Stars of Freedom

Chapter 77: Split

Elias: I'm just going to warn you... there's a lot of fucked up things that happened... especially for our age at that time...consider that your warning.

Okami: Go ahead...

Elias: Well... back when we were kids...

...We used to be a group of six, and among those kids was one named Lorides. He would lead us around everywhere, we followed his every rule. We used to pick on every single kid in Amnea that he didn't like. One of those kids was Lykos, and boy did he like picking on Lykos. We would push him around, take his backpack and dump his books, laugh at him, make fun of how he used to have trouble speaking...

Would joke about his appearance, called him weak constantly, joked that he wouldn't make it far in life... We made fun of his choice in girls, we took his phone and messed with it constantly, talked down to him... Made fun of his friend choices... Made fun of him online for the whole class to laugh at... We would catch him off guard and punch him in the stomach constantly... We... kept him a part of our group just to have him like a puppet on a string.

One day, we followed Lorides into a forest. We found out that's where he would escape to, he would hang out with other people. It was where Alepou, Skylos and Lykos would spend their time. We got them by surprise, pinned Alepou and Skylos down while I held Lykos up. Lorides approached him, he hit him repeatedly.

"So this is where you go off when you're not around." he said.

He hit him in the stomach, Lykos vomited the food he had for lunch.

"Pathetic little Ly." he said, hitting Lykos across the face.

Lorides moved back and told our other friend to bring Alepou closer to them. I kept holding Lykos up... At that point, I was starting to have doubts about everything... As Alepou was in front of Lykos, he begged Lorides to leave them alone. He'd do anything for everyone to leave Alepou and Skylos in peace. Lorides grabbed a sharp rock from the floor, he walked up to Lykos and scratched him under his right eye. Blood dripped down his face.

He moved towards Alepou. Lykos yelled out with all the strength he had to stop. He was trying to get out of my grasp and honestly, I was about to let him. Lorides cut Alepou right in the jaw. Blood dripped down her neck and onto the floor as well. Lykos began getting more aggressive, that's when I noticed his hair was black. Lorides walked up to Skylos and cut under his right eye as well. At this point, I let Lykos go. At the time, I didn't know what it was. How he even had strength left.

That was the first time I saw him, Argos. He pushed Lorides on the ground, everyone else in the group let go of Skylos and Alepou. The wind rushed through the forest violently. Argos took a few hits from the group, but didn't back down. He punched one of our friends across the face and knocked him out in one hit. At that point I got scared and ran away... that's when I ran into... Nichi...

Silence filled the room.

Nahe: ...He was taking hits from the entire group, trying to move back at any given point....

When he saw an opportunity, he knocked over another one of your friends. He ducked down to dodge a punch from another person and retaliated with a punch to the stomach. It left your friend on the ground, holding his stomach. The other person ran away, all that was left was him and Lorides. He stood in front of Argos, looking down on him. Argos pushed him back, Lorides barely moved and threw a punch back at him. Argos put his arm up to block the hit and pushed him back again.

He grabbed the sharp rock from the floor and moved away from Lorides. He rushed towards him and put his arm to the side to block an incoming hit from Lorides. Being pushed to the side a bit from the hit, he stumbled but still went through with what he planned. Argos drove the sharp rock into Lorides' chest and made him fall back. Lorides was in massive amounts of pain, he took the rock out of his chest. Argos spit on the floor and walked away. He felt angry, yet he knew not to go any further.

Argos was dazed and confused, completely unaware of where he was at. He only had the goal of surviving that encounter in mind. He knew that Alepou and Skylos were important, but not why. Argos helped them get up.

"Are you okay?!" Skylos asked, breathing heavily.

Argos wasn't able to respond with his voice, he nodded.

"Lykos, are you sure?" asked Alepou.

"Lykos..." he thought to himself.

He didn't really identify with it, but went along for now. He needed to get all his bearings, he had never been there before nor talked to them before.

"Let's get out of here." Argos finally spoke, his voice seeming a bit deeper than Lykos.

He began to get bits and pieces of memories from Lykos, he recognized their faces, but still didn't know their names. He went along with everything still, leaving the area and heading home for the day...