Until Death Do Us Part || Hunter the Golden Guard

56 ~ What's The Matter, Witch Hunter?

(He's such a loser I love him)

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A woman stands on the stage before me. She's old, maybe mid 60s. She has pointy ears. Her hands are tied tightly together and a rope is strung around her neck. She looks scared. Sad. 

She looks at me with a sense of pity. "Don't grow bitter like them, little one." She tells me. 

The men around me yell and shout obscenities at her, telling her to go to hell. A woman pushes me away from the lady on the stage, "Don't you dare talk to my son, you witch." She sneers at her. 

The elder woman nods, respecting the younger woman's wishes, and closes her eyes. 

And she is hung.

The rope tightens around her neck and lifts her from the ground. Her feet dangle loosely as her life begins to wither away. 

Never again, I vow. Never again do I wish to see death. 

Hunter awoke with a start to find (Y/n) sitting next to him on his bed with her silver mask attached to her belt loop. She was reading a book about Wild Magic. 

"Hunter, what's wrong?" (Y/n) asked. 

"I-... I just had a dream." He replied, staring down at his bedsheets. 

"A dream about what, boy?" Asked Belos. Hunter snapped his neck to see the voice coming from (Y/n)'s mouth. Her face began to contort into Belos' "You look disturbed, what's wrong?" He asked sinisterly. 

"This isn't real." Hunter cried into his hands. "This is just a dream." 

"Maybe. Maybe not. How can you tell, Nephew?"

"You're not my uncle! You're no family of mine!" Hunter yelled as he tried to back away from the monster before him. He fell off of his bed and onto the wooden ground of the rickety old house, a stray nail piercing his palm. 

The ground grew sharp as nails replaced the wooden planks below him. It pierced his skin and drew blood from the small puncture wounds. Blood dripped down the shiny metal, staining it. His blood dripped purple which blotted in his yellow sweater. The purple turned to green, then to the normal red. 

"I'm your own blood. I made you, Hunter." Belos said, his voice loud and big. The walls around Hunter began to melt into the walls of the throne room.  Belos took a seat in the throne, "Now kneel, Golden Guard." He commanded with his finger. 

Hunter's knees crippled from under him as he was compelled to kneel before the dreaded man. A woman walked into the throne room in cuffs, being escorted by coven scouts. 

"Finish our expedition, Brother. Finish what we came here to do." Belos told him, handing him his artificial staff. 

The woman looked up from the floor, her (E/c) eyes bore into Hunter's. "I won't." He said as he yanked off the shiny, golden mask that his face had once adorned. 

"You dare oppose me?" Belos boomed, his voice echoing around the hollow throne room. 

Hunter grabbed his staff and blasted the coven scouts away from the woman as he ran towards her. He grabbed her hand and ran off with her. Hunter looked at her, (Y/n), before bumping into something that halted his escape. 

"Did you really think you could runaway with her, Caleb?" Belos asked. His fist clenched and within a second, the woman beside Hunter froze in stone.  Belos' arm melted away and became a sharpened blade as he swung his arm at them. The blade grazed Hunter's pale cheek and missed him entirely. 

But (Y/n)'s head dropped to the ground. Hunter turned his head to see the headless stone shoulders of the woman he'd loved. 

"NO!" He screamed, his voice echoing through the empty halls of the castle he once knew so well. 

Gloved hands grabbed at his feet as magenta eyes glowed at him from every crack in the castle's walls. 

Red blood stained Hunter's white cloak as a flock of black crows pecked at him. Grimwalker, grimwalker, they all chanted. Grimwalker, grimwalker, their voices echoed. 

The murder pecked at the woman's decapitated head, Grimwalker, grimwalker, they continued. 

Hunter turned to Belos and glared at him with pain and anger in his eyes. Hunter wound up his fist and threw a punch at him. 

------

His fist cut through the air as Hunter sat up on the ground. He was sat in the Nocedas' basement, wrapped in his sleeping bag. Gus was sound asleep next to him. 

He couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't until Gus stirred in his sleep. That seemed to bring the blond boy back to reality as he flopped back down into his pillow, breathing out a sigh of relief and getting up from his sleeping bag. 

The sun was just rising when he made his way through the house and to the bathroom. He wanted more than ever to read the witch hunter book, to see who Caleb really was. 

When he opened the door to the bathroom, he found (Y/n) standing and holding the book. Her head snapped to the door in surprise, "Uh, good- good morning..." She said, her voice worried. Hunter saw the book, his eyes quickly darting away from it to meet (Y/n)'s (e/c) eyes. "Is this yours?" She asked, her voice full of fear. "Why are you reading about.. witch hunters.?" 

Hunter nodded and averted his gaze, "I just wanted to know who I am..." He said shamefully. 

"What do you mean?" (Y/n) asked as she stared at the book.

"Well, I'm a clone of a witch hunter, so I wanted to know who I'm supposed to be. I thought that book might have some information about what kind of monster I am." (Y/n) looked up from the book at the mention of monster, making Hunter flinch. "I- I understand if you don't want to be friends anymore.. I wouldn't want to be friends with a witch hunter eith-" 

"Do you.. truly believe that? That you're a monster.?" She asked him as she furrowed her eyebrows.

"I am!" He said through panicked breaths, "I'm a witch hunter! I was a witch hunter with Belos!! I'm an awful person!"

The girl grabbed his wrist and held them tight, "You are not a monster." She told him sternly, "You are not a witch hunter. And you are most certainly not an awful person."

"But-"

"No buts. You are not a monster, do you understand?" She asked, walking him over to the mirror above the sink, "Look into this mirror. What do you see?"

"..Myself...?" Hunter mumbled.

"That's right." (Y/n) said, looking at him, "I don't see any monsters. Do you?"

Hunter smiled as tears welled in his eyes. "I don't." He said. 

"You aren't Caleb. Sure, genetically wise, you're the same person. But otherwise, you're you. You decide what kind of person you'll be." 

Hunter's lip quivered as he wrapped his arms around (Y/n). "I had a nightmare, a really bad nightmare." He said when she wrapped her arms around him, "B-Belos... He- he.." Hunter stumbled his words, 

"Take your time." (Y/n) told him. "We've got all the time in the world." She said, hugging him tighter. 

Hunter explained the dream to (Y/n), how Belos ordered him to kill her, then turned her to stone and decapitated her when he resisted. How scared he felt. How helpless and powerless he felt. "I- I'm sorry. That must be so disturbing to hear." 

"Don't apologize, it's okay." She said, letting go of the hug. "Would you like to go read the book together? So that you won't have to brave all of that information by yourself?"

Hunter nodded and dried his tears with his sweater sleeve, "I'd like that, thank you."