Eliza was only able to mutter two simple words, short and concise before she finally ceased any motion.
"Live on," Those were Eliza's last words.
No matter how much Raon shook his sister, Eliza no longer had a heartbeat, as she had already passed away.
"Raon, what happened to Eliza?" Aria asked cautiously.
The child stilled. He too knew that Eliza would no longer be beside him. That there was no way of recovering her life. He didn't want to believe it, but that was the truth.
With lifeless eyes, he began to recall the ti his sister shielded him from danger.
"She.. got caught in the debris of a fallen building.. I was supposed to be the one who gets crushed, but she pushed out of harm's way, and, and... Aria, what do I do now? My sister is, my sister is.. We're all dood, aren't we? Why did the dragon co here? What did we do wrong? Don't big monsters only co to harm us if we committed a serious cri?" Raon cried as he tugged onto Aria's clothes, weeping heavily.
"Calm down. Maybe there's no chance for us to live to another day, but we can't just stay here and wait for our deaths. The dragon is currently distracted by all the people who huddled in the forest. Raon, this might be cruel, but this is the ti for us to be selfish. Rember Eliza's words. Live on. Let's flee, Raon." Aria rapidly spoke as she began holding Raon's hand and supporting him from his kneeling position.
However, Raon did not want to budge. When Aria tried to pull him up with force, he even started to bite Aria's hand.
Yelping in shock, Aria released her grip on Raon. The child imdiately backed away and took a random sharp stone from the ground and pointed it against his own neck.
"I don't want to. I don't want to live. If elder sister is dying, then I might as well go with her. There's no point on continuing further, everyone- everyone died before my eyes. I can't do this anymore, big sister!" Raon shook his head desperately, drawing the stone closer and closer to the surface of his neck.
However, he couldn't find it within himself to actually do the deed. His hands lost strength when it was ti to ram the stone and end his life.
He was scared. Afraid of death. He wanted to live on too, but the pain of losing his sister made it hard for him to even consider living a life where Eliza wasn't there beside him.
"Sister... sister..." Raon cried repeatedly, banging the ground with his fists until his skin broke and blood started to seep from the wound.
"Raon, we can't stay. We really can't stay. If you survive this ordeal, I know that you can beco much stronger. You will gain strength from this point on. You will one day be able to beat that damned dragon and show them who is boss," Aria shook Raon's body, desperate to get the boy moving.
"I... I-" Raon stuttered, but soon gritted her teeth and nodded lightly. "Big sister, I am sorry. Raon will have to depart from you..."
With tears still streaming down his face, Raon bid his goodbye towards Eliza's corpse and followed suit behind Aria as they began to seek refuge in an unnoticeable place.
Perhaps it was because of the intense adrenaline that Raon received upon knowing that his life was at stake, the two humans were able to run into the opposite direction of the dragon and hid inside a narrow cave. Entering the spot, they were finally able to relax for a short mont.
Aria thought that the Bone Dragon had lost its interest on her because of how annoying she was when dodging its attacks.
"Raon, take a deep breath in, then slowly let it out. Follow my counting. Take it in... and out. Take it in.. and out. Good. Continue," Aria spoke with a low volu as to not disturb whatever could possibly still loom in their hiding place.
Raon was hyperventilating from the amount of running he did, contrasted with the sudden stop they had to make upon finding their perfect hiding place. He leaned against the cave's rocky wall as he followed Aria's instructions.
"..Big sister, will we..." Raon clutched his fists as he tugged at his hair harshly, as if he was going crazier with every single passing second.
"Ssshh. Don't talk any further. Go to sleep, you are tired. Get so rest. We might have to do more escaping next ti," Aria said, patting the boy's head with care as she watched the boy slowly start to drift into deep sleep even though he was actually unwilling to let go of his consciousness.
However, the Bone Dragon proved to be a much more sinister monster than they thought. During the chase with Aria, it had firmly morized this particular pesky prey's scent and was sensitive to it. When it finished the massacre of the people who ran away, it planned to go back and toy with Aria, who gave it a sense of amusent.
Aria was nowhere to be found, but it slled the scent of her lingering around where Eliza's corpse had been.
It wasn't that smart, but it could at least think in it's prey's place. Aria had always kept her consistent thod of running away, she never fought back.
It began to sniff around. Where was Aria now? It found a path that contained Aria's scent in the trails. It felt joy burst inside its heart, as it still hadn't lost its toy yet.
Following the trails with high enthusiasm, it broke apart the forest that hindered it and charged straight to where Aria and Raon was resting at.
Feeling that sothing wasn't right, Aria began to wake Raon back up. The child was too tired, so not even Aria's aggressive shaking was able to wake him up. Knowing that they didn't have the ti to play around any longer, Aria carried Raon in her arms as she started to flee from their place.
Indeed, her feeling and senses proved to be correct. Above them, there was a gigantic dragon that was beginning to spurt poisonous liquid all over the place, lting all the lifeforms that surrounded the trails that contained Aria's scent.
As Aria escaped to an open place, the dragon caught the sight of her and began hunting her down.
Aria was holding Raon, so evading was much harder than before. Especially since there were no longer anybody that she could use as a shield.
It was no longer possible to survive.
In the end, the chase stopped at the edge of the cliff. There was no more paths to run to. It was a dead end, and the Bone Dragon was aptly closing in on them.
"I guess this is it, hm?" Aria still did not understand the point of this realm. What did it want to show? Instead of making her fight, why did the Tower create such an elaborate sche to portray Raon's sad past?
She dropped the child down to the ground and prepared to face the pain of bearing the Bone Dragon's full front attack.
Closing her eyes shut, she shielded the child and waited as the Bone Dragon began clawing at her flesh, seemingly wanting to enjoy the feeling of torturing this prey that had caused it great trouble earlier.
Aria was rendered immobilized in less than a minute, as she could no longer bear holding Raon and collapsed down, pressing the kid under her.
With the amount of force and disruptive factors that had been applied to him for the past several minutes, Raon finally woke up from his sleep. The first thing that he saw was Aria's pained face, which was dripping with blood. Her entire body was all covered in deep wounds, and she created a pool of blood that drenched him as well.
"Big sister? Big sister, what happened?! Big sister!" Raon hurriedly got away from Aria's cover and looked at the horrendous sight that was Aria's disfigured body.
And on top of it, the frightening Bone Dragon that was still hovering over Aria and scratching her flesh.
It looked at Raon for a good five seconds. Strangely, it did not even bother to pay more attention to Raon as he continued shredding Aria's body, raking at her flesh slowly.
After it had its fun, it flew away. Without harming Raon.
Why?
Being spared like that was far from a fortunate thing to Raon. He had just mustered up his courage to walk forth and escape because of his fear of death in addition to his sister's request and Aria's presence.
All of it crumbled down again.
"TAKE TOO! TAKE !!!" Raon scread as hard as he could, but it was like he was invisible to the dragon. The dragon flew away, and Raon was left untouched whereas the rest of his townspeople were all massacred, with Aria still twitching from ti to ti, waiting for her eventual death. There was no chance of survival.
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