Merciless

[ EXO | baekyeol | 502 words ]

Inspired by ❋

The world is merciless, Baekhyun thinks as he stares up in horror at the approaching monster. Its enormous mouth is stained with blood and in its hand is the disembodied arm of a soldier, the same soldier that Baekhyun had shared a pouch of water with no more than an hour ago. The strong kill the weak and the weak are powerless to fight back.

Baekhyun watches as the Titan turns its large, misshapen head towards him, its eyes glinting as it runs a tongue over its crooked teeth. Years of training does nothing to still his trembling arms and as the monster lumbers towards him, his mind can conjure neither strategy nor courage, only the blood-curdling screams of his comrades as they fulfill their final duty to humanity.

His grip loosens and the tips of his twin swords scrape along the roof tiles as he backpedals. What’s the point of trying? He is a mere cadet who had been into battle when the Outer Wall had been breached, a boy who had enlisted for the sole purpose of joining the Military Police and hiding behind the Inner Wall until a ripe, old age.

The Titan is mere metres away and he is close enough to see each of its colorless teeth, the cracks stuffed with scraps of brown cloth, the remnants of soldiers who had long been swallowed and digested. He would undoubtedly meet a similar fate and he stands, frozen in place, as the monster’s massive hand reaches for him.

“Byun Baekhyun!”

There is a whistle of wires and a body slams into him, sending him flying across the roof out of the Titan’s reach.

“Are you ing stupid?” The deep voice is unmistakably Chanyeol’s. “Don’t just stand around waiting to be eaten!”

Throwing him a glare, Chanyeol aims the wire at the opposite wall and swings himself skywards. When he is just above the Titan’s neck, he lets out a battle cry and slices its flesh with a sweep of his sword. The Titan releases a howl of pain as it falls, its body sending tremors through the earth when it lands on the cobbled streets below.

Chanyeol hops back onto the roof, sheathing his swords wrapping Baekhyun in a bone-crushing hug. Baekhyun’s knees finally give way and he falls into the embrace, hands clutching desperately at the front of Chanyeol’s blood-splattered uniform.

“Don’t you ever do that again. You are not allowed to die on me, got it?” Chanyeol’s voice is thick with emotion and all Baekhyun can do is nod silently, throat too constricted to speak. And in that moment, he forgets about monsters and crumbling walls and Death on his doorstep. Instead, he curls his fingers in Chanyeol’s hair, presses his mouth on Chanyeol’s lips and remembers what it feels like to be alive.

The world is merciless and the strong kill the weak and yet, with Chanyeol by his side, he can’t help but feel that the world might be just a little beautiful.