celestial strings | h.js

two.

You pulled your hand away from your back and gripped the glass shard tightly. Without a second thought, you punctured the shard into his abdomen, forcing him to release you. You dropped the shard onto the ground, which was where you found it in the first place when you knelt near Jisung.

There must have been broken glass around the area you never knew of. Ever since you found a place to stay, you rarely got the chance to roam around this place and people watch anymore. Jisung must have hidden the glass shard under himself in preparation for attacking, but since he never got the chance to, he secretly gave it to you.

"That was not clever, child."

"I don't care." You put your hands together and channeled the remaining power from the strings in your arms. You caught a moment of realization in his eyes, one that screamed for you to pause, but you discarded him the way he has to you. "Vapius Mor Molaedo!"

You chanted the spell through gritted teeth, clutching through the razor-like pain when your strings massively tightened around your skin, causing redness to squirt through the air. The blood didn't fall to the ground, however. Your strings caught each droplet with their magic and linked it toward where your hand was, adding more fuel to the death spell you had just chanted.

A heated explosion blasted across your palm, burning your skin and blinding your eyes. Surely, people walking near the area would be able to hear it. It was loud enough to echo and travel through the atmosphere. Dust erupted from the impact, and you closed your eyes instinctively, hiding your face in your arms until all quieted down.

You let your arms drop to your side in exhaustion, and you tumbled to the ground in pain. You moaned and withered and squirmed against yourself, your limbs flailing about in the air in seconds before constricting back to your chest. The unlikeable pattern of your movement a direct result of how immensely sharp your body ached. You cried out loud for once, the frustration and fear you felt finally being released.

Your head arched amidst your outburst, your eyes supposedly gazing at the fallen body of the councilman, but instead, you were met with his soulless eyes. Widening in fear, you gasped and scrambled to your knees, only to fall back on your hips to the ground. Your breath was jagged and uneven, and you found yourself crawling backward to avoid the horrendous picture you saw in front of you.

You have beheaded the councilman.

You did that, you thought. You killed him. An acid rush engulfed your lungs, running up your throat, and you immediately turned to the side, your mouth agape with a hellish urge to puke at what you had done. But your throat was afraid that if you did vomit, the content would burn and scar your insides for life. Trembling eyes coward away from your blood-stained hands. The blood of, perhaps, not the innocent, but still of blood.

A justified murder is still murder, nonetheless. The intention does not take away the severity and consequence of the action. Vigilantism does not belong to a broken teenager with a subconscious plot for revenge. Trauma does not flee because the world is just; it will learn its victims and mold itself into the shape of biology and law just to feed off its host.

And we shall suffer from what is fair. We all suffer from what is unjustifiably fair.

You wanted to cry. You were already weeping in disgust and, minutes ago, in patheticness. But the urge to cry was not in the form of tears but clenched fists, nails digging into dirty and skin scratched with redness. You were enraged and delirious. You were furious that this was the legacy your family left you: to make no choices and to suffer from what you desired.

There was one other thing.

Not allowing yourself more time to pull it all together, you steadied your breath as best as you could before quickly standing up straight and running back to where Jisung was.