As if a void covered the surroundings, they were pitch black. Sebastian's breath was choked, his skin was drenched with sweat, and his clothing was in tatters as he wandered aimlessly through space. With eyes forced shut, his face contorted in apparent pain as if he refused to see the void outside, instead wanting to see the void hidden under his eyes. His legs felt like lead and a stinging sensation was deep within his fingertips, as if his nails were being ripped off all at once.
Silhouettes walked by him, over and over. Some figures feminine, some masculine. Some were short and some were tall. Even the tiny figures of children, toddlers and babies were found within the void, walking in a line as if placed on a path.
“Look at them.”
Sebastian shook his head quickly. He didn’t want to look at them. Not again. He knew what this was, what it meant, who they were. Clenching his fists tight, his palms filled with blood as the tiny drops of life flowed from his hands and into the void below, falling for eternity. It felt like someone had embraced him from behind, trying to force his eyes open.
“Look at them, Sebastian.”
The urge to scratch his nails across his body overwhelmed him, the pain fading as the once human features were replaced with claws. He dragged them across the skin of his torso, his thighs, his back. The surface of his skin quickly filled with cuts and gashes, blood pouring into the empty space beneath him. Even the space slowly turned a crimson red. The pain inflicted on himself distracted him from the numbness, even if only for a moment. It turned him away from the guilt, the fear, the rage and the disappointment.
“Look at us, Sebastian. You’re pathetic. Look at us!”
The voice roared out, echoing across the void, distinctly feminine now. It was grating within his ears, and they bled from the shock, adding their own mix into the newly blood red void. His body was failing, his muscle rotting and his bones turning to dust as he walked. He felt like something intangible was holding him together like a marionette and it’s puppeteer. Still, he kept moving.
“A sinner. A thief. A monster among men. They will never accept you. The dragon among angels, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Yet you refuse to leave them. The guilt will haunt your bones, flay your flesh, and destroy your mind Sebastian.”
“And you deserve it.”
The man had fallen to his knees. The voice cackled and then dissipated, as if returning to the void that surrounded him. As his flesh was torn from his bones, his eyes twitched. As his bones turned to dust, his eye lids moved. When he felt his mind begin to freeze and stop, they finally opened.
All he saw were the far off backs of people he recognized, and they all just kept walking away. Then his mind went too.
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The first thing he felt when he opened his eyes was warmth, and a heaviness over his limbs. His shoulders were wrapped tightly by a small blue rope looking thing, and his body was covered by a blanket; now soaked in sweat. His palms leaked blood with dried blood beneath his nails. He took a moment to focus on breathing as he circulated his vitality to calm himself down. The cold feeling it gave him was comforting and helped wake him up slightly, still feeling as if he was inside that dream.
The dreams weren’t anything new to him, even if this one was particularly weird. They came and went. They had never been so common, though. Before the Light, it was once or twice a month. Now.. every few days gave him the same few nightmares, waking up soaked in sweat and covered in new self-inflicted wounds to add to the old scars.
His mind was still filled with her voice, her commands, her insults and her desires, accompanied by a cacophony of sad voices laced with blame and a screaming child as the backdrop. The sounds never truly left his mind, they were often just so quiet that he could distract himself. That’s exactly why these moments before and after he slept got so bad, the brief moments where he couldn’t distract himself, he was just stuck with the memory.
Cradling his head in his hands for a few seconds, he breathed out heavily and let out the turbid air building up inside. Sebastian took off the blanket, folding it neatly, and then moved to take a shower, his last shower before they left.
Because the convoy was leaving today.
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Dallas wasn’t sure what to do. About half of their group of five hundred simply didn’t want to leave. They felt it was safest here and that no one else should be leaving either. In fact, many believed that they should be protected because they were ordinary people. Some felt it was because they were big shots, even if they were just random people saved from the street a few days ago because they ran out of food.
It was exhausting. The patrolmen, or the militia as they’ve been called over the last few days, all want to leave. Not a single one wants to stay, knowing the forest will slowly devour the city and the stronger beasts will move into the urban areas. They wanted to test their luck and move somewhere else, maybe somewhere the army was holed up.
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To them, anywhere was better than here. At the same time, they had the power to protect themselves. The crowd was only Lv. 1, some Lv. 2’s, they didn’t participate in the fighting and only levelled from the crippled rats left behind from Sebastian’s ‘distraction’ that day. If they tried to fight a pack of monsters without help, they’d eventually survive at the cost of many casualties.
