Memento vitae || Jongsang

5| Vesanus

Screams burst lungs with failing air. The ringing pleas in the middle of the chaos linger in the air even after sounds have died out, attacking him with invisibility and strong demands for him to listen docilely. The snarling against his throat leaves his entire self wishing that he just would have bent to the first words of warnings. But somewhere in between the crackling nerves, he still finds the excitement to brush the surface with its uneven fizzling.

"You lied to me.."

The boy feels the words brush against his neck as it motions his hair a little forward to fall down in his eyes. He wets his lips in anticipation of the hands slowly slithering down his arms, "I did not," Yeosang answers with a hoarse tone to his voice. And then the hands fasten around his wrists, nearly pushing the sword out of his hand at the strong pull. Jongho does not say anything when he forces him out of the inn. They step across the amounts of blood spilled on the floor and Yeosang adverts his bloodred orbs a last time around at the fallen bodies among distorted limbs and flesh. Not a single heart is alive inside any ribcage anymore.

Rough hands tear the boy out of his overflooding senses and Jongho growls at him while pushing him through the door.

"You killed the last ones," Yeosang voices at the notice, but the knight does not seem any delighted at his statement, no, instead his expression only tightens as his hands do, "I did, so that no one would be an eyewitness to what has happened here. Although it seems like some still managed to flee. Now walk, we have to come as far away from here as possible before they send anyone to catch us."

Light is caught in his face, raw rays shining into his eyes and he turns his head to glance at the way it makes the fresh blood glisten macabrely in Jongho's face. If Yeosang's hands hadn't been so tightly held on his back, he would have reached out to caress Jongho's cheek, perhaps to soothe the other's anger in his eyes. But Yeosang can only look at him from the corners of his eyes, letting the harsh stare overlook him as he is pushed further forward to the building where they left their horses the prior day.

The door is violently swung open, startling the animals inside greatly. Jongho ignores it all, his eyes focused on something that Yeosang cannot seem to figure out what is. Not that it matters anyway, he thinks, when he is pressed up against wooden boards before the other let go of him to equip their horses with whatever he can find in the small stable. Jongho bustles around, pulling things from sloping wooden posts and grand nails as he manages to finish not very much later. Yeosang has not dared move away from his spot, at least not until the knight started fixing his eyes in the direction at him. Scuttling around, he inserts his sword into the sheath, pulls the reins out of Jongho's hand and they are off to go.

The streets are slowly filling with bustling village people which makes it harder to hide their stained attires in the still-growing daylight. Although they are keeping their distance at the sight of the fierce warriors, it is still that a child is running away, most likely to inform the parents of the odd passerbys.

Yeosang glances to the side, but without a reciprocated eye, the other knight nudges his horse to trot down the way across the muddy cobblestones and the boy follows his demeanor to escape the village as soon as possible. There is no doubt that Jongho must have heard what the inn owner told Yeosang before he killed him, for Jongho knows exactly where they are going. And Yeosang cannot stop thinking of how many times the knight has been thrown commands he was forced to attend. He sighs and looks down at his hands. They are red and stained - it is only a matter of time before the gnawing guilt will get to him.

Soon each building has a longer gap to the next one, making places for smaller trees and plants to grow against the walls. The boy gazes around when the cobblestones beneath them fade too, and there beyond the slope of the hill, he sees what the inn owner hadn't been lying about. North he thinks, looking over at Jongho's back who works his horse's movements like a flowing river, so natural.