As Uuk ran, I could feel the wind stirring my fur; it was like sticking your hand out the window of a moving car. It felt so fresh—even though the sun was starting to get intense. For some reason, a slight smell of burning lingered in the air, but not even that could ruin my sense of fulfillment.
We were crossing a grass-covered moor where trees were scarce. The twins were playing hand-clapping games, laughing as if they were ordinary girls on a picnic. Old Siro, for his part, had dropped his stoic act to enjoy the ride like he was fulfilling a childhood dream.
Meanwhile, Janeth let me recline in her lap. I felt like a kitten sleeping peacefully on its owner. They'll probably call me a pervert, but being curled up with such a beautiful woman—someone with soft skin who smells that good—is something to be grateful for after so much suffering. If I'm honest, I already see the giantess as my best friend. At first, she treated me terribly, but now I feel truly safe by her side.
I could sleep peacefully right now and forget all my problems. It doesn't even feel like we're in the middle of a war. I just want everything to stay like this. Why are there always people who want to conquer everything? Life in peace is so rewarding that, truly, I don't understand the need to kill one another.
My mind wandered as the wind caressed me. Human history is full of battles over absurd things—resources, land, women, ideologies, or simple stupidity. I've seen that cycle repeat itself time and again, and now, in this different world, the script seems to be the same. It's frustrating to know that while I enjoy Janeth's warmth and the twins' laughter, somewhere someone is sharpening a sword to take away everything we love.
Apparently, I got so lost in my thoughts that I forgot to keep my guard up.
"Samuel!" Janeth's cry ripped through the air.
Suddenly, I felt a violent tug. Something tore through my skin and sank with a dull thud into my shoulder, snapping me out of my trance instantly. It was an arrow. I watched as my dark blood began to stain the giantess's peasant dress.
"Aaaaaaaaah!!" I groaned in pure agony.
The burning was unbearable. I'd forgotten for a moment that this world is cruel and that peace is a luxury I cannot afford. Janeth carefully laid me down on Uuk's scales and stood up in a blink, unsheathing her killing instinct, ready for the carnage.
"Mr. Samuel!" Anastasia shouted, her face pale with terror.
Uuk didn't even flinch from the impact; his scales were like steel walls. But his voice boomed with an urgent warning.
"Watch out! That arrow came from the south. We are under attack!"
I looked up at the sky and my heart stopped. In a heartbeat, the bluish-pink of midday was devoured by a black tide: hundreds of arrows flooded the air, raining down from every direction in a deadly choreography. Uuk increased his speed, his strides making the earth creak, but there was no possible shelter under that storm of iron.
Then, the pain became systematic.
SHLUCK!
A dry tear in my leg.
SHLUCK!
A burning impact pierced my abdomen, blurring my vision.
SHLUCK!
My arm went numb instantly.
I groaned, clenching my teeth until I thought they would shatter. Janeth reacted with lightning speed; her hair extended like a black shield, blocking and diverting dozens of projectiles with a constant metallic clang, but the rain was too dense. Despite her effort, I saw with horror how the twins and Old Siro were also hit by the enemy steel.
"Keep running, Uuk! Don't stop for anything!" I shouted with what little breath I had left.
Anastasia, who was right beside me, let out a scream that chilled my blood. She had an arrow buried deep in her back. She clung to me with desperate strength as sobbing choked her.
"Aaaaaaaah! It hurts so much! Help me, Mr. Samuel, please!"
Panic hit me harder than the steel. With one of my legs shattered, I forced myself to stand as best I could; the arrow in my abdomen stole my breath with every movement, sending stitches of fire through my entire torso. We were exposed. Ambushed in open ground without a single stone to hide behind.
How the hell did the enemy know we would pass through here? My mind, clouded by pain, began to search for culprits. A traitor? Who could have sold us out? I thought of Old Siro, or maybe some spy from Bigue who had tracked us.
