Hollow Moon (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

The trek back was definitely less noisy after being exposed to the group and their shoot-first tactics. They were quick to slink back into the forest after the agreement that was, at best ambiguously, reached. It was simple enough. Silver wanted to reach the botanical gardens but it required a meet up between Skull and Ghost. Two big shot chiefs locked in a room. That'll go well.

I sigh. No....Ghost doesn't seem backward in bowing his head to Skull if it meant getting what he wants.

What he wants...

I had to stop a smirk from reaching my lips. I'm becoming arrogant. How would I know? Who knows what we want? Grabbing at the darkness and pretending what we find is what we desire? It's laughable. No...we want everything to go back. Reverse everything. Turn it back and redo our last moments. Forever stuck in the curse of hindsight. If I could redo it, I would have at least punched some people on the way out to this death sentence of a fucking moon. Ah...does anyone even miss me? What a selfish and stupid pining wish. Surfacing in the background were faces I'd rather forget, because I am most certain they're doing their best to forget mine.

I shake myself of the brutal thoughts. Ah I need distraction...

I look over to the others who were probably relieved that they didn't get the worst outcome. Dark Sol was probably close to becoming leaderless. Again.

Moon must have seen me staring as she blankly barks a, "What?"

I was silent for a time before the name fell out of my mouth, "Val."

A ghost of hurt, longing and bitterness glazes across her face, almost as if the mask dropped for an instant. But it was back just as quickly.

"Valkyrie," Reaper states, almost emotionless, "was our previous leader. She was Liam's older sister and..." the sentence dies.

Only for Moon to pick it back up with a voice lost in harsh fragments of the past. "She was my girlfriend."

Ah. There it is.

It's fallen into place with a click in my head. Valkyrie. Moon's lover and the leader...the idol that she constantly looks up to and inevitably compares herself to. I had a lot of assumptions I wanted to confirm but they would not be appropriate questions to ask her. Especially in front of others. Valkyrie would have been fierce, confident and a hard act to follow. But that doesn't explain everything.

"Can I ask what happened?" I'm an insensitive prick. I have a guess at what it might be...The one inescapable fate that lies ahead of us...

"Bonesdust..." Reaper started.

My first assumption was confirmed.

"But...it didn't kill her outright like everyone else," Moon recalls harshly, her voice almost cracking under the strain of remembering.

I've heard rumours that the disease now attacks slower but I've never been able to confirm that. But now I want to understand why it's now a slow, gradual death. At least with the previous adults it was instant. Painless. I think it's because we are gradually aging, gradually turning into "adults". Adults were already adults when the pandemic spread. But I can only leave it as speculation for now.

"She pretended that she was fine. But..." Moon grits her teeth as she persisted in telling me, "other groups heard rumours. So, they attacked. Raided our territory. Necrosis wasn't of much help at the time either. Skull was struggling for power. And then...someone killed her. They shot her point blank. We don't even know who it was. They got her alone..."

So her limited time was cut even shorter. I was kind of speechless...more at the fact that Moon was so willing to recall it at me. "I'm sorry," was my measly offer. Worse, she would have had to have relived the trauma when Ghost pulled out the gun on her.