Forgotten

     Most of the Neopians would stay inside their comfy neohomes and sit next to the fireplace, sipping hot chocolate. Today Natallie wasn't inside her warm neohome. She was out to create her fourth pet in the family. She figured that she would get a red Usul, a boy since there were already three girls in the family, all Usuls themselves. Natallie thought that the girls needed a boy to play with.

     It was only a few minutes before a red Usul was created. His eyes were yellow and looked at Natallie's body with much interest in what kind of person she could be. The Usul's nose twitched and his tail wrapped around his body because it was cold outside. He only slightly shivered and waited for Natallie to say something.

     "Come on," Natallie ordered, as she grabbed the Usul's paw. The Usul stumbled forward, hopping on one leg. Natallie stopped immediately and looked back at the young red Usul. "I forgot to give you a name," she said. She stood, lost in thought for a few minutes. Something clicked in her head, and she said, "Your name is Naninhah," she said. "That's such a cute name. You're just like a plushie." She grabbed Naninhah's paw and began to drag him home.

     The rain softened on the way back home. The rain drops fell softly onto Naninhah's face. Once in a while he would shake the drops of water off of his fur, and continue walking with who he assumed to be his new owner. In the middle of Happy Valley, Natallie came to a stop.

     "Here we are!" she said with enthusiasm. "This is your new home, enjoy." She walked up to the house that was yellow and seemed to have a big smiley face drawn on the house. Tons of flowers glowed brilliantly around the walkway, and vines curled around the white fence that enclosed the lot.

     "So, this is home," Naninhah said quietly in his low but quite young voice. Natallie skipped across the stones to the front door. Naninhah followed. Even before the door opened, he could hear the sound of young girls arguing.

     "It's time to meet your family," Natallie whispered to the curious Usul. She placed her hand over the door knob and slowly turned it so a sound couldn't be made. She then pushed the door open.

     A burst of light came shining into Naninhah's eyes, practically causing him to tumble backwards into the flowers. He covered his eyes, and rubbed them with pain, moaning. He was still curious however, so it wasn't long until he took his paws off of his eyes.

     A blue and a yellow Usul were tugging on a baby Usul plushie as the third green Usul sat on the red couch and was crying. Natallie came darting into the room to comfort the green Usul while trying to convince the other pets to stop fighting.

     Rain drops still were banging on Naninhah's head, so he closed the door behind him as he entered the room was thankfully warm. The pets stopped what they were doing, and their heads turned in the direction of Naninhah. They all became silent.

     "Mommy," the blue Usul spoke. "Who's that?" She pointed at the new pet in the room.

     Natallie looked at Naninhah as if she almost couldn't remember who he was. "Oh, yeah," she said as if she was spacing out. She got up from the couch where she was comforting the green Usul. "Fellow Usuls," Natallie announced, "you have a new brother. Meet-" Natallie became lost. What was his name again?

     "Naninhah," Naninhah finished, surprised that he even remembered such a name.

     "Yeah," Natallie blinked. "This is Naninhah, our new buddy. You can play with him."

     The yellow Usul walked over to Naninhah and gave him a mean glare. She opened her mouth like she was about to spit something nasty into his face, but instead she just said, "It's nice to have you in the family." It was as if she was struggling just to say those words.

     Naninhah nodded, "It's nice to meet you too." He found it easy to lie. He found his voice not the most pleasant either though.

     "Now it's time to move you into your room," Natallie said.

     The blue Usul looked confused. "But there are no more bedrooms left."

     Natallie frowned. "Then I guess we will have to share one, would we?"

     Like a horrible orchestra, at the same time the three Usuls started screaming. Tears came pouring out of their eyes, and a horrible loud sound came going along with them, all in different pitches. After every few seconds they would screams words like, "no, please!" or "why!?"

     It didn't take long for Natallie to give in. "Okay, I'll tell you what, Naninhah can sleep in the living room on the couch." The crying subsided and the yellow Usul sniffed a few times in the middle of the word "okay."

     Natallie glanced at the clock above them. "Look at the time. It's past lunch. I better make you all something to eat." She left, leaving the four pets all alone.

     Naninhah shook, not wanting his owner to leave him with the three other pets. Though they were only little girls, he could see how nasty they really were.

     "How stupid of Mommy to get another new pet," the green Usul said in a whine.

     The blue one sort of had a strange grin on her face as she said, "That's what we get for having such a stupid owner."

     The yellow Usul, who seemed to be in charge of the whole bunch said, "Yeah, you see, we don't want you here. We are happy with what we have, so you can just leave us alone."

     The green Usul sniffed again. She seemed to be the youngest. "You shouldn't get any attention. We are the cutest Usuls in Neopia, and no pet like you is going to fit in."

     Naninhah remained silent. He slowly backed up into the door behind them and shivered as if he was standing outside in the cold rain. Naninhah wanted to say that he wasn't going to stand in their way, but he knew he wasn't exactly correct. Any pet needed some attention, and how much they can stand, Naninhah didn't know.

     The yellow Usul walked right up to his face and gave Naninhah the meanest look she could. "We are the bosses around here. Got it?"

     Naninhah nodded in fear.

     The blue Usul walked up next to her and said, "And your job is to not get in our way."

     Naninhah was shaking like crazy when Natallie called the pets for lunch.

     The pets came running into the room as happy as they could be, but Naninhah obviously wasn't as happy. He dragged his feet on the carpet to a chair, and took his seat gloomily. The thought terrified him that any move he could make would be bad. How could he avoid his sisters for the rest of his life?

