Chapter 1: Echoes
"This is still a dream. I don't need to see this again. I know she died, I don't want to see her die."
When Willow opened his eyes, he came back to his nightmare from 3 months ago. They were still running, him, his friends, her. Running away from everything, wielding their weapons, trying to survive. He blinked once more, the sky was as dark as he remembered, but light shone just enough to glare from his friends' swords and armor.
"There's a hill up ahead. You guys stay here." Said one bearing a helmet and two swords. He nodded to his twin sister as they begin to climb the hill.
His friend who boasts iron armor raised his arm in confirmation, he as with the others were too tired to continue, so this rest was much appreciated. "How are they able to keep moving after all of this?" He muttered between gasps. The fully armored man finally collapsed onto his knees for a breath, lifting up his head to occasionally check on the twins on the hill.
"Wake up." Willow said to himself, but his dreaming self never heard him, as he continued to relive this nightmare. His dreaming self continued to look at nothing at the woods behind him, still never realizing the skeleton that was aiming its bow at him. Oh, how he wished it had hit him.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have screamed her last words trying to save him, "Huang!" She tackled the coated teen, but not in time to save them both completely. The arrow aimed at the heart punctured the slender neck of the girl. There she had her final moments in a horrid blend of choking, gasping, and drowning in her own blood. Willow watched it all helplessly on his lap; it was the most clear thing of this whole blasted nightmare. He looked to the skeleton and then his vision slowly began to saturate to white. In these final moments in his dreams, he was screaming, punching the pasty white skull of the skeleton with no avail, for it continued to cackle like a mocking laugh before Willow returned several months later to reality.
Willow stared at the ceiling for some time, thinking back at what he could have done to fix what happened back then. Yet he knew it would not change the fact that nothing will change in the reality he's in. When he heard knocking at the door, he recomposed himself to wipe his eyes, pulled himself off of his bed, and grabbed his silver hoodie; a woman's unwanted long silver coat redesigned to fit him and "her," a fun project they had together. The stitching on the inside was amateur since they had removed the stuffing of the inside and botched up the stitching. The zipper was short, and it only zipped up the coat above his solar plexus and below his collar bone, exposing a portion of his abdomen and chest. They didn't have the money for a longer zipper, but they never minded after since the hot days got hotter and the coat provided both shade and insulation to cool them both. The lining of the sleeves and hood were neatly done from repeated attempts to fix it. The hood, however, has a battle scar from the time of the nightmare. He never recalled, but it was a puncture from an arrow when he had blindly bludgeoned a large mass of mobs in his rage. That hole was a reminder, that he again, was helpless to do anything even after he trained, tried, failed, and failed again.
The door opened from downstairs, Willow heard a familiar voice, playful, despite all situations. "Willow are you awake?!" Willow swiftly put on his coat when he heard the sound of his friend's boots clapping up the stairs. He gave a satisfied sigh when he felt the fabric touch his calf and opened the door. It swung out, so it nearly struck his friend, who jumped back in reaction.
"Good Morning Axle." Willow said. The image of the young man who bore the iron armor and sword was still in his head as he looked at his friend who wore something far less intimidating. Tan pants, red shirt, and a black bomber jacket.
Axle said back with a cheeky grin, "'morning Will. How's dreamland?" He listed up a fist, which met with a soft jab from Willow.
"Same nightmare."
"Ah. How about we go hunting to take your mind off things?"
"Aren't we supposed to be hunting anyways?" Willow gave Axle a quick jab to his shoulder before passing him on the indoor balcony and walking down the stairs. "Also, didn't I tell you no shoes in the house?"
They left Willow's house, a more modern looking wooden house that stands to the far right of the settlement that they built with every house facing away from a cliff of a large hill. The center house was a stone building almost similar of that of a church- it was Axle's house. He was an adopted son of a priest so he had taken a more casual approach to anything religious. The twins' house was a wide flat one story building with a farm and garden coming out of the left of the house. There, Axle saw Ria, who he had been dating for a few months over the winter, and ran to her calling out her name. She was watering her new crops but stopped to meet her lover who was leaning over the fence. Willow saw Rios and ran around the fence to where he was feeding and milking the cows. Rios saw Willow at the corner of his eye and waved to him. "Hey are you two going out?" Rios fixed his tool belt before getting up to high-five Willow. "I know you're probably getting sick of all of the meat but Spring is here."
