Ciclico: The moment it all went wrong ~ Past

The aura of death surrounded everyone, chilling them down to their bones.

But the boar was not one who could be killed by it. Powering through it, the boar soon enough recovered speed and continued its rampage, running towards Urgo and Plojem.

The two of them felt their strength abandoning them. Urgo was incapable of even maintaining the grip of his spear, which fell into the ground at his side. Plojem did everything he could to remain standing, trying to gather enough strength to jump out of the way, but his legs were betraying him.

Ases was looking at them from a distance, unable to understand what was going on, but as soon as he got too close to them he was hit by the noxious aura, collapsing into the ground too. He was hit the worst, barely managing to remain conscious.

“You couple of imbeciles!”

The shout came from the side, but neither could see who did it. From their blind spot, both Plojem and Urgo were pushed out of the way by a big woman with a black dress and crown, just before the boar passed where they were. The animal stopped as soon as it could, turning around quickly, and running towards the woman.

She was not scared, jumping again into the trees and quickly losing herself in them. The boar tried to follow her, destroying everything in its path towards her.

Plojem rose again, but he looked a lot worse than before. He looked around for a moment, seeing far away the villagers who were still in sight. At the very least, they seemed to be out of danger now.

“Again? Why do you keep getting in my way?!” Screamed Urgo, rising to his feet, a deep sense of betrayal seeping into his voice.

“What the hell did you get us into?” Asked Plojem, enraged, but he had no time left to fight with the other man.

Because the ground was shaking again.

They moved in opposite directions, immediately, as the boar passed where they were just a second ago again. The animal seemed to be accelerating now, barely a blur that kept speeding by. A couple of screams could be heard far away, it was picking up all the lost villagers.

“Shit!” Said Plojem, with a low voice initially, but then starting to scream again to attract the boar back. Maybe if he gained enough time for the rest, they would manage to escape.

The ground started shaking again. Urgo was looking at Plojem dumbfounded, throwing himself towards him and grabbing him by the neck to shut him up, but it was too late. Suddenly, they were not alone, as the woman from earlier had landed back again.

“This is my last warning. If you two don’t leave now, I’ll let the boar stomp over your corpses.”

The woman grabbed them by their clothes and threw them into the foliage of the trees. The zone was getting emptied, and they were only a few trees to hide in left, so she then moved away from them while calling the attention of the boar.

When the beast appeared in the distance, she looked at it, and the giant animal started trembling again. It slowed down, but soon enough, it resumed its pace.

“Just die already! How many more years must go by for your horns to skewer your brain?” the woman screamed, jumping high in the air as the animal zoomed past under her. She landed back in the same place, in the middle of the path the boar left at his wake.

The enormous creature did not stop running, quickly going around to find her again, returning every time quicker than the last time. Unfortunately, someone did not heed the warnings from the woman and had come down to her side.

“Oh Goddess, please, I beg you, allow me to fight this battle at your side. I will prove myself worthy of being your hero!” Said Urgo, reaching the woman and kneeling at her side.

“What?” Plojem said, getting down from the tree, shock giving way to understanding, going back to betrayal.

He had heard the legends about the heroes and the trials they had to go through to gain the status. The death they brought with them, and the sacrifices some did along the way. He realized why Urgo had organized the hunt in the first place, and why he had brought everyone else as cannon fodder.

He was ready to go down, grab Urgo by the scruff of the neck and throw him in the path of the boar as punishment for his transgression, but something stopped him. With the corner of his eye he barely managed to catch who was down in the ground, trying to grab the spear that Urgo had left in the ground a long while ago.

“I won’t have any hero, my power is only mine to take!” Screamed the woman, without taking her eyes away from the boar that approached at full velocity. Without looking, she kicked Urgo out of the way, landing at the side of Plojem who came down from the tree to gather someone who was grabbing the spear from the ground.

That split second decided everything. The woman looked at the boar again and it trembled for the final time, the tusks finally piercing through its skull. It let out a roar of pain, but instead of stopping, it pushed forward with even more intensity.

“Give me the spear now!”

The woman looked to the side, finally catching sight of what was happening a couple of meters at her side.

The man she had seen the day before, the one who could almost count as a kid, now looked at least five years older than he had just a few minutes ago. Actually, and although she hadn’t noticed, the same could be said for both men that had stayed back to fight the boar. The two men that had aggroupated around the kid, fighting for the lone weapon on the ground, all now in the path the beast would soon follow.

The one who used to be a kid was hunched down in the ground, had grabbed the spear and was holding it in front of himself, ready to intercept the boar that was now running in their direction. Just a moment ago it was running towards her, but the scream Urgo had done deviated it at the last second.

Plojem was fighting Urgo, stopping him from stealing the spear, by grabbing his arms just centimeters above Ases’s head.

Ases was dazed by the whole situation, having lost track of it all ever since the noxious aura had enveloped them before. In his mind, only two things had remained, an imperious need to help his father to survive against the boar, and the memory of the only weapon that could hurt it falling in the ground. When he rose again, he instinctively shot himself for it, and only realized the full scope of the situation in the last possible second.

That second lasted an eternity. That moment just before the boar, bleeding from its face, running in agony, crashed against the three of them. Ases could see the anger on his father’s face melt down into regret just before dying. Urgo’s face was twisted in the most visceral anger, only to give way to desperation just before it all ended.

Ases? He had started feeling desperation too, when he noticed there was no way to escape now. But in that infinite second before death, