Remains

Chapter 3. River of dead

Awareness came gradually along with a throbbing headache and searing pain in his arm. Leon opened his eyes, blinked, adjusting to the surrounding half-darkness. The faint light of dawn, pouring through the window wall of the backyard, was not enough to fully brighten the room.

His gaze immediately went down to inspect his injured limb – he was a son of two doctors, the danger of infection had been ingrained into his brain from the moment he received his first knee scrape – only to see that it had already been taken care off.

White bandages covering the whole length of his arm seemingly glowed in the room's dimness. What was left of the sleeve of his hoodie after catching fire had been cut in two and carefully peeled off of his flesh. He could still spot gauzes and various other things strewed around the couch, table, and floor.

Leon's eyes drifted to his other side.

Law was soundly asleep with his head resting on his brother's uninjured shoulder.

The teen's head plopped back to rest on the couch, a sigh escaping his parched lips. He closed his eyes, thinking over what they should do now. Whatever way out his father had found was now lost. He wondered if Kian's family survived and was still planning to leave…

The image of his best friend getting his brains blown up slivered to the forefront of his mind again. The sight of his parents' bodies, riddled with bullets; his burning and screaming sister…

Leon's eyes snapped open, his breathing suddenly fast and uneven. His stomach churned, the taste of acid burning at the back of his throat.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. Right. No closing his eyes for him. All those memories mixed with products of his imagination didn't help to keep him sane, and he needed to be as sharp as possible.

His gaze wandered down to his little brother again. They also required supplies if they wanted to stay alive, escape Flevance, and reach Ononola Island. How they were going to do that was still beyond Leon, but he would think of something.

He had already failed Lami, but he would absolutely not fail Law.

Footsteps on the front porch jolted him out of his thoughts. He tensed, prickling his ears, hoping against all hope that it was just his newly developed paranoia talking…

He didn't even have to listen, because the front door was kicked open with a bang and someone walked in, shouting to someone to hurry up.

Damn those scavengers for working in pairs.

Leon instantly acted on his first idea: he slapped a hand on Law's mouth and dragged him down to the floor. Fearful amber eyes focused on him and he put a finger on his mouth, then pointed towards the kitchen where looters were rummaging around noisily.

Leon let Law go only when he received a nod and tugged his sleeve to follow him. Bit by bit, trying not to make even the slightest sound, they crawled around the couch. From there, the doors leading to their backyard was just a few steps away…

Deep laughter at the entrance of the living room startled them both. Law pressed a hand on his own mouth to not accidentally let even a single syllable out.

The man seemed to pause at the other end of the couch. "Ooh, we might have someone alive here, Rollo!" he hollered to his partner. "Just look at all these used medical supplies."

"Eeeh? They might have already left or more likely got killed already."

Leon glanced around, checked his pockets. The only thing that he could throw and distract the looters was Kian's notebook. He really didn't want to use it like that, but if it meant to save his baby brother–

A pat on his shoulder drew the teen's attention to said brother. The latter held out a small metallic box to him, his other fist full of tiny paper pockets – their mom's herb mixes – that he stuffed back into his jacket pocket.

A ghost of a smirk passed Leon's lips as he took the box. Great minds thought alike, huh. Cautiously peeking around the corner, he observed both soldiers for a bit until they had their backs turned, then threw the box across the living room towards the stairs to the second floor.

It hit the wooden floor with an acute ding, bounced off, hit it one more time and then rolled loudly until it came to a stop.

Both looters sprang out of the living room with their rifles raised.

That's when the brothers leaped from their hiding spot, ripped the door open, and dashed outside.

Law stopped short at the fence, panic bubbling inside him because there was no way that he would manage to jump over it. Leon grabbed him from behind under his armpits and lifted him up, groaning painfully, but it was enough for the younger boy to latch at the top and with another push from his brother, he went over and dropped on the other side.

Leon backed up a bit to get a better running start. Bullets whizzed after him, but they ricocheted off of the metallic fence when the teen vaulted over it. His injured arm gave way, unable to completely keep his weight in this kind of activity, and he crashed to the ground.

