[OLD] Blood On Fire (A Hermitcraft AU)

Chapter Twenty-One: Memory

This chapter is...

Quite something.

Warnings --->

WC: ~1200

Enjoy!

Everyone was silent.

The two brothers practically stared each other down, blue meeting red.

No one dared move.

Internally, Hels felt like he might just break down crying.

He wasn't going to, but he certainly felt like he would.

And all of a sudden, he's seven years old again, running from his older brother.

Hels collapses in a meadow.

It was a pretty place, one that he loved.

Grass that practically gleamed in the sunshine and flowers, and lots of space for a young boy to run to his heart's content.

But tonight, moonlight shines on the nature, casting an almost ominous aura, and the night air is pierced by the sounds of sobbing.

Hels hugs himself tightly, tears coming faster than he could stop them.

He's used to trying to stop them.

There aren't many days where he doesn't.

Hels sometimes wonders if most seven-year-olds feel like they're allowed to cry.

He's pretty sure that's true.

But crying is for the weak... right?

Crying is for the ones who are doomed to be squashed by their enemies.

Right?

Hels doesn't want to think about it any longer.

The boy rubs his hands together, smiling softly at the fire.

The warmth almost beats the inner ice.

Almost.

Hels quenches the fire, wiping tears from his eyes.

And then, suddenly, a voice,

"Are you okay?"

It's not Wels. It's not anyone he knows.

Hels simply curls in on himself even more, his throat too clogged to answer.

There's a shuffling sound, and then Hels is warm.

The young boy blinks his eyes open, and then realizes,

Someone was hugging him.

The realization only makes Hels cry harder.

Although he didn't understand it at the time, Hels felt... safe.

Safe in the arms of a stranger.

"Shh, don't cry," the person whispers. He's older than Hels but younger than Wels- a teenager, or perhaps even a young man. He wears a cowboy hat, which Hels finds rather amusing, but he also had rather pale skin. Ghostly pale, even. "What's your name?"

"H-Hels," he replies. "Who are you?"

"My name is Badtimes," there's a smile in the other's voice.