The Afterlife

33) To Those who Fought, and were Fought For

When birds sing and nature moves the same way it had for an eternity, is it really quiet, or is the world loud in its own way? When the world keeps turning, and my heart keeps beating the same way it had for as long as I lived, is it really quiet, or are we in a silent chaos?

The green land spread to the horizon, taking up space as far as the eye can see, and the silence hedged all those standing. It was tranquility, then, that caused said silence, but downright incredulity.

The countless eyes standing among the grass stared down at what marred it with wide eyes and glued shot lips; no one dared speak a word, not when their hearts shrieked with pain, not when their chests were about to combust, and not even when the disbelief made it so much to their heads that they felt insane, dead.

With so little at hand to do, and in a moment of sheer desperation, Yun raised her head to the sky the same time the pious man raised his voice, reciting prayer that reverberated across the field. Her red eyes stared back at the sky as her lips quivered and finally let go of their pain.

"Why?" While some of the eyes around her turned to her, the man before them all kept going, his voice overshadowing all else. "How is this fair- why?" Yun had no idea whom she was speaking to, but her eyes wrre fixated on that one spot in the sky while her hands clutched her chest. "How could you- she was so young."

When Yun looked back down, the three holes in the earth before her were still the same, staring back at her like all three of them were made for her. They were dug deep and wide, and beside each lied its respective inhabitant, except for one.

While two of the robes defined a visible body, the third one, the nearest to Yun, was frail and barely held its shape, round over nothing as it fell close to the earth. Yun held her breath, looking down at the quilt as if it was about to rise and choke her; it was suffocating - just looking at it - and no matter how hardly Yun wanted peace to come to her upon looking at her beloved, she could not.

Yun cried, a long and loud wail as she fell to ground, hitting the white knuckles of her fist again and again against her chest, "why?" Her body leaned against the ground and back up, enclosing on itself to reduce the pain then rising to held her take in a heavy breath, "why, Mia, why? Why did we have to fight?"

"Yun-"

"Why did you have to leave?" Yun could barely hear anything but her own grief; she could hear nothing but her quarrel with Mia, and she saw nothing but herself looking away from the older girl and convincing herself that it would be easier to talk once they were home. "You are running away, again," Yun fisted the ground then, and she put the grass tightly between her fingers, "you are hiding, again."

From all around her, no one dared ask of her to even breathe properly, not when they were all incapable of doing it themselves. The pain was inevitable, and its reasons were countless, solely lying before their eyes as a grim reminder of itself and how it shall never be erasable.

From all around her, families of the two fallen officers were in ruins. While some held their grounds and shed tears in silence, others sobbed in pain, one the likes of which they would not feel if the world was on the verge of ending. In fact, they were wishing for it to end right there, and not a single soul dared oppose them.

Taehyung could not even raise his head from the ground; when he did, he saw Yunho's wife holding her child, too silent for a moment like this, too silent as if she was struck in the throat and not even tears found way out from the damage. He saw Yeji and Yoongi holding one another's hands, and he could hear them talking to San, whispering to his soulless body that it should now be at joy, for he was joining his beloved that they long lost and once fought for.