Re: Downtown Repose: Alex/Kratos &c
Tags July 2019
Kratos was surprised to find someone in this world that accepted death so gracefully. The town was strange, certainly, the people here bizarre and not like the ones on the television, but they also did not see death that often. They did not fight battles on their homeland, and they killed from far away with metal bullets. If the situation had been any slower, he would have thought that the dying man was hallucinating, because no one offered forgiveness when they were dying slowly from a gut wound. He thought all this, but of course there was nothing to see on his face.
Atreus, on the other hand, being very young and lacking the oceans of blood that had washed over his father, was a shaking wreck. Kratos didn’t like this. Accidental murder was not a good way to get comfortable with the inevitabilities of battle.
Yet it was done. His grunt of assent seemed to indicate such. One thick arm reaching out to push Atreus away, the boy currently clutching at Alex’s shoulder as if he could somehow keep him from further pain, Kratos took a large, serious hunting knife out of a sheath behind his hip. Atreus protested but Kratos ignored him. His head and shoulders blocked out Alex’s view of the sky. He put the blade over Alex’s heart and with accuracy and perfunctory skill, pushed it into his chest.