No... it couldn't be the old man. I saw him a few meters away, hunched over with an arrow piercing his stomach. Why does this always happen to me? First they slaughtered my Liva parents and now my new friends are being hunted like animals. I curse my luck, I curse this world, and I curse whoever is shooting from afar.
Out of nowhere, the world slowed down. Time stretched like a rubber band about to snap, and everything began to move in an agonizing slow motion. I tried to move, but my limbs weighed tons. As I turned my gaze toward the moor, I spotted it: a totally black silhouette, an absolute void that devoured the light around it.
In a blink, the entity teleported in front of me. Its face—if it even had one—pressed against mine until I could feel the cold of its nonexistence. It placed its hands on my face, and a robotic voice, metallic and foreign to any system I knew, echoed in my ears.
"Subject 808 appears to be about to perish again. Activate the emergency protocol."
As quickly as it arrived, the shadow vanished. Time regained its frantic course and, in the place where that entity had been, dozens of arrows appeared, whistling with death. There was no time to react. I felt a dry tug, an instantaneous cold, and suddenly, the violent tear of my neck separating from the rest of my being.
Perspective broke in a macabre somersault. My vision spun violently: the ground was the sky and the sky was the ground. Before the scream could form in my throat, I saw Janeth's face, distorted and terrified. I felt her hands, warm and trembling, holding my head against her chest... while my body, inert and bleeding, moved away in another direction on Uuk's back.
"Samuel!" Her cry was a heartbreaking lament as tears flooded her eyes.
I couldn't do anything else. The light faded and the world sank into the void. Is this how I will die? Holding the gaze of the person I was beginning to love while my body vanishes?
[Emergency protocol activated] > [Updating...] > [?&;;((;(#)2+:3(;!)!::(#)7-3;;$;:°°¢=¢^^¥π¢™™®©£{`\∆%✓™€]
The system's electric blue letters appeared in the darkness of my mind, but they weren't normal. They began to twist, to flicker violently, and to deform into incomprehensible codes. Order had been broken. The system was collapsing.
Everything flickered one last time before merging into a digital void. The warmth of the lap and the flow of thoughts were cut short, leaving behind that unnatural silence that only death knows how to claim.
[Fatal error: connection with subject 808 lost]
[Restarting observation interface...] [...] [...]
[Switching to Omniscient Narrator]
Over the moor, the sun finished sinking, tinting the horizon with an orange that was indistinguishable from fire. In the center of that tableau of horror, Janeth's figure stood like a ruined tower. The imposing demoness, whose presence used to radiate indomitable strength, now looked like a statue of cold marble. Her peasant dress—that simple garment that spoke of an ephemeral peace—was soaked in a dense, hot crimson that dripped from the head she cradled against her chest with a terrifying tenderness. Her eyes, once full of a vibrant spark, were fixed on the void, as if searching for the trace of Samuel's soul in the air surrounding her.
A few meters away, Uuk's back—the dragon who kept running out of pure instinct for preservation—carried the headless remains of what was once a Liva. On the creature's rump, Petra sobbed convulsively, clinging to the protagonist's inert body while an arrow protruded cruelly from her small back. The contrast was unbearable: a child's innocence broken by the iron of a war she would never come to understand.
Near them, Old Siro remained kneeling, one hand clutching the arrow piercing his abdomen and the other resting on the ground to prevent a final collapse. Beside him, Anastasia trembled, physically unharmed but marked for life by the trauma. The old man's sacrifice had been absolute; his stoic body served as a shield for the little girl, who watched with bulging eyes as her world fell apart in a heartbeat. The wind, which Samuel once described as a fresh relief, now only carried the smell of sulfur and the echo of an incipient massacre.
The enemy did not hold back. There was no mercy or pause. A new rain of arrows tore through the twilight sky and, in less time than a bird takes to sing its last note, the group was buried under steel. Bodies were pierced and dismembered in a cruel choreography of blood and suffering that marked the end of hope on the moor.