this rising sun :: axyl, day 4
Mar 15, 2024 18:30:52 GMT -5
Post by pogue on Mar 15, 2024 18:30:52 GMT -5
The cannon lasts for an eternity and a half, splitting the grey sky in two just to watch it put itself back together, snow fall burying the footsteps of his fellow tributes as they scatter into the darkness. He shakes in his own silence, dripping crimson with his own sins and biting down on his tongue just to stop himself from screaming, just to stop himself from stammering I'm sorry into the void as some sort of penance.
He still does it- until his tongue turns numb and the frost bite nips at stoic body, until he wraps himself in ice just to not feel it anymore, until he can't hear himself speak much less think.
Beasts, his only companions, join him in mourning eventually, the sun spitting on their graves with the last few shreds of its sanity as it falls, shadows dancing in the distance as if to welcome them back. Bennie nuzzles his face and licks the salt from his cheeks, trying desperately to get him to loosen his grip on the spiked bat as if it'll help him at this point.
He stays with Hugo's corpse far longer than he wants to.
But there's a cruelty there, nestled in between what was and what is no more, rotting at the end of the time they shared together, bleeding simultaneous with the corpse of a boy he hardly knew. Because Axyl Willoughby still lets Hugo's head fall to the snow and the brush, still patches himself up with shaking hands and broken heart, gathers his things and looks to the sunset.
He stays with Hugo's corpse far longer than he should.
But he still runs, in the end.
Just like he always has, just like he always will.
[scavenges charred cabin]
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