Chapter 681: Difference of Lost Lives-II

Thunder strike harder as the young girl Linda, walked down off her bed. The girl was shorter than average girls of her age and thinner than most of her peers, even thinner compared to the girls who lives in poverty and it was all due to her illness that she caught four years ago. 

The girl waited for her brother to came down but until night, the boy had never came home. 

The head crew and the head of the town along with the rest of the town folks stood near the harbor. The head of the town, the magistrate, placed one hand over the head crew's shoulders. 

"You did a good job. It's said that to sacrifice lives to the sea to stop the storm that had been plaguing our sea is futile but look at that," the magistrate tipped his chin to the sky where the storm had passed. The silence of the sky show no trace of its previous howling cries, making it as if the storm had never occurred before. "It is sometimes needed for nature to take lives in exchange for more lives to be saved."

The head of the crew didn't answer but crossed his arms. "Money," was his words after he opened his mouth. 

The magistrate smiled and pat the man's shoulder thrice before ordering the man behind him to hand out the head crew thick and heavy pouch filled with the shiny coins.

Meanwhile on the sea, Hallow tries his best to escape the danger of being swallowed by the whirlpool that occurred on the surface of the wate, but alas running away from the room wasn't enough to save him away from the storm as the ship was pulled in by the whirlpool. The ship was at the mercy of the storm, unable to move away to escape the deadly danger. 

Hallow recalled the last thing which happened was the boy and him looking at the window with their eyes widened out of their socket as they watched the furious waves of water coming toward them. 

Hallow who swam on the water, looked over to his left and right, fortunately noticing that he was near a small group of stones where he can use to let himself rest.

Reaching there, he looked at his left and right, finding how the boy wasn't anywhere near him.

Hallow thought to scream the boy's name but realized only until mow how he hadn't heard the boy's name at all. He didn't know what to do to find the boy as the storm continue to rain harder.

It was strange because while Hallow can smell death oozing from his sister, he didn't noticed any sign of the boy going to meet his death soon. Then why had he died?

As Hallow's green eyes stared at the sea in front of him, comprehending seriously the small chance for the boy to come out of the sea, alive, he can only guess that the boy had meet his end. Until… 

Hallow noticed ripples occurred on a single spot around the sea where bubbles formed. Not long after he had stared, he noticed the head that popped out of the water. It was the boy!

"Seems like killing you will take a lot more," chuckled Hallow to himself, feeling relieved but at the same time detached to the boy. Detached, because, Hallow had been taught the uselessness of having an emotion to humans who would die soon. 

The grim reapers had been brought up that way, thus, it was difficult for anyone to demand him a sudden sympathy to the boy. 

But that didn't mean Hallow didn't feel anything while seeing the hardship the boy had to face. He did felt an ache. He learned how important individual lives could be to the humans through Elise and also understood the fragility of the boy's life. 

While some says hard work will be paid, most people are unlucky like the boy, who could possibly be dead before ever see the fruit of his hard labor.

The boy reached to the heaps of stone that created a small version of a very steep cliff and climb up. When he finally get out of the water, his body slumped over the smooth surface of the stone.

His lives seemed as if it had ran away from him. Who could blame him especially after knowing how he had faced such a frighting storm alone. 

Relieved, and due to the side effect of the adrenaline rush, the boy sat back on the stone, blank out. 

His mind had a difficulty in understanding what occurred. 

"Sacrificed… I have been sacrificed…" whispered the boy to himself, his voice sounding painful and filled with heartache. 

He had always kept his relationship to people of his surrounding to a position where there wouldn't be any deep grudge that will cause one or the other to try and kill him.

His life was peaceful and pitiful, nothing to envy about with how each day they have to frown thinking how they don't have enough bread to fill their stomach. 

The head crew was rough toward him but never had he expect he would be sacrificed… never did he expected he would be killed this way.

"What did I do wrong… god?" The boy weakly questioned the sky but unlike his chaotic heart and questions that he wished for answer, there was no reply coming from the sky.

The boy stayed there until evening before finally pushing himself off the stones. He looked at the land that was far from him that he could only see them as shadows on his eyes and wondered how he could go back home.

After what occurred, he wished to never stepped into the town where one person had want to sacrifice him to the mouth of death. "Perhaps not only one," whispered the boy to himself that Hallow caught by ears. "The head crew won't sacrifice me to simply boost his business… the news about the storm had been creating ruckus for the past sixth months… this is the doing of all of them. All of the town folks."

Hallow who heard this was silent as it also passed to his mind that this wasn't the doing of a single person. It was the doing of someone who controls the land, who want to feed him to storm to stop the continuous thunder that caused many boats and ship to sink.

Regardless of the boy's fear of meeting to see the town folks who would be shocked to see him alive and his concern of what the people would do to him again after knowing that he was still alive, he still had his younger sister alone in the town.

Picking himself back up again, the boy marked the distance he needed to go to reach the harbor, deciding to go to the nearest shore which can't be said near but would be less distance compared to the harbor itself.

The boy tried to find pieces of wood from the broken ship, only able to acquire three broken planks that could barely help him to paddle across the sea to the nearest land, but it was the only thing he could use for now.

The boy wasn't sure if he would ever be able to cross with such a small object of wood but he had no choice and had to bet his life on the woods. 

With his hardened will, the boy dived to the sea where his fate had brought him to. While the boy think this might be the end to his terrible day, Hallow didn't agree with the thought. His feeling says that something terrible was about to occur. Something far terrible than the boy dying on the sea. 

The village was in a ruckus, words filled the ears of those who passed by the street of the village. More and more people begin to pour their concerns as the boy finally arrived back to his village. It had taken him three whole day of trip to make it back to the town and as he walk nearer to his house, the wary he became. 

He looked left and right in worry of the head crew or those who wishes him dead would come and find him but no one pays any attention to him as he dive toward the sea of people.

"One of the siblings?" The woman asked that stopped the boy's feet from moving. "I don't get what happened. What do you mean by the girl died?"

The boy had completely stopped walking and looked at the woman who had spoken with a blank look. 

"As you know her brother had died on the sea… I heard it's because he needed money that he had sacrificed himself to the stormy sea. After hearing this, his sister had taken her own life." 

The boy's face grew more and more white as his mind slowly wrapped around who the people the women were talking about. 

"That is horrible but they don't have a family… I do understand that girl's thoughts," answered the woman with an apathetic voice. In the end, it wasn't their family for them to concern of pity for. Most people cares only those who dear to them or their own lives. 

Hallow was still standing, hearing the women talking when he realized the boy had left his side, rushing away from his spot to his house. 

More people stood there while some left. The boy saw the men bringing out a body that was wrapped in white fabric and his heart fell to the bottom of his stomach, the same way Hallow felt when he saw the white fabric slipped away and saw the face of the young girl whose eyes were close tightly.