They used this as the excuse as to why the Militia should stay, why Sebastian and the others should stay, but they don’t realize how hypocritical it was. They were essentially trying to force them to stay and protect them out of guilt, not understanding that would just result in everyone dying.
His patience finally snapped as Dallas heard the words coming from their main spokesperson’s mouth, something he’d heard over and over again ever since the convoy was planned. The man refused to back down, and he was arguably the most entitled of the bunch.
“You can’t just abandon us, Dallas. You have a responsibility! There are hundreds of people here you need to protect! There’s only so much food and water and we can’t go out there and get more! You’d be-”
“I’d be what, Daniel!? Letting you folk do what we’ve been sending men to do for over a week and a half? Letting you risk your own lives instead?”
“You have the higher levels, you should be risking-”
“Why!? Why should we risk our lives, hm? Because we’re stronger? Because some of us got lucky at the beginning whilst you all ran, hid, and got saved? Not to mention people are still dying going out scavenging even now!”
“The militia gets extra food, water and medicine anyways! That’s their pay for doing what is right, why should they get extra resources if they aren’t going to protect us!?”
Dallas opened his mouth again when he heard heavy footsteps approach their conversation. The air grew frigid, and his heart dropped within his chest. It was like his body was sent into fight or flight briefly, and the feeling terrified him as he looked over towards the source.
A man wearing black boots, navy blue jeans, a plain white t-shirt and a worn, brown leather jacket picked up from the old lost and found, a saber strapped to his back with a belt. The cold aura he brought with him was something he had to trigger, which only made the man sweat even more.
Something just pissed the bladesman off.
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Sebastian was fuming. Abso-fucking-lutely fuming. His morning wasn’t off to a great start as it was, and next he hears about the protest of half the damn group out front trying to stop the convoy from leaving. Then, just as he gets to the doors, he hears the stupid fucking shit Daniel has to say.
When Dallas noticed Sebastian and felt his heart drop, he quickly silenced himself; an action that Daniel clearly didn’t notice as his expression quickly perked up at the approaching person, as if his savior had arrived.
“Sebastian! You’ve been protecting us, please, tell Dallas you need to stay, you can’t leave us here?”
“Why not?”
The man froze in place for a moment before staggering backwards, his face twisted slightly at the response, as if he couldn’t believe he was even asked that question.
“We’re people too, you can’t just leave us here and take so much food, so much water and medicine! We’d die!”
“Then come with us.”
“Why should we have to go with you? It’s safer here!”
“Then why do we need to stay?”
“Because-”
“Did you make any of this food, water or medicine?”
Sebastian cut him off abruptly, his voice soaked in venom as he stared the man in the eyes, causing him to shrink back until he was pressed against the crowd. He’d absolutely be sweating if it wasn’t for the fact the surroundings were ice cold.
“No we didn’t-”
“Did any of you own it before The Light?”
“None of us did, no, but-”
“And did any of you help find it after The Light?”
“We would die if we went out-
“None of you owned, made, or helped find this food, water, or medicine, correct? I want to get that clear before I tell you how fucking stupid this is.”
“Y-you’re correct, yes.”
Daniel swallowed hard, avoiding the bladesman’s gaze by looking down at the ground. His eyes and his bearing terrified him. Sebastian was usually amiable, quiet, and reserved, so why was the man so suddenly bearing down on him like a frozen mountain?
“Then have you ever sacrificed anything for these resources?”
Sebastian breathed out a huff of white mist into the cold air, warm breath constantly flowing out of the holes in his face like exhaust as he peered down at the man.
“We have not, no..”
“So you haven't contributed at all whatsoever in any way except for consuming finite resources, complaining about those who risk their lives getting more, and then insist that we must stay behind and protect you when you decide to wait for death?”
“It’s just more dangerous outside the-”
“How would you fucking know, Daniel? Have you been outside the debris recently? Have you been to the forest? Any other part of the city?”
The bladesman stepped forwards, closing the distance between him and the low-levelled man, the crowd not allowing him to back up. His body was tense all over and he felt like there was no strength life within his body/
“N-no..”
“Have you ever heard a dying breath?”
Sebastian's hand shot forth like lightning and found itself wrapped around the man’s neck, causing Dallas to step forward lightly. At least the man still had the courage to stop Sebastian if he went overboard, though he never had the plan to do much to Daniel anyways. He was just sick and tired of people trying to control others when they had no right.
“I’ve heard people die. I’ve heard animals cry and seen plants wilt. I’ve seen the bones left behind and the ash that remained. I’ve lost pieces of myself that I will quite literally never get back. So tell me.”
“What the fuck do you think gives you the right to tell us what to do?”