*Author's note: I made this story in 2019, and I read it again three days ago, and decided, I hate it. So I rewrote the whole thing.
4 March 1980
It was suddenly became so silent in the wood.
Something must be wrong with his eardrums; why else would there be a ringing sound in there, instead of the previous shouting.
The night sky had frozen. For the first time in his life, the world felt so displaced in his reality; like it wasn't real. Like it was just a dream. So the little boy tried to find proof that ..this thing is happening? by rising his small hands.
He stared.
His small hands, ..why are they trembling so much?
Slowly another sound started to accompany the ringing.
...a harsh breathing.
Whose breathing was this, it should not be his, because he was supposed to be quiet. His order was not to be heard. Yet, this ringing.. This harsh breathing.. They were too loud! And then he just realized. His chest hurts.
.. I CAN'T BREATH!
His reliable legs decided it was time to crumble, so he fell down hard on the cold ground.
Why?
What happened?
The harsh breathing continued on. No, he knew what happened. He just refused to believe it until he checked the sight in front of him again, and again.
And again.
After ultimately confirmed what he had thought was correct, his mind suddenly became cleared. The heartbeats slowly return to the normal rates.
Dup.. dup..
The ringing was no longer there. And he could hear, once again,
.. the wind rustling the leaves.
.. the sound of faraway animals escaping from the situation in the wood.
.. and several pieces of meat stuck on the trunk, branches, and leaves; falling down.
.. Tak
.. Tak
..Tak.
The young boy could practically felt every parts of his being shuddered violently. His eyes hurt from widening too much. He hadn't even closed them yet since that moment happened.
His throat felt strangely parched. The inside of his mouth felt like it was stuffed with sand. Something inside of him determinedly squeezing his heart. Without realizing it, tears already streaming down his small young face. All he could do now, was stare, -while clenching his jaws hard enough, his teeth would break. His state was a mess.
The young boy clutched the grass around him in a tight fist. But strangely, he felt... free.
..should.. should I be happy?, he pondered.
.. I.. I don't... he didn't know what to feel. He tried to ask for forgiveness.
".. I'm sor.."
No.
The young boy stopped. He was not sorry.
He looked at the mess in front of him again.
He was a young boy, that of age should still be cuddling with their parents. A boy of five years old.
He was a young boy with clothes so torn, it was a miracle they still retain a somewhat shape and still enveloping the boy, but the condition they were in was so dirty. With blood. Old and new.
The little boy sat trembling with tears streaming his face, eyes bloodshot from opening too long. He didn't know he also had wet himself from seeing such a nightmarish scene. Pieces of long and bloodied intestines were sprawled here and there. Bones were spluttered into pieces. The evidence of blood exploding tainting the trees and surrounding bushes. Something is rolling.. The little boy could only watch it rolling with increasing sense of trepidation until the thing stopped by his shoeless-feet.
It was an eye.
The boy shoved both his hand into his mouth hard, and screamed a quiet cry. Oh.. he couldn't afford to be heard. Somewhere in his mind though, he wondered if they heard about the explosion. The bang was quite loud. He sobbed quietly. Snot and tears were getting salty in his mouth.
In the wood late at night, unaccompanied by any adult, he was just a child of five years old with no plan in his mind.
If it was the normal world, it would be nice to say that it was one of many accidents where children as reckless as they were would wandered off by themselves into the danger. But never a danger like this. Not a danger where it was kill, or be killed.
His mind flashed back to the memories before his escape. It was painful. He closed his eyes tight. He was the sole recipient of experimenting, and torturing, by the hands of black cloaking wizards and witches. He could still remember their faces. Their crazed-filled eyes, observing him like some kind of special specimen needed to be dissect. It was a nightmare like no others. His mind was ripped open several times, they were searching something within him. He didn't know what. But what he did know was how hurt the way his muscles strung so hard from several spasms. He could feel his body getting torn bit by bit. Days went by like that, he didn't know how to tell nights apart from the days because he was always kept in the basement. In the magic circle, his minds supplied. His torturers kept on changing day by day, but he already memorized all of their faces.
Five of them. Two women, three men..
His blood-shot eyes opened slowly. Well.. four. He let out a shaky breath. A sharp pain exist suddenly in his eyes. He pushed his hands into his eyes to ease the pain. What.. is happening?
This feeling was something new. The pain from his eyes then traveled to an area at the center of his brain. But as sudden as it came, it dispersed like nothing happened in the first place.
What the young boy didn't realize was; in the dark night with moonless sky, his irises had shone since before the whole accident happened, -it was only now that they hurt. A golden light. If only there were some people from his family saw that accident just now, then they would knew.
As it was, the young child could only sat with a trembling body. He was tired. He just wanted to go back to his brothers. But his legs won't cooperate with him. So he could only sat there, allowing the splattered blood to dry on his cold skin. His pair of eyes still won't take off from examining the mess..
..again.
Until the umpteenth time, until he checked that yes, he was no longer there, he's dead.. he doesn't even have a body anymore; did the boy feel a sigh left his body.
A strong smell of iron assaulted his nose.
.. aaa..."
".. ahhhh.."
"... wahhh."
Should he cry? He should be quiet..
Should he cry?
".. waahhhhh."
But he checked the mess again, and they were there, -when previously it was a person. That man with dark magic had an energy so intense, the child could felt it emanating in the form of haze surrounded him. That man had a deep-seated purpose of chasing him so deep into the woods. He was going to punish him, - he was going to cast the most painful Unforgivable curse to the little boy who dared to escape.
So the young boy stared at the sight again. He's dead. It was a sight no young child should witness, -but somehow, witnessing that allowing a feeling like a knot loosen in his heart. He was no longer being chased. No one is going to hurt him anymore.
He cried. And cried. For the first time he ignored the order, he continued on crying.
"... aahh..",
The tears felt calming on his wet face. His eyes felt burning with all the rubbing his hands made. His snot got into his mouth. He just realized how tout his muscles were from all the running and escaping.
".. I'm.."
He took a breath. Let it out. And wondered if he should felt grateful. He knew how this happened. How that man exploded. He had heard about it from his brothers and uncles.
Some wizards had it easy with their first magic. Their accidental magic didn't occur when their lives were threatened. His brothers for example, evoked their first magic when they were over the age of five, and they particularly let out a powerful emotion such as anger, sadness, astonishment or happiness. The accidents usually ended with things flying around, or changing color, or just changing the shapes.
But his..
.. it started with a bang.
When the crying became too much, he stopped. Perhaps too suddenly. The boy didn't know how to act. He just felt he had to stop.
Again, he studied the mess before him. A calm he never had, entered his mind.
"... finally.. it's finally.."
the corners of his lips slowly lifted.
They shouldn't.
But the boy could not find it in himself to care.