Chapter 20: 20 | The Elements
When I awoke, the sun was already at its highest peak. I was laying on top of LoWei and ZhouHan was guiding us by foot. The wounds on my shoulder and arms was cleaned and wrapped, but I could still feel the pain.
"What happened?" I asked.
ZhouHan looks up at me, but it wasn't his usual smile. He was angry. I look the other away avoiding eye contact. I was used to seeing angry faces and usually an angry face meant they wanted to beat me or they hated me.
"Why did you just stand there?! It could have killed you!" he yelled at me.
"S-sorry. I thought he was lost. I didn't know he would attack me." I mumbled.
ZhouHan sighed and shook his head. It wasn't until a while later when he finally spoke to me.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. I was just worried. You disappeared, so I went to go look for you only to find a dead man on top of you. If I wasn't there. You would have been dead by now." He said quietly.
Worried? So he wasn't mad at me, but worried? This was a new feeling. I never knew you could get angry because you worried for someone. He also said something strange. A dead man?
"The dead can't move though, so how did it attack me?" I asked.
"Huh~? Do you not know? This is basic knowledge. Don't tell me you wanted to travel without knowing the dangers of the world this entire time!"
"..." I could only smile back. Hulang only taught me what I needed to know. He couldn't have taught me everything within just 6 months. ZhouHan sighed and shook his head again as he explains to me what I had encountered.
"For thousands of generations, the living has fought with the dead. There are two types of dead, those who stay underground for good and those who walk around killing people. Most of the dead are gone, but as long as humans live, they won't cease to exist. Afterall, the dead were once living humans. They turn like that because they hold too much attachment towards the world. They don't think, just kill. That's why their bodies are burned before they turn."
"How long does it take for them to turn?" I asked.
"It varies. Sometimes right away or it could take weeks, but once their flesh rots off and there's only bone left, they perish. The one that attacked you must have recently turned. He must have fallen off the cliffs and fell to his death considering how deformed he was."
"Is there anymore I should know?"
ZhouHan sighed again as he looked at me helplessly.
"You know about elements right?"
"Yes a little bit. I know you can't choose your own element because it's something that has always reside in you. Most people don't have an element though." I replied.
"There are two routes of elements you can choose, light and dark. Under those two categories are sub categories, water, earth, fire, and water. Elements under the light category if considered normal, where as the dark category is considered abnormal. It's rare for people to practice both, but if they can control it then they're considered a prodigy."
"I don't quite understand what you mean by normal and abnormal."
"Mmm. For example, my element lets me control the soil around me, but if I reverse the flow of my element I can make things like this."
ZhouHan picks up a couple rocks in the palm of his hand and they start to crack forming into a little creature that moved as if it was alive. He hands over the living rock and it jumped around before crumbling into pieces.
"Rock are nonliving things, but my element allows me to give them something like a soul. This is the abnormality of practicing the dark elements. Do you understand now?"
"Ah yes. You must be very talented." I complimented.
"Mmm. I'm nothing compared to my friend though. He's a monster who can control two elements in both the light and dark categories. Anyway, the reason why I explained the elements to you is because there's a group that practice neither elements. Instead they practice the forbidden arts. These people are dangerous. They trade their sanity to gain powers such as controlling the dead, taking away the core of your element, and a lot more. They also love killing people and using them as sacrifices to gain what they need. We call them Ravens and they're scattered throughout the world."
"They sound frightening." I smiled.
ZhouHan looks up at me and sighed again. It made me wonder if I did or said anything wrong. He got on Lowei with me and picked up the pace. After a while we came by a small village and decided to stay there for the night.
"Look travelers. Someone inform the chief." The villagers whispered and gossiped as they stared at us. Some of them would take their children and run into their homes.
"It doesn't seem we're welcomed here." ZhouHan whispered. "We'll need to tread carefully."
"Welcome visitors! I'm the chief of this small village. Is there anything I can help you with?"
He was an old man holding a stick as tall as him.
"We would like shelter for the night. We'll leave at dawn." ZhouHan replied with a smile.
"Of course you can stay, but the only unoccupied place is the horse stalls." The old man smiled.
"Thank you for your hospitality." ZhouHan smiled back, but the tone in his voice was cold.
They guided us to the horse stalls and quickly left afterwards. We both got off of Lowei and as I tied him with the other horses, ZhouHan fixed up some hay bundles to sleep on. I looked at all the other horses standing with Lowei and noticed something a little strange.
"JunHe, get some rest." ZhouHan asked politely, but his aura was kinda scary.
"Ah. Okay." I walk towards him and sat on the ground.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Um. Resting?"
He pulled me towards himself and onto the hay stack as he said,
"Sleep. The sun is still setting, but it's going to be a long night."
This was the first time I slept so close to someone. We kept our distance and I slowly fell alseep. I dreamt of the time Raiya carried me to town on that cold winter day. His sweet smile as we spoke. Why is it that the only time I could see you genuinely smile was through this one memory? Why do you haunt me like this every night? You used to look at me with so much anger and hatred, but now you don't even look at me.
"Junhe. Junhe." someone calls my name as I awake from my slumber. It was ZhouHan.
"What's wrong? Did you have another nightmare?" He asked.
"Another?"
"Mmm. Almost every night."
"Ah. No. Sorry if I woke you up."
"It doesn't matter. Let's go. We're leaving."
"Oh, but it's still night time. How will we see?"
"If we stay, we'll either die or I'll kill everyone here."
With that being said I went to untie Lowei. ZhouHan untied another horse and gathered other belongings that the other horses carried. We rode off in the dark and I looked back. The villagers were chasing us with stakes and forks. They threw stones and yelled for us to return. Their faces were terrifying.
"Don't look back! Focus!" ZhouHan yelled.
The villagers never stopped running. Even though we were on horses I could still hear them. Some of them were fast. Just as one of them almost caught up to me, ZhouHan created a landslide blocking their path, but they climbed over the landslide and just kept chasing us. It was going to be a long night.
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