four years since i've written slugterra content jfc LETS GO
~~~
"It's okay, I've got you, okay? You're safe, don't cry!"
He's scared but he can't be. If he's scared, he'll start crying. If he starts crying, he'll stop running. And if he stops running, the bad men will get him. And if they get him, she will be alone, or they'll get her too. He can't let fear stop him, not now not now not now not ever. He can't let himself stop, not now, not ever. Mommy said so, after all, so he can't stop running, he won't stop running, don't stop running don't stop running don't stop running-
"Find them and don't stop running, we'll join you once we deal with these bad guys, yeah?"
Why were your hands wet, mommy? Why were they red?
Mommy is a liar.
He wipes his tears off his cheek with a shoulder before he holds the bundle closer to him, holding her head towards him as she runs. Why did the bad men come? How did she do it? Mommy says it should have taken years. But Mommy's dead now. She said Daddy would find them too, but Daddy never left Mommy alone. So Daddy's dead too.
He looks down at his sister, barely three months old, bundled tightly in his arms.
She's his only family now.
He wants to shut his ears. He wants to hide. He wants to scream. He wants to cry. But all he does is run, further away from his home, further away from all he ever knew. His playmate, the girl he was playing with, gasped between her sobs as she followed behind him, crying for her mother. Tears rolled down her eyes too, but she didn't stop, like him. Gasped. He learned a new word in school today, from his playmate, the one with the red hair and the eyes that looked like leaves. He was telling Mommy all about it.
The screaming started before he could finish.
Now Mommy will never know what gasped means.
He runs and runs and runs and everything is darker and he can hear the bad men coming, so run he does, his little legs burning and his lungs catching on fire: or was it the other way around, with the fire from his home catching onto his ankles? He loses his playmate somewhere in the dark, dense forest, but he has no more tears to shed for her because Mommy will never hear his story about the girl with the red hair and leaf eyes and Daddy will never meet them in the forest because they're both dead, they're both gone, she is all you have left and if you stop the bad men will get her-
He trips over a rock and he tries to twist his body, falling on his side instead of his front, he hears the bad men coming, screaming and kicking and holding her close when he feels something try to grab him. But the bad men's orders turn into screams of terror when shadowy whispers emerge from nowhere, and when he stops kicking, he looks up to see the Shadow Clan warding off the guards, the creatures Mommy told him about.
They're good, right? They'll keep us safe! Mommy always said so! We don't have to worry anymore-
Wait, what are you doing, why are you taking her from me you're leaving her there NO I NEED TO KEEP HER SAFE, YOU CAN'T LEAVE HER THERE SHE'ILL DIE LIKE MOMMY AND DADDY DON'T LEAVE HER THERE NO-
~~~
They say the death of a hero is honourable, but it's a story told and retold.
The flames rage on all sides, the bodies of their neighbours and fellow people painting the streets redder than his anger. The hero's bandoleer was almost empty: most of what remained of their arsenal protecting whoever escaped or dead, underneath the rubble. The hero, their own powers will weaken as the blood spewed from their wounds, which was just as fatal as he predicted.
For every legendary Champion was destined to be met with an adversary, the refinement of the blade either breaking the hero or forging a stronger one in the flames. And for the fallen, their lives are destined to end as their cavern erupts in flames around them, falling to their knees as their adversary destroyed all that this cavern had built.
"Do you regret your choice, leaving it all behind?" Jabari Defega asks the light-skinned woman he dies alongside, their bandoleers empty, their time running out. Both only have minutes left in their lives, but they no longer need time: the people have escaped, and now, all that's left to do is die.
"No. You would have done the same, wouldn't you?"
He looks to the broken mantle of the rubble that used to be his home, his eyes filled with joy as he gazes at a picture of a young boy, and a little girl. He barely needs any thought to the answer to her question. His blood boils at the sight of the cavern getting destroyed, the fact that there will be no justice for the people who had lost their homes, and that this is a losing battle for the Hundredth Cavern. But if the world granted him one silver lining, it was his own personal, selfish victory, and Jabari Defega will spit at Dr Blakk's feet and smile before he fades away.
The stories can call him a coward, but they will never touch his children.
"Of course I would." He looks at the faces of his beaming son and daughter, and he remembers the other children in his cavern: their wide smiles, bright eyes, how joy could turn to fear so quickly. He remembers the boy with the bundle in his arms, his eyes filled with fear and confusion, Shadow Runes hastily hidden by a poorly wrapped bandage. He thinks of the child as the woman says something he can no longer hear before she dies beside him, eyes filled with tears.
And when he dies, his last thought is not of his children, but of the infant in the little boy's arms.
They say the death of a hero is honourable, but it's a story told and retold.
Will Shane was a flawed individual, wrongfully idolized.
In the epic tales told by each generation, the death of a hero is either glorified to the extremes, ridiculed to the highest degree or not mentioned at all. Every way, you die remembered by the generations to come. The legends sing of your story for centuries to come, your life is written for all to see and you live amongst the greats, the only people that understand that there's one similarity amongst all of their stories.
In every hero is a lonely death that awaits them.
"Blakk, stop this! You have to stop it!"
Was this how his uncle felt, when he died? He remembers when they found him in between caverns, bleeding out after a few thugs got the best of him. And suddenly, people he'd never seen before acted like they had known him their whole lives. How the Shanes were always good, the voice of Slugterra's people, the guardian of the underprivileged. Will that be how they'll be, at his own?
He felt alone as his life force dripped from the pedestal they all have placed him on, his only friend ascending to the crystals above, to the Surface in a beacon of light. He watches as his flames burn as bright as the first day they met, burning for him as he goes to the only person he regrets leaving behind.
Dust and darkness veils his vision, the violent winds grabbing every surface of him it could touch, the wisps of death whispering in his ear, screeching and howling and doing him one final kindness, letting him hear his last words.
"Find my son."
He remembers a laugh and bright eyes filled with wonder as he sees the world he loved so much.
"Give him the letter."
He curses himself for not remembering more.
"Find Eli."
He falls, and regret's the last thing on his lips.
~~~
Dad's not coming, isn't he?
Eli looks to the lonely slug as he sits at the table, cheap wax dripping down the sides of the candle that was pushed in the center of a cupcake. He couldn't pinpoint how he knew his father was gone- Burpy, like every other day, did his best to act like he regularly would: reassuring, joyful chirps, the practical joke, but there was just something that told Eli his father was gone. He stares at the lone, dancing flame in the living room of the abandoned household and he's suddenly aware of the utter emptiness that surrounds him: the dead houseplants, dust gathering on the sled hung on the wall, the quiet. He looks around at this empty, soulless house, and he looks to his only friend in this cruel world. He has so many questions: why didn't he ever come back? Why did he leave him here? What was so special about Slugterra that he chose to protect that place over his son? The questions swirl angrily through his mind and his rage builds and amplifies within him until it finally bursts into-
A broken sob leaves his body, and he closes his eyes and brings his hands together to make a wish.
Making wishes. He would normally huff at the thought. Why does one care about such things? Wishing fixed nothing. Wishing won't make the impossible happen. And crying? It was pointless- no tears would bring his father back, no amount of lamenting would make his father come home. In this state he's wasted years: five years of grieving, of anger and sadness when he knows that nothing, except one thing, would make his father choose him over the world he swore to protect.
He always knew he'll go, he knows his future will be spent trying to unravel the secrets his father kept locked away. But now, he rises to his feet with his only true friend in this cruel world, the world beneath his feet calling his name.
As he throws things into a bag, his hand hovers above a picture of four people: a proud father, a kind mother, a bright boy, a trustful brother.
~~
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