     The green Usul stood behind Naninhah, and in the sweetest way possible she said, "Naninhah, could you please get out of my seat?"

     Naninhah jumped, startled by the Usul's statement. He quickly leaped out of the chair he was sitting in and searched around for another one, but all of the chairs were taken. All of the Usuls stared at him as he walked around the dinner table.

     "Here," Natallie said, getting up from her chair. "Let's get a chair from Snuggypie's room.

     Naninhah looked up at the three Usuls all still giving him a frightening look. "Who's Snuggypie?"

     The blue Usul's mean look suddenly turned as cute and cuddly as could be. It would be what some Neopians would call, "the puppy-dog look." The blue Usul aimed her eyes at Natallie and said, "Mommy, please don't move my favorite-est chair in the whole word from my room. It needs to keep Angelpuss company."

     Natallie almost fell for it. Naninhah decided to encourage Natallie not to get the chair. "It's okay... Mommy, I can eat on the floor." He sat on the ground and curled his tail around him. "See? It's no problem."

     Natallie shook her head. "No dear, you have to be sitting at the table with all of the civilized pets. I don't want to teach you to eat on the floor like a petpet." She stuck her tongue out to motion it was disgusting.

     "Wait, Mommy!" Naninhah whined as Natallie started running up the stairs to Snuggypie's room.

     When Natallie appeared back downstairs, dinner began. Naninhah didn't want to sit in the chair, but he didn't have a choice. He listened to Natallie and the other Usuls have a conversation while they were eating.

     "Mommy, I have been thinking," the yellow Usul said, the sweetest that Naninhah has ever heard her talk. "What if we didn't have another pet just yet?"

     Natallie looked at Naninhah and back at the yellow Usul, "But we already have a fourth pet. We can't get another one even-"

     "No!" the green Usul broke in. "We're talking about Naninhah."

     It was Snuggypie's turn to talk. "Yeah, we don't need another pet right now. We have each other, and that's all we need."

     Natallie looked confused. "What's wrong with Naninhah?"

     The green Usul spoke again. "There's nothing wrong with him. We just think we have to many Usuls to support."

     "Yeah," the blue Usul said. "You see, we need another chair and another room. That's a bit of money and care."

     The green Usul started pounding on the table. "Pound! Pound!" she chanted. Not meaning the pounding that she was doing to the table, but the unwanted place where unwanted pets would go.

     The yellow Usul smirked at Naninhah before he turned back to Natallie. It was hard for him to believe that they were going to talk about him right in front of his face. "That's right, Naninhah needs to go to the pound. You don't want an unhealthy family. Do you, Natallie?"

     Natallie frowned. "I would never want an unhealthy family."

     "Then there is only one solution," the yellow Usul said.

     "Yeah, Naninhah has got to go!" Snuggypie shouted.

     Naninhah sunk in his chair. "No," he whispered to himself.

     Natallie eyes scanned Naninhah's body. Was he really worth it? "What do you think?" she asked.

     She was unsure. This was Naninhah's chance to change Natallie's mind for good. Naninhah thought, but there was no stopping the words that came out of his mouth. "You can't." Naninhah was breathless. His words came out in almost a whisper, and he was shaking deep at the bottom of his chair.

     Everything stood motionless for a good few seconds. Then Natallie burst out, "I got it!"

     She looked proudly around the dinner table. "We will have a vote. That is how we will decide. Now who wants Naninhah to leave?" The three Usul's paws came flying up. They all waved their paws around as if it was too hard to see if they were still.

     "Okay, three," Natallie said. Naninhah frown at the horrible solution Natallie had come up with. He knew that he wasn't going to win no matter what, so he covered his face with one paw as he put up the other when Natallie called who wanted Naninhah to stay.

     "Two to three," Natallie announced. The three Usul sisters jumped for joy in total happiness that Naninhah was going to leave for good.

     "Sorry, Naninhah," Natallie said. She got up from her chair and took Naninhah by his paw. Tears came rolling down his cheeks as he left the room. The last words he heard from his sisters were, "Let's have a party."

     Naninhah walked through the garden, out of the white picket fence, and soon out of Happy Valley, with his owner clutching his hand tightly. He was going to the pound, and soon he was going to be ownerless. Rain came pouring down on his fur, making it impossible to tell if he was even crying. Natallie's face was like stone as she walked her pet down. She was like she was under the control of three Usul sisters. Naninhah wished to wake up from his nightmare then, but it was real and he couldn't stop it.

     When Naninhah was standing right in front of the pound, he heard the yelping of many sad pets with their owner being taken away from them. Crying, whining, howling, barking, and begging came from that building that they were moving toward. Naninhah didn't want to be one of them. He didn't want to be an abandoned pet to be picked up by somebody else. He didn't want to be the pet with no life. He did not want to be alone. With the intense need of not wanting to go to the pound, Naninhah pulled his arm away from his owner and on all fours went running into the night.

     Natallie didn't stop Naninhah from running. She just watched him move farther and farther away. The darkness swallowed him, and she didn't think another thought of the young Usul again, but the Usul still existed, and even though Natallie had wished she hadn't created Naninhah, he's still out in Neopia. Naninhah's still living, still breathing. A discarded pet. Even though he's just a forgotten memory to Natallie. The pet she created is still out there.

     But then, the night Naninhah ran away, he was alone. He was already forgotten.

The End