"You're wearing your old clothes so I could tell."
Rios sighed, "Yeah." He looked at his older sister giggling with Axle, a blonde girl who wore a black v-neck shirt and a skirt to match, an opposite to Rios' white v-neck and blue jeans. Her red puffy vest was a present from Axle when they discovered a nearby city and bought supplies and clothes for the winter. Willow never bothered with clothes, since he was fine with just his black silk pants and his coat even over the winter.
Rios checked that Willow had everything he needed; his bow that was looped over his shoulder, his quiver filled with a few arrows on his belt like a sword, and his old mentor's knife sheathed horizontally on his back. Then he looked at the food pouch Willow always carries on his left belt, it was sagging a bit from being filled with less food than usual. "Come back with a lot of food, we'll give you a bunch of veggies in return, yeah?"
"That would sound nice." Willow waved to Axle to grab his attention and pointed towards the woods. Axle pecked Ria's lips then jogged to chase after Willow.
In the woods, Axle is barely any help for hunting, but he is a great person to lift up your spirits- even for a person who rarely ever smiles like Willow. The start of the hunt was unsuccessful since there was almost nothing to hunt, despite the spring air wafting the obvious scents of what was supposed to be nearby pigs, chickens, cows, and sheep. Axle cried out in agony, "I'm hungry! Where's my bacon?!"
"I think it's because they hear your stomach."
"It's not that bad is it?" Upon him saying that, Axle's stomach growled. He leaned over to cover his stomach, almost right into the path of the arrow that Willow had shot. It narrowly killed him, so much so that Axle could see parts of his chestnut hair glittering down in front of his face. He beamed at Willow, "You almost killed me."
"It's getting away." Willow began chasing after the game.
"What about my wife and kids?!"
That was enough to stop the teen from both confusion and disgust. "You two copulated?" There was an awkward silence between the two. "The pigs getting away."
"Yeah yeah I got it." Axle unsheathed his iron sword and sprinted after the injured pig fleeing limping between the trees whilst yelling his new war cry on the way there, "It was a joke dang it!" Willow chuckled and continued to observe the woods, there he saw a spec of dark purple at the corner of his eye. Was he that close to her grave- a block of purple wool and a stone slab? He didn't want to know. He had mixed feelings about her grave, never wanting to see it because he buried her himself or longing so much to talk to her again. Yet he turned his back to it and walked further into the woods- he needs to stop yearning to mope into depression again and get food for everyone. He needs to because his friends are who he has now.
As the sky turned from a blue to a warm orange, the two hunters returned home with an unsuccessful haul of less than a dozen servings of meat. Willow was munching on a piece of stale bread while they were on their march home from the plains outside of the woods. Axle was the first to break the silence between the two. "I just remembered, what's a 'Huang?'" Willow didn't catch it at first so Axle asked again. "What's a 'Huang?'" Willow swallowed the bits of bread left in his mouth and stored the rest in the pouch, he was no longer hungry. "What is it? A hero's yell you and Night decided together or something? Or- or a name of a special move she has and said it while tackling you?"
"I suggest you drop it."
"Was it the bone bag I murdered?" Willow glared at his friend. "Right, difficult topic. Got it."
"We might need to come back tomorrow."
"Yep."
"You're not coming with me."
"Ye- Hey!" The two exchanged a punch and laughed. When they entered the woods, it was close to night time. The sound of the crack of twigs brought them a sense of seriousness. It was around the time when mobs spawn; the undead and various other hostile creatures lurking from the darkness to harm people. The two began to increase their pace into the woods, looking out for any glimpse of the stone cross that is the top of Axle's home. A nearby twig snapping made the two halt and hide behind a tree. Axle pulled out his sword and whispered, "That sounded close." Willow took out his bow and primed an arrow. He motioned that he was ready. Axle sprinted at the direction of the sound and was immediately met with an arrow. However, the arrow was not flying straight and the shaft slapped him across the face. The impact made him stumble but he had his sword ready again. Another arrow came from the darkness but was met with another arrow from Willow. Axle went to charge in but was blind sided and was brought to the ground, above him was 3 pairs of glowing red eyes. It could have been a spider, but spiders have eight eyes, not six, and this thing felt particularly... human.
