I sit on the sand with my legs crossed. I grabbed a handful of soaked sand and slapped it onto the pile of sand I am creating. I pull out one of my scimitars and start to carve the mount, shaping it into a sandcastle.
BZZ
A snap of my fingers, the sand castle has been immortalized as a gravestone of glass. The sound of glass shattering alerts me of their presence. I turn my head around to look at the guest.
“…Julian, you don’t have to sneak up on me like that.” I calmly said.
“You’re no fun, Elius.”
His movements were sluggish and the way he walks is not that of a general. His eyelids are swollen and puffy, probably sobbing over still not having a girlfriend. Any exposed parts of his skin were swollen and red, his face is as pale as snow. He sits right next to me, stabbing his glass umbrella into the ground. He is wearing some sort of conical shaped hat on his head.
“You couldn’t sleep again?” I asked.
“Yeaaaahhh… the pain is killing me.” He sways his body around.
“If I touch the rain my skin starts flaming up and it HURTS.”
“Maybe it’s because the curse you have?”
“Everyone here is fine except for you.”
“What can you do? Remove the curse without killing me in the process?”
“That… sorta works.”
“I can’t die yet Elius, I haven’t gotten a girlfriend.” He said with a straight face.
“Say… you’re still making graves for them, aren’t you?”
The sudden recollection hits me like a bolt of lightning, jolting me out of the present moment and plunging me into the depths of despair. My breathing became heavy, as if the very air around me had turned heavy with burdens of the past. I couldn’t help but start sobbing from the overwhelming weight of sorrow.
It was as if it was yesterday. I stood on the bottom of Stepstones with my sister, Carina. It wasn’t a sweet reunion, it was our last sparring match, our first duel to the death. She wished to fight against me one last time, I agreed. I defeated her, but I couldn’t muster up the will to end my own sister. She forcefully snatched my scimitar and ended her own life, right in front of her own brother.
“M-my s-sister…”
“I w-want her b-b-back.” Words uncontrollably came out of my mouth.
Julian pats me on the back, followed with a hand on my shoulder. His other hand was turned into glass. I see my own reflection in it.
“You’re Lord Elius! Not some ensign! C’mon, stop being a crybaby!”
“B-but you k-keep complaining a-about-”
“Alright you can keep sobbing.” He gently slaps my back.
The sound of footsteps alerted both of us. I didn’t bother to look as I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of a centurion.
“Marcus? Aren’t you supposed to be standing guard at the docks?” Julian asked.
“General, a few atlantean ships crashed and started swarming us.”
“Damnit man, why do I have to do everything myself.” He sluggishly got up.
“Got a word to say before I go Thunder Monkey?”
I held my cry to the point I couldn’t say a word.
“Alright then, just head back to camp once you’re done.”
Julian creates a new glass umbrella from thin air, grabbing the old one and stabbing it beside me. The sound of footsteps gets fainter and fainter.
“So long, Elius.”
My eyes flickered open. My heart pounding against my ribcage, my mind suspended between the realms of dreams and reality. The more I try to recall the memory, the more I felt it slip away from my grasp, slipping through the gaps between my fingers like sand. Who spoke to me? What was the meaning behind it? I try to recall it-
“Lord Elius.”
With a heavy sigh, I push myself upright, the covers slip onto the ground. I walk out my tent to find a legionnaire covered in blood.
“What is it?” I said, yawning.
“General Julian is requesting for backup.”
“Excuse me… did I… hear you correctly?”
“Come with me.”
We walked. Out the camp, past the field of fallen soldiers, now decorated with glass castles with their names etched into it. Looking back at it, I’m surprised at how much time I spent making those.
We arrive at the docks, decorated with piles of dead atlantean bodies. In the distance, Julian was blasting the remaining atlanteans. The legionnaire bids me farewell as he marched back to camp. The sound of meat being squished under my feet gave me chills as I approached Julian.
“Why did you call me-”
His right hand is grabbing onto his right arm as it starts morphing into different shapes uncontrollably. I rush to help him but it was too dangerous to even get near him. The morphing eventually spreads to a part of his chest.
“JULIAN-”
“STAY BACK.”
The glass turned from transparent to a vibrant palette of colours. It starts to coat his entire body as he struggled to contain his power.
“DID YOU GET INFECTED?”
“AGH- YES, IT FEELS LIKE HELL- JUST KILL ME ELIUS-”
I couldn’t believe it. He was infected in the middle of battle… but that’s impossible… there’s no way he could have gotten infected. His a curse user… that’s practically impossible. I try to lift my arms, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to kill him after all he had done.
“I… I can’t.”
“I CAN’T DO IT.”
Julian suddenly regains his composure. He lunges at me, grabbing my shoulders. He looks at me dead in the eyes, his pupils vibrating from the amount of suffering his holding back.
“I had a good family, got a good job and a few friends, I lived a good life.”
“I order you to execute me, Lord Elius.”
His hands start to morph into glass, piercing my shoulder. He had planned to force me to kill him before he kills me. It was a smart plan, the first ever solid plan planned by him that would actually work.
My hands finally reach the hilt of my scimitars. His chest inches closer while I drew my swords, to a point where his chainmail rubbed against the blades. He swung his body back and forth, tapping on my scimitars awaiting the sweet release of death.
SHRCT-
His grasp on my shoulders became a hug. I see the blades of my scimitars on the other side of his body. His arms slowly returned to normal. I couldn’t help but to start crying on the shoulder of my dear friend.
“I’m… I-I’m so s-sorry…”
“Why… didn’t y-you just k-kill y-y-yourself?”
“I wanted you… to talk to me… one…”
“…last…time…”
The weight of his entire body starts to weigh me down.
“…sor…ry.”
His body fell onto the blood stained decks. His eyes were no longer twitching.
“Julian…?”
“JULIAN??”
He is dead. I never thought something like this would happen again. The death of my friend right in my arms. Is it even worth living at this point…
What am I thinking… these survivors need me. Julian probably handed me their lives so I’d feel guilty if I ended myself here. It’s a good plan made by him, one that actually works.
I wipe the blood off my scimitars as I sheathed them. A hum erupted from the body of the fallen general. I take a few steps back to ensure I don’t get shot off with it.
A large transparent cube disappears into the clouds. I grab his body, walking back to the camp with it. A thought suddenly crossed me which caused me to shed a tear.
“I’m sorry I forgot your birthday. . Julian.”
testing writing tragic stuff, I’d say it’s… not bad for a first try I think?
anyways he dead oopsie daisies
Uhuh.