"Leon!" Law exclaimed in alarm.

"'M fine…" Leon mumbled, suddenly feeling breathless, head spinning, but he was already pushing himself up, driven by flight instinct more than anything else. With some help from his brother, he was back up on his feet and running again.

After several minutes of wild blind fleeing, they both had to stop to catch their breath. Leon crouched down, cradling his right arm and curling in on himself, willing the agony away. His teeth were clenched so tightly that they threatened to shatter under the pressure.

Feeling a tentative warm touch on his head, he looked up; the worried face of his little brother met his tired golden eyes.

"Here," Law said, offering him something. "It's for the pain."

Leon took the paper pocket without a word and swallowed the herb mix dry, coughing when it got into his throat pipe.

The younger boy put a palm on the teen's forehead, scrunching his face in concentration. "You have a fever."

Leon pushed his hand away and stood up, swayed, but stubbornly stayed standing. "I'm fine, Law, don't worry."

His brother pinned him with a concerned glare, not believing his lame lies even for a moment. He opened his mouth to argue–

A guy rounded the corner, speaking with someone out of sight. "I think I heard someone talk–" he cut himself off and blinked in surprise when he saw the two kids.

For one long second, no one moved, just stared at each other.

Then the soldier lifted his gun.

The older boy grabbed his stunned brother and pressed him to his chest, shielding him from the inevitable.

The man pulled the trigger and the shot rang loudly in the deathly silence.

First thing Leon felt was buzzing in his ears, like someone stuffed bees inside of them. Then – a very tight pressure at the left side of his head and warm blood flowing down his neck and getting under his collar. His vision blurred. Pain set in last, unbearable, indescribable pain, like someone drilled a hole through his skull.

Honestly, there was nothing better than the blissful darkness that plucked him under.

Leon collapsed on top of Law and they both went down.

Law's first impulse was to scream, to shake his brother, to check if he was still alive, because, god, he could feel blood gushing out of his head wound, splattering everywhere on them, on the ground, and he just couldn't lose his brother, his last family, his last loved one, he just couldn't–

But he couldn't do any of that. He couldn't move, he couldn't think, he couldn't breathe…

Play dead, Law.

So, Law did. Fingers white where they gripped Leon's hoodie, eyes closed, and with the only thought going around and around in his head: go away, go away, go away…

Because his big brother always knew best.

"Did you get them, Crispin?" another soldier asked as he came from behind his friend.

…go away, go away, go away…

"Uhhhh…" the shooter drawled, uncertain. "I don't know? One definitely got hit, but the second doesn't seem to be moving either."

"So, go check them out. Maybe he just fainted, poor bugger."

…go away, go away, go away…

"No way, man! They are creepy, these white monsters," the soldier bemoaned. "What if he suddenly jumps and bites me? I might turn into one of them!"

His companion laughed, patting him on his shoulder. "So, just shoot them from afar to be sure. We need to hurry up, Captain's gonna be bitching at our team again. Hey, Eben, Basil, Jet, get your asses in the gear!" he shouted, walking away. "Those corpses won't crawl into the cart themselves even if you ask nicely!"

"Right…" Crispin muttered, lifting his rifle once more. "Shoot them from afar."

…no no no no no no no, go away, go away, go away…

Fear chained Law down, his heart racing, fingers curling painfully into Leon's hoodie material. The time screeched into a never-ending standstill.

…go away, go away, GO AWAY!

"Hey, Crispin! Tate's group encountered some infected survivors and having problems! We were asked to go as a backup, let's move!"

"Aye, Lieutenant!" the man yelled back, his weapon still trained on two boys.

"Hurry up, dumbass!"

The soldier cursed under his breath, but followed the order and rushed back to his team.

Black spots danced in Law's vision, his lungs screamed, and after few more moments, he allowed himself to gulp so much needed air. He still didn't dare to even twitch, so he lay there, his senses alert, listening.

