The next few years were difficult ones.
Atticus spent them going through all sorts of emotions. First came emptiness. Crying in his grandmother's arms allowed everything he'd been keeping inside to burst out, leaving him hollow.
After that came guilt. That day, he'd finally realized how much blood stained his hands. He'd thought he was unfazed, that he'd made peace with it, that it had all been necessary, but the lie had shattered.
Every day after that, he was plagued by the deaths of the people he'd killed. He became silent, isolated himself, and spent his time alone, thinking.
Soon after came shame.
He was the sole Primordial of the world. A thought, a snap of his fingers, was all that was needed to bring them back.
But Atticus knew, from the moment he'd wept on that hillside, he wasn't going to do that. Through the silence, he realized that the blood on his hands haunted him. It would always haunt him. Yet he still believed this was the only path to true peace.