Willow dropped his bow and tackled the thing straddling Axle and pulled his dagger to finish it off, only to stop the blade just inches away from a human face. An adolescent girl at that. "What?" Axle threw a dirt block over Willow to block another arrow, but this arrow wasn't flying straight as well, and bounced off the block. "Axle, look!" Axle place another block on top of the first dirt block to act as a shield, while Willow dropped a torch nearby. The girl was panting heavily, weak from exhaustion and from the pain on her ribs from the impact. Willow looked up at Axle for what to do. "Axle?"
Another person appeared from behind the blocks of dirt, aiming her bow at Willow and leaning against the dirt block to support her. She demanded in broken voice, "Get away from her." Axle dropped his sword and got between the silver haired woman and her target.
"Hold up, we're not going to hurt you. We're not going to hurt you." Axle held up his hands to prove that he's not trying to be a danger right now, then turned to Willow and commanded in gritted teeth, "Put away the knife." Willow threw the knife by Axle's sword and backed off from the girl on the ground, who got up to hold her side. Both of the girls were in terrible shape, both were able to fight but could only do so in short bursts of adrenaline, so the woman released the stress from her bow and collapsed to her knees.
Willow then had an idea. He took out the bread from his pouch and split it in half, giving one portion to the purple haired girl on the ground. "Here, food." The girl was reluctant to take it at first then grabbed it quickly after her stomach rumbled. She choked slightly from the taste of the stale bread, but proceeded to stuff it in her face. Axle followed the idea and gave the other girl a portion of the food he has, which was a piece of dried meat. Axle then offered the other girl some meat and Willow did the same with the other. While the girls were devouring their dry feast, the two guys sat down for their own little break and observed the two girls. The younger girl looked around Willow's age, fifteen or sixteen- wearing lots of dark colors on a slender figure and blood red hair ornaments matches the color of her eyes. Her purple hair is long and is in a messy ponytail, showing that she hasn't been taking care of it for an extended period of time. The archer was a silver haired girl in pigtails, wearing... only a grey beanie, gloves, vest, and shorts. Didn't help the guys much that she was also very well bodied and revealing way more than a woman should be.
Axle broke the silence between all of them, "I'm Axle by the way," he said, "this guy is Willow. We're a little desperate when it comes food at the moment so sorry that the food isn't much."
The older girl responded, "Hello Axle, Willow." She gave a small bow and continued, "Thank you for the food, but we'll be leaving."
"Where?"
The two girls gave a look at each other, "Nowhere actually."
"So you're just getting by?" The older one gave a shy nod. "Why don't you come with us?" Axle leaned over to loop his arm over Willow and grinned. "Us survivors gotta stick together, right?"
She responded immediately, "No, thank you." She cringed with the fact that she was used to saying that.
The purple haired girl, who was savoring the piece of dried meat she had, spoke out, "You two aren't being very convincing." then resumed back to nibbling her little snack.
Axle released a sigh. "Well I tried." He said casually. He then reached into his sack and pulled out a few pieces of the game they had acquired. "Here."
Willow tried to stop him, "Axle."
"Ria's growing stuff, remember? We'll get more food tomorrow- these girls need this more than we do." The young teen looked at the red eyes looking back at him and conceded. Axle placed the pieces of meat in a sack, dropped it in front of the girls, and picked up his sword to leave. Willow followed suit and bid his farewell.
The silver haired girl picked up the sack and ran to them, "Wait! We'll go with you."
The other girl reacted poorly from her decision and chocked on her snack, "What?! Yurei!"
"I-I actually think it's best to go. Silk, at this rate, even I don't know how long we're going to last on our own and we have nothing to lose." She shoved the sack back to Axle, who put it back in his bag and offered his fist up for a fist bump, which Yurei returned with a shy smile. Willow returned to Silk to give her a helping hand up, but she brushed his hand away and got up on her own. He then shrugged and picked up Yurei's bow and torch instead.
Axle turned to lead the way and Willow returned the bow to its original owner and followed his friend. Yurei and Silk are behind them. As they continued further into the woods, Willow spotted some lighting deep into the woods and turned leading a path to their settlement.