Nothing. Just echoes of guns going off somewhere in the distance and fragments of shouts and screams.

"Oniisan?" he called, slightly shaking his big brother. No reaction. Law bit his lower lip, tears gathering in his eyes. He didn't let it fall though.

Gingerly, he shifted into sitting position with Leon's head left resting on his lap.

There was so much blood.

So much blood.

Why there was so much blood?

Law's hands were shaking. "Stop it," he hissed at himself, reaching to check the teen's pulse.

Nothing.

Panicking, he shifted his fingers, pressing harder, hoping… This time he felt it – the rhythmic beating of his brother's heart. Weak, but it was there.

Leon was alive. His oniisan was alive.

The boy took one precious minute to appreciate that fact, compose himself, and gather his thoughts. He couldn't stop shivering though. He examined Leon's head – so much blood! – delicately sifting through his black matted locks.

His brother always kept his hair longer than Law did and he loved to brush it away dramatically when he went on with his theatrics. Sometimes it got into his eyes, and mom always chided him for that–

There was no hole as far as Law could tell. The wound was deep and serious, the bullet dug across the whole length of his skull's left side, just above his ear, but it didn't go inside. Just a graze, if you could call this bleeding mess that.

Still, it was an extremely severe head trauma. The information Law had ever read or heard about such injuries flooded his mind without his consent, and he shuddered when he thought about all the imaginable repercussions.

Well, there wouldn't be any consequences at all if they get killed when those murderers came back. The boy looked around, his brain whirring with possibilities of good hiding spots.

Leon would know. He was so smart. Not book smart like Law was, but street smart, always knowing what to do and where to go and how to fix the world for his siblings as much as it was possible and always smiling when they needed to see it and getting serious when they required comfort–

Amber eyes slid past the cart full of dead people, left unattended in the middle of the street.

Play dead, Law.

His gaze backtracked.

Play dead, Law.

Law stared at the cart, then glanced down at his brother. That should work. Those people were afraid to even come close to check if they were dead or not so they wouldn't go out of their way to verify if all the corpses in there were corpses for sure. Better than to hide in the surrounding houses and be found without any means of escape. With his brother in this state…

So much blood–

Law slapped himself to stay focus on things at hand. And that was to get Leon into the cart.

Law awoke with a gasp, bruising touches of phantom hands still on his skin, dragging him down, down, down… to where all these unsettled souls ended up, snatched before their time. He instantly bit down on his lip, hard enough to make it bleed, tensing in fear to be detected.

The soldiers outside didn't seem to notice, occasionally sharing a few words between themselves. The cart sluggishly rolled forward, shaking and jolting on every bump, stone or someone's limb on the road.

Everyone around continued to stare at Law, glassy eyes and partially opened mouths demanding to know why.

Why?

WHY?!

The boy had no answers to give them.

Leon was still unconscious, but alive. For now. Law's clumsy attempts to stop the bleeding helped, but lying squashed between corpses definitely didn't.

Law gazed at his brother's pale face, sweaty and bloody, just inches from his own. "Don't die," he pleaded in an inaudible whisper. "P-Please, oniisan, don't die…"

Law completely lost track of time. He didn't know how long they were riding, but when the cart finally stopped, it caught him off guard. His heartbeat sped up, the anticipation of something happening too harrowing.

People were walking around, he could hear them. The boy prickled his ears. Someone barked the order to unload the cart, and it slightly sunk then a few people climbed on it.

Law's eyes widened. He didn't think about that!

The weight above started to decrease until the last body lying on top of two brothers was lifted and thrown to the side.

Law didn't move, keeping his eyes shut. He couldn't quite stop the trembling and muscles tensing when a pair of rough hands gripped his ankles and another pair – his wrists.

Perhaps those monsters didn't notice, perhaps they simply didn't care. Law was hurled over the edge of the cart and down into the pit without even a glance, like a sack of potato. He would have screamed, but fear seized his throat. He landed with an oof, his elbow hitting something hard, but it still was much softer when he'd expected from such height.

