Gavin's hands fell limp.

His grip on Hugo's throat softened until it was no longer there.

His glossy eyes stared straight through his attacker.

It was too late...

The brunettes breathing stopped a moment later and Hugo could feel again, if only for a moment.

With this second of freedom he reached his bloodied hands up to softly caress the boys face, closing his bloodied eyes before once again losing himself to the tranquility.

Once again he fell into the void of emptiness, able to only watch as his body moved on its own. 

His clawed hands began to tear into the corpse chest and throat, ripping large chunks of flesh from the body. Handful after handful, each morsel of human flesh either flew into his jaw or over his shoulder. He didn't seem to care.

Hours passed and Hugo finally awoke above the boys mangled and half devoured corpse, his untouched face seemed somehow peaceful. The image of Gavin's corpse burned itself into Hugo's mind. 

Every time he blinked he could see it, the now pale boy's peaceful gaze staring up at where he had once been. Sleeping softly in a pool of blood and torn skin. Just sleeping...

Hugo turned to the right of the corpse and began dry heaving, repeatedly attempting to empty his stomach only to find out there was nothing to empty. He expected to see chunks of half digested flesh and snapped pieces of bones and yet nothing came up. Why couldn't he get it out? He didn't want it inside him. 

And yet he continued to find his stomach was as empty as it had been earlier that day, however now his wounds had healed. Every gash and cut that Elijah had given him in their scuffle was simply gone. As he gazed down at his ruined clothes he would find that his body had completely healed, as if nothing had happened. He was completely fine.

The world was suddenly spinning as hysteria shrouded his mind, chuckles and sobs mixed until they were indistinguishable from one another. He fell to his knees and rested his back against a nearby tree. A panic attack set in as he felt as rooted to the ground as the firm tree behind him, his breathing becoming erratic and shifting from slow and pained breaths to hyperventilation. 

He had killed Gavin. 

Gavin, the only person that had ever meant anything to him.

The only one that had brought him back from the edge after his dad had disappeared. 

The only friend he had ever had.

Suddenly Hugo's mind began to race, as if the haze had been cut down by a light of hope. Quickly, he began to claw up his face. The pain was numbed by his hysteria as his face was gashed and cut with blood leaking down his cheeks and staining them red. He could go home now. He could tell them he was attacked by the kingsman kids, it's not like it was a complete lie either. He could say Gavin saved him from Elijah but was ambushed by Sarah. He could say he was weak, like they all knew he was. That he ran and abandoned the boy.

No.

He couldn't return home.

While part of Hugo desperately wanted to run and hide from this, the better part of him knew he didn't deserve to return home. Afterall, what was left for him there without Gavin?

Hugo turned and began to walk away from the body, too weak to stay and give the boy a proper burial. His walk quickly turned into a jog, then into a run. 

Soon he was sprinting through the forest.

He didn't need to look back to know that the figure was following him again, watching as he ran from his home.

Hugo saw as the trees grew further apart until eventually he had left the forest entirely, entering the bushland that seperated it from the wasteland. He ran until he finally hit something.

"NO! NO PLEASE! DON'T KILL ME!" Shouted the boy, still clawing to his life despite how he had told himself he didn't deserve it.

Above him stood a figure obscured by strange clothing, things he had never seen before. They were around Gavin's height with a pair of goggles that hid their eyes, a hoodie clinging tightly to their skin with the hood pulled up over their head. Black elbow length gloves ran up their sleeves while a pair of baggy jeans hung from their hips.