Hold Your Breath | Man x Boy |

⊶»﴾ 𝟷𝟷. 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 ﴿«⊷

・⥋【𝐒 𝐂 𝐘 𝐓 𝐇 𝐄】⥋・

・⥋ 【𝙳𝚊𝚢 𝟸𝟹】【𝟸𝟸:𝟸𝟷:𝟹𝟺:𝟻𝟽】⥋・

It was just hitting dusk when they finished setting up the campsite, this time in Dzhdǒk. He'd picked this spot intentionally, as the campsite was in earshot of the hot spring and vice versa. He'd be able to keep an ear out for Röfyenlyi-Dyá, and still... do whatever with Dvyuh-Dyá. At the thought, Scythe couldn't help but glance up and run his eyes over him, his heart stalling in his chest a little as he took in the sight of him.

He was pretty, way too pretty in Scythe's opinion. He thought girls were supposed to be the pretty ones, the fuck is up with that anyway? He didn't know what it was that made his heart feel... weird when he was around. Sometimes it'd beat too fast, which was inconvenient, and sometimes it felt as though it were light. His voice, Ôtké, drove him insane, it was so soft and warm. He'd never felt this way about anyone before, and yet... here he was. Admiring Dvyuh-Dyá from a distance, unable to tear his eyes away from him. He just couldn't make sense of it.

He was beginning to recognize what the feelings he had meant, though, and that was... terrifying on its own. He doubted he was capable of living a life... that was normal in any capacity anymore, after having been here so long. He was one of the lucky ones, though, he survived and that's more than most people who end up here can say. He was lucky, he came into it expecting to die from the moment his feet hit the soil.

It was so long ago, he couldn't remember dates or anything—but he'd only been seven. At this point, his parents and siblings were all distant memories that he couldn't place. He didn't think that he'd be able to recognize them if they had his face tattooed in gold on their forehead. He had known all along what his fate would be, he had never thought that he'd survive.

He had lied to Dvyuh-Dyá, by saying that he didn't know where they were or how they got there. He didn't have a lot of memories, but he remembered one thing: the moment his father told him that his name had been one of the 300 picked to be sacrificed to the goddess of destruction, Kivbawdh. Kivbawdh was powerful, entombed in a realm outside of the space-time continuum, with all of the power of the gods and goddesses combined.

Even with all of the power of the gods and goddesses combined, they aren't strong enough to hold her in place if she tries to fight back, so instead... they offer up sacrifices, all of the timelines, not just his. Some of them paint it as the people go missing, their families never get closure but the quota is met. Some are drugged and dropped here because it's assumed they'll die within minutes of hitting the ground so some convince themselves it is more charitable for them to never even know what happened.

Every timeline is a little different, the more different the farther down the line it is. There are limitless possibilities for each timeline, nothing is the same anywhere, whether it be slight changes like the map being backward to mannerisms and everything in between—even if everything looks the same, it's not. Dvyuh-Dyá didn't know anything about this place, which signified to Scythe that he probably wasn't informed of the existence of this place at all. Whether from malice or negligence either way, whoever hadn't told him had done him a grave disservice, as it's impossible to survive if you go into it not knowing you're going into it.

Scythe felt somewhat lucky that he'd known before coming, it made the transition easier to stomach if nothing else. But, telling Dvyuh-Dyá that he'd been sacrificed by not only his family but the world he lived in as well, was... not an easy task. It weighed on Scythe heavily, part of him wanting to tell him, but the other part being too afraid to.