Chapter 313: Grave
After Aren finished speaking with the maid, he asked for the location of his friends, and she pointed him in the right way. He headed that way and found them in a clearing at the front of the castle.
While he was heading there, he noticed a few maids through the windows carrying out their tasks, as well as some armed guards standing. They were fully armored, and he could not even tell what they were at all.
When he arrived at the clearing, the first person to see him was Athena, and instantly she shot off the ground where she was seated on a rock, running so fast that she got to him in mere seconds. She threw her hands around him in a tight hug.
Aren was forced to steady himself to ensure that he didn’t fall down.
He looked at her, her hands wrapped around him. He moved his hands to hug her back, but right at that moment the memory of Kira hugging him flashed in his head. His eyes widened for a moment. He tried to hug her again, but like before, this time the image of Kira getting mauled by those balls flashed in his head.
Aren was frozen and unable to make a move, until Athena finally let go. She looked up at him.
"You’re okay," she said, her voice shaky like she was about to break at any given moment.
Aren looked at her face, and all he could see was the danger of what could happen to her with him around.
’What’s happening to me, why is my mind this way!’ he asked himself, trying to wrap his head around the fact that he was looking at her and all he could feel was fear rather than happiness.
"It’s good to see you," Aiden spoke as he approached, but Aren could tell from the way that he walked that he wasn’t sure how to approach.
Aren knew the kind of person Aiden was, and he was certain that right now Aiden was beating himself up a lot for the fact that he wasn’t there to help at all.
Aiden was probably cursing in his mind and screaming at the world, and especially himself, for being too weak.
He stopped right in front of Aren and then stretched out his hand to shake Aren’s.
Aren looked at the hand for a few seconds, and all he could see was blood and stains of blood. He looked at Aiden, and his face shifted into that of a dead Aiden.
The scene shook Aren to the core, but he knew that he could not let that stop him. He drew a deep breath to calm himself and then placed both hands on Aiden’s shoulders, pulling him in close and whispering into his ear.
"It wasn’t your fault, stop hating yourself," Aren said. He said that in the hope that it would not only quell the guilt Aiden felt, but also the one that he felt himself, but that didn’t work, not even in the slightest. Rather, it made him feel like a liar, a fake who wanted to push the blame of what he had done onto something else.
It made his heart ache more and more, and the image of Kira kept reappearing in flashes in his mind until he finally let go of Aiden and stepped back.
Aiden chuckled. "Shouldn’t I be the one telling you that? If there is someone that needs those words the most now, it’s definitely you," Aiden said.
Aren looked at him a while and then tried to smile, but his face failed him, and even if it had not, the mask covered all.
"Where is she?" Aren asked.
"Tch, you just woke up, you are weak, eat first," Zero spoke finally. She approached and then placed her fist on Aren’s chest.
"You should get enough rest first."
Aren looked at her face, no, he looked at all their faces, and he could tell they all needed rest. Their eyes were swollen, their movements were heavy.
’What have I done to them all, am I a curse to their lives?’ the thought flashed in his mind, and it made him want to scream, but he suppressed it.
"You all need rest," he said, "rest, and then we will get out of here. I promise I’ll ensure that when we do, no one will-"
"Don’t," Aiden cut him short. "Don’t make any promise, because when you do, we will put our hopes in you, and that will drive you to fight your hardest, and that will hurt you. We are tired of having to lean on your back to even move. If we can’t hold ourselves, we might as well die."
Aren wanted to say something else at that moment, but Aiden pointed at the tree in the distance.
"Under there, we buried her body under there. I’m sure she would be happy to see that her efforts were not in vain. You should go there and talk to her, keep her company a bit if you can."
After saying that, he walked away. Zero followed, and so did Athena. Aren watched them leave and then turned to face the tree. He walked there and saw the heap of sand on the ground, the place where she lay.
Aren stood there for a long while and said nothing, just looking at the grave like something would come from it.
He took a deep breath and then sat down next to it, leaning his back against the tree. He stared at the castle.
"Look, we are pretty far from home, somewhere that even the angels can’t touch. You never said it, but you never loved fighting. You would have loved to stay inside and chill.
Yet you fought every moment because of me. I don’t even know what to say to apologize for that.
I just hope you don’t hate me where you are. I already hate myself, and that’s so much to carry. Your hate would cripple me, because you are right to hate me more than I hate myself."