Corpses. He could see only corpses around him. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Old, young. Men, women. Lying in various positions, glazed eyes staring at the sky or following his every movement, asking, demanding to know why.

The pit wasn't that wide but deep enough and it stretched to both sides as far as Law could see, filled with dead people and with more being dropped from several different carts at once. The stench of blood and decay hung in the air like a heavy veil, almost visible with the naked eye – just reach out and touch it.

Law's eyes searched for only one person and one person only – his brother. Noticing him not that far, he scrambled up, at this very moment not really caring about being spotted by the enemy on the pit's edges. It was hard to move: limbs threatened to trip him, his feet slipping on blood and his leg getting stuck between two bodies.

Eventually, he made it.

The corpses hitting the bottom also stopped.

The people above disappeared, pulling the carts away for another round.

Law dragged Leon to the edge and collapsed there, hugging him like a lifeline. Sides of this nightmarish pit were too steep and too high for him to climb without help, even if he'd wanted to. With his brother in this condition (still alive, Law checked; the first thing he did upon reaching him), there was no way that he wanted to escape alone. And it was the middle of the day; he would have been spotted and killed.

Laughter – an insane, loud cackling – startled the boy. His head snapped towards the other side of the pit. There was a man standing, white shirt soaked red, arms thrown to the side, head turned up towards the heavens, and he just kept laughing.

A bullet between the man's eyes finally silenced him, courtesy of the passing soldier, followed by an angry, "If you're dead, stay dead!"

Law's arms around Leon tightened, afraid to make even the slightest sound, because they knew. Those murderers knew that some people they had thrown in were still alive. They simply didn't care.

Hatred – an insane, overwhelming loathing – grew roots, deep strong roots into his mind, heart, and soul like a macabre tree, pushing what was once important to the side, adding new dangerous ideas, twisting the personality and muddling up the rest.

These people, these monsters, these butchers…

Law bared his teeth.

He wanted to rip them all apart!

A wail echoed throughout the pit, a quiet, ghostly crying, audible only to those who shared the same fate, stuck in this hellhole.

The boy lowered his forehead on his brother's shoulder. Leon was all he got left and for him, Law was prepared to do anything.

The first thing that came to him was confusion. He didn't know where he was, how he got there, where he should be, what time of day it was, or what exactly happened. And why was everything swaying and hissing in his ears.

A headache came next, and he groaned. Just a dull, pulsating twinge which soon grew into soul-numbing pain, seemingly ready to burst his skull open at any given moment.

His stomach churned, acid rising up his throat. He managed to lean to the side before it all came out. He kept puking until there was nothing left and even then he continued to dry heave for a while.

Someone was speaking to him, but he couldn't quite make out what they were saying. It seemed as if the world was underwater, everything was moving in slow motion, and all sounds were garbled like a damaged recording. It was like a fog descended over all his senses.

He became aware of a hand, moving in soothing circles on his back.

They had been running, he and his little brother, he remembered. Running from the looters in their house. And then nothing.

He blinked, the disjointed haze receding to the point where he could make sense of the world around him. But his head was pounding, and he lifted his hand to press at it, or maybe rip it open instead, do something, anything to relieve the pain.

Someone caught his wrist.

"Leon-oniisan?"

Leon. Right. That was his name. He looked at the blurry figure, squinted. He knew that oddly shaped hat. "Law?" he croaked, his throat raw. The dry tongue was lying uncomfortably in his mouth. "What happen'?" he asked with a slight slur.

Law didn't reply right away. "You've been shot," he said quietly. "The bullet grazed your head, but didn't seem that it went inside."

Shot. Bullet. Head. Did he look like Kian now?

It took over half an hour for Leon to orient himself. He took in his surroundings calmly, a strange feeling of detachment taking over. No traces of shock, not fazed by finding himself in the mass grave in the slightest.

"–got thrown in here," Law finished explaining of what happened after he got shot (which Leon still couldn't recall and probably wouldn't). "I thought– I just wanted–"

"It was a good plan, Law." Leon put a hand on the top of his brother's hat, earning a startled, wide-eyed stare. "We're gonna get out of here," he said with confidence, unsure if he really felt this confident or was lying and not even realizing it. "We'll wait until night."

