Yesteryear

Double Axe

TW: Some more child murder, mentions of rape
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Wooyoung couldn't bear looking at the cruel scene unfolding in front of him. The three women drained the boy of his blood while he painfully died in their arms. The surrounding Vikings played their animal skin drums and hummed festive melodies that reverberated in Wooyoung's bone mark. By the time the sacrificial boy slumped to the ground, the women had filled all three bowls with his blood. They walked over to the crowd that greedily pushed toward their blood-stained fingers. Flicking them, the trio sprinkled the villagers with the blood of their sacrifice.

"Blessed may you be by Odin's grace," they sing-sang. Wooyoung's stomach lurched as he watched how the Vikings closed their eyes to let the blood rain onto their faces. He and the other three kids didn't get blessed. Their garments stayed pristine and white.

Wooyoung's sweaty palm held onto that of the little girl to his left. She glanced up at him from time to time with the chiding eyes of an adult that couldn't bear his childish antics. When their gazes met, he gulped. He squeezed her hand to offer some solace in a place where no amount of solace could ever be enough. Terrified out of his mind, he couldn't also soothe the children by his side.

"Don't be so nervous. You are the most important guest tonight. Our future is blurry, but you will get welcomed in Valhalla for sure," she whispered. Disbelieving, Wooyoung stared at her little rounded features and the golden hair cascading over her white dress. Were these children born and raised to become a sacrifice or did all Vikings consider death an honour? Wooyoung had thought that was reserved to dying in battles.

"What is different for me than for you?" Wooyoung whispered. His lips dried out in the cold air and his face was numb, but he didn't care. The pricks in his skin were a welcome distraction from what was to come.

"You will be the last sacrifice and they will bind you to the well." She pointed up ahead to where the warriors from earlier had fastened their ropes to the sides of the wooden frame by now. They dangled there, ready to get used.

"Then the five greatest warriors of our village will do something to you I don't quite understand. But you will be naked for it and scream a lot. Don't worry, the drummers will mask your shame. After that, they cut off your head and throw you into the well so Odin can grant us wisdom and prudence."

A lump formed in Wooyoung's throat to constrict his breathing. With wide-open eyes that stung in the cold, he eyed the well. It must have been full of skeletons that had collected there over the years.

"Us four will not get the same procedure because we are talismans. They hoist us on the trees to pray to our bodies." Again, the little girl pointed for him. She didn't pick up on his distress as she motioned at the body of the dead boy that was getting hanged in a nearby tree like the most gruesome Christmas decoration. Blood dripped from his feet to the ground.

Wooyoung desperately wanted it to stop. Wanted to see no more dead children, but they had already taken the next girl from in front of him and he hadn't even noticed it. Her precious blood got collected once more as her youthful face lost all shine. Choked up by his helplessness and the fear that rendered him useless, Wooyoung just stood there.

His brain must have detached from his body to save him some traumatic sights, because the next time he snapped back to consciousness, the girl's fingers slipped out of his. When she met his shocked eyes, she waved at him with her tiny hands and a reassuring smile.

Wooyoung stumbled after her with a wobble, but a guard thrust the flat part of his axe in front of Wooyoung's body so he would halt. Shocked, Wooyoung balanced precariously on his soft knees. He couldn't bear to look at the scene unfold. As if he could melt the snow if he stared long enough, he glared at the dirtied white spread until the woman finished her round with her bowl. Only once the tiny body of the girl had been dragged off to dangle with the other three from the trees, Wooyoung dared to look up.