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My mother...
She was always quiet, a stillness in the storm of our home. When she was alive, her presence was the only softness I knew in the world, the only warmth in a life filled with the cold weight of responsibility.
I remember the gentle way she would touch my hair, her fingers weaving through the strands as if she were trying to soothe away all the pain that I couldn’t yet understand. She never said much, but she didn’t need to. Her silence spoke volumes—a kind of unspoken protection that shielded me from the harsher realities of our lives.
And then one day, she was gone.
Her death wasn’t sudden, but it felt that way to me. I was too young to fully grasp it, too naïve to understand that life could be so fragile, that someone so vital to my world could… disappear. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye. I didn’t know that... it would be the last time she held me, the last time she’d smile at me with those tired but kind eyes.
After she was gone, the house felt colder. Emptier. As though with her, any chance for peace was buried too.
Father changed after that. Or perhaps he didn’t change at all—perhaps I just saw him more clearly. Without my mother to soften his edges, his cruelty became sharper, more suffocating. He always carried the weight of our family’s duty.
But with her gone... he became more obsessed with it. His expectations of us—of Malik and me—became stricter, more rigid.
He didn’t grieve like other people. There were no tears, no words of loss. Just silence, like he had already moved on from her, as though she had never been a part of him, or us. It was as if my mother’s death was just another inevitable part of his plan, another stepping stone toward fulfilling our destiny as the protectors of the Pharaoh’s tomb.
In some ways, I resented him for it. For not mourning her the way I did. For not allowing us to grieve, to feel, to be human. Instead, he buried himself deeper in our cursed legacy and expected us to do the same.
I tried to carry on, to fill the space my mother left behind, to care for Malik as she would have, to please my father, to live up to the impossible standards he had set, But how could I? I was just a child myself, trying to make sense of a world that had suddenly become so much darker. And Father, instead of guiding us through that darkness, only added to it. He became harsher, and more demanding, pushing Malik and me further into the depths of our family’s duty.
He wasn’t a cruel man, not outwardly. It was his indifference that cut the deepest. I remember the look in his eyes—cold, unwavering. He wasn’t speaking to me as his daughter but as the next in line to uphold the Ishtar legacy. His words wrapped around me like chains, binding me to a fate I never chose. He didn’t see me anymore—not as his daughter, he only saw the future guardian of the Millennium Items, the next keeper of secrets I didn’t want to know.
I craved his approval, but no matter how perfectly I followed his commands, every teaching... it felt hollow. No matter how hard I worked to uphold the legacy, it was never enough. Nothing was ever enough. He never smiled at me. Not the way a father should.
I felt I was a tool. A weapon.
I resented him for it—stealing my innocence, forcing a burden on me that no child should ever have to carry. But more than that, I hated the way he looked at Malik as if he were nothing more than a tool to be shaped, a prize to be controlled.
And Malik... he suffered the most. He was just a boy, yet Father saw only the future leader of our clan, the heir to our cursed fate. He shaped Malik into something twisted, something broken.
I saw the way Father’s expectations crushed him, the way he withered under the constant pressure to be something he was never meant to be. But Father didn’t care. He didn’t care about Malik’s pain or his anger... all Father cared about was our duty & destiny.
I could see the darkness consuming Malik, but Father did nothing. He pushed him further, deeper into that abyss. He didn’t care about the cost. He didn’t care about the scars it left on Malik’s soul—or mine.
Father never questioned his own beliefs. He clung to our family’s traditions, blind to the suffering he caused.
He called it legacy. I called it a prison.
Sometimes I wonder if he ever truly loved us. Or if, like the Millennium Items, we were just relics of his own obsession. Tools to be used, molded, and discarded when we no longer served his purpose.
I wonder if he ever felt regret, even for a moment, for what he put us through. But I’ll never know. He’s gone now, and the questions linger like ghosts.
I tell myself I don’t care... that his approval no longer matters. But deep down, the ache remains. He’s left me with a memory I’ll carry for the rest of my life, and for that, I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.
Or myself.