Silk, however, was more distracted by her snack and by the time that she had popped the last few pieces in her mouth, she realized that she had been left behind. "Ah fuck." She retraced her steps but the other three were nowhere to be found. She began to get worried and ran to a random direction. Her failing vision from exhaustion made her completely miss the one block drop and landed poorly, twisting her ankle and forcing her on her back. When she tried to get back up, she felt a sharp sting on her left ankle. She needs to find them. She hopped around to look for any traces of them and heard the sound of a twig breaking. It has to be them. "You jerks, you forgot about me." She hopped to look around the tree, and to her horror, she was met with a zombie. The surprise caused her to scream and fall on her behind. The undead started its hobble to the poor girl, for she is unable to fight with her ankle in this mess. As the zombie got closer, it was more apparent that there was nothing she could do to escape or fight. Then the zombie got shot by an arrow, punching it away from Silk. The then recuperated zombie got kneed in the face by Willow. The zombie fell on its back, and Willow stepped on the zombie's chest to prevent it from getting back up. Then he finished it off by releasing one last arrow into its face.
When the zombie vanished into a cloud of smoke, Willow ran over to the girl on the ground and asked, "Can you get up?" Silk slowly got back up but it was obvious that she couldn't stand up properly. It was getting darker, so the longer the two of them stay in the woods, the more in danger they are. Willow, feeling more pressed for time, decided that he should just pick her up instead of letting her hop through the woods. He wrapped his arms around her shoulder and the bend of her legs and lifted her up.
The action itself was a first for them both; Willow nearly dropping her at first and Silk giving a very subtle protest by palming his face and kicking about and screaming into his ear, "Put me down!"
"I know this is a bad time to say this, but do you want to hear something?" Silk slowed her kicking to listen and Willow began walking back to the direction he had came from. He closed his eyes to look back at the world he had ran away from, a time when he and Nightingale would just hang out, play, and forget about their daily lives in the desert village. "I had a friend, one that everyone knew. She'd go around hanging out with oddballs like the rest of us. Saying that, 'Everyone had their days to go.' Go have fun, work, or even just surviving like every other person. She taught me that what I was dealing with was something so small. She taught Axle that his sword fighting could still save someone. She even taught Ria and Rios, the other two friends living with us, something. So we're going to be just like her, treating you, Yurei, and everyone else like they have so much to live for." When he emerged from the woods back into the settlement, he soon realized that the kicking and punching had stopped completely because she had fallen asleep in his arms and he hadn't realized it. He couldn't tell if she was too exhausted or he put her to sleep from his rambling about the unnecessary. Ria had emerged from Axle's house to check on the girl in his arms. "Where's Yurei?"
"In my house. Willow, I asked you to bring back food! People aren't food!" Willow knew she was joking around and motioned that Silk's ankle was sprained badly. "I'll bring some potions for her tomorrow, I have to look for some for Yurei as well."
"Why isn't Yurei in Axle's house?"
Ria beamed at Willow, "Mine." The fact that Axle came home with a girl she didn't know of made her really jealous, so Ria wanted to make sure that Yurei had some distance from Axle and stuck Yurei with her brother. However she didn't consider the fact that there was another girl the duo had saved and Silk was forced to go live with Willow. "Make sure she doesn't move her foot. You can use that med-kit we gave you." By med-kit, she means the chest his friends forcibly gave him by barging into his house, placing a chest in his bathroom, and dropping basic medical supplies into it so Willow would be prepared for any injuries he would sustain.
Willow brought Silk into his home, upstairs to his room where he laid her on his bed. He ran into the bathroom to grab a bandage and a small wooden plank as a splint for Silk's ankle and stopped himself- he realized that he has to do something rather bothersome to help her. Willow has to remove Silk's shoes and socks to put on her splint properly. He could already hear her screaming in his head at the thought of having to remove them himself. He gave a long sigh and sat himself at the foot of the bed and unfastened her slippers. Willow took a deep breath and tugged on the cuff of Silk's thigh-high sock and pulled very delicately to avoid waking her up. Each inch that he pulled the sock was tormenting, and when he finally took it off, Silk made a small groan that nearly gave Willow a heart attack. He quickly got to work on the splint, a wood plank to straighten the foot and a bandage the immobilize the joints. He sat back against the wall and began rub his nose while he contemplated life as he actually, despite partially, unclothed a member of the opposite sex. He gave one last sigh before trying to force himself back to sleep.