It was evening now. The sky was dark red, heavy clouds splashed with crimson, mirroring the bloody scenery below.

Sleep
let the demons in
to reave your dreams with their wings

They both whipped their heads towards the singing voice.

Sleep
leave your hopes behind
No one's left to guard your peace of mind

A woman was kneeling not far from them, a newborn baby resting in her arms. She stroked his cheek with the back of her palm lovingly, a twisted lullaby leaving her lips and weaving around anyone who listened, filling the rotting air in the pit like waves filled holes in beach sand.

Sleep
your road ends here
what remains inside is only fear

She put her baby down, slowly and carefully laying him into the crook of a deceased man's arm.

Sleep
for this story's over
and the wraiths are drawing closer

Her eyes glistened with tears as her hands moved to encircle the infant's neck.

Sleep
let the demons in tonight
to slay your soul and take your light

The brothers watched as the woman straightened up with the last syllable of her song, face shadowed by the blood-soaked hair. She pulled out a small pocket knife. Flicked it open. And slit her own throat with steady hands, without a moment's hesitation.

Leon tugged Law closer.

Neither uttered a word.

They waited.

Right before nightfall, the soldiers started to throw some kind of white powder into the pit. Bucket after bucket, the powder spread around, blanketing the river of the dead like snow.

Now they really became white monsters.

Leon sniffed at his hand covered with that stuff. Even through the stench of decaying bodies, he could smell chemicals. For what purpose, was beyond him.

After people above dispersed, brothers waited a few more hours. Deciding that it was safe to act, Leon nudged Law, who was just staring blankly into the distance and attempted to stand.

The world tilted, his stomach lurched, forcing its way up and out. The teen doubled over, falling on his knees. Nausea ceased as quickly as it started, leaving him paler than a sheet of paper and lathered in sweat.

"Oniisan?"

He didn't reply, afraid that if he opened his mouth, his guts would just spill on the clammy body under his trembling hands. Instead, Leon opted at getting himself on his feet. He managed, somehow.

The boy studied the side and ledge of the pit, then glanced down at his younger brother.

They looked like those wraiths from the woman's lullaby.

"Up," Leon croaked, motioning at the ledge with his head.

Law would have probably argued about going first if he hadn't been this exhausted. With a boost from below, he climbed it in no time.

However, it took lots of failed attempts for Leon to get out of the pit. Fruitless efforts pushed him to the point where he suggested for Law to go and leave him behind. However, his little brother shot it down with a flat refusal before he even finished the sentence.

Damn stubborn brat.

Ultimately, they made it, collapsing into a heap and allowing themselves a few precious minutes to rest.

The once grand city of Flevance was silhouetted against the bright glow of fires that still rampaged around it uncontrollably. The pit was located in the empty field at the outskirts, along the forest's line, stretching into the horizon on one side, but brothers could see the ending on another.

That's where they went, despite the enemy camp being right next to it. There were no patrols – who would need to patrol the dead? – and as they drew closer, drunken racket reached their ears.

Those monsters were celebrating the mindless slaughter of hundreds of thousands innocent people.

The boys silently made their way towards the camp, carefully sneaking around the edges where the light from bonfires couldn't reach. They were almost through, the safety of the forest only a few feet away, when a soldier stumbled out of the bushes, hands still tugging his pants up.

Leon and Law froze, their hearts instantly jumping into their throats, but all they could do was wait helplessly. There was no strength left to fight or run.

The man stared at the two children, unblinking. Slowly, all the blood drained from his face and his eyes widened until they were as wide as saucers. "G-G-Ghosts…" he stammered out, pointing a trembling finger at them. "Ghosts… Ghosts! Oh my god, it's ghosts! GHOSTS!" Screaming his head off, the drunkard dashed into the camp.

Two ghosts didn't wait for an audience and immediately moved into the forest, disappearing without a trace.