was always there when he got home from school. On his birthday there'd always be a cake in one of the cupboards, and she always made Heracles guess which one it was before they had any. He'd always get it first time.

When Heracles was five, Poseidon died. He had been hit by a car and for a week Heracles had cried non-stop. To comfort him, Athena dedicated part of the wall in his room to photos of the cat. She gave him a toy version of him, with a fur pattern almost identical to Poseidon. Heracles called him Little Poseidon. From then on, he couldn't sleep without Little Poseidon between his arms. It was the first great loss he'd ever felt, but he had no way of knowing that it wouldn't be his last, nor his worst.

When Heracles was six, she remarried. His new stepfather, Romulus, was nice enough: quick to laugh, strong, and a good cook. He was so similar to his wife that, in Heracles' opinion at least, they made the perfect couple, and both mother and son were just as happy as they were before. Romulus already had two kids from two different ex-lovers. The youngest, Gupta, was a lot like Heracles: quiet, mysterious, with a love of mythology. They were roughly the same age, but thanks to the silence that both boys retained, they didn't bond much.

Sadik, on the other hand, was the opposite. He never shut up, and for some reason he hated his stepbrother and his mother with a passion. He was about 4 years older than him and a lot taller, but Heracles, much like his namesake, had strength to rival even Romulus, so Sadik was far more than matched whenever their fights turned physical, which was a lot. However, being the motor-mouth he was, Sadik rarely lost verbal fights, and often left Heracles with a bruised ego to avenge his bruised eye. They kept their rivalry no secret, and everyone else in the house was sick of it.

On Heracles' ninth birthday, he and his brothers came home from school to an empty house. Romulus, they knew, was at work, but why wasn't Athena there? She made all her sculptures in the back garden, and she wasn't there either. Even the cake, that would have been hidden, lay in plain sight on the table.

"Mama! Mama where are you?" He yelled, over and over again. His voice usually didn't rise over a murmur. Seeing him screaming, face red with tears, was too much for his brothers, even Sadik. Gupta tried to comfort him. Sadik tentatively patted his back. Heracles didn't even notice. He couldn't find her. She was gone.
They put up posters. They called the police. It was no use. The bad news? They never found her. The good news? They never found her body. Heracles never stopped hoping she was still alive.

He cried into his pillow, thinking about his mother, how she disappeared without a trace. He stopped sobbing when he remembered something. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and crouched down to see under it and find what he was looking for. His hands closed around something metallic. His box.

He dragged the box out from its hiding place and opened the latch. It contained all the memories he'd collected over the years, in the form of objects. He picked it up, flipped it over, and put it back down, like making a sandcastle. He picked it up again. There, on his carpet, was a pile of things that reminded him of his mitera.

Drawings he'd done of the monsters in her stories.

Little Poseidon.

A sculpture she'd made for him.

A sculpture he'd made for her.

The book of Greek myths Kiku had given him, which he'd put in just months ago.

All this and more. Too many memories. Far too many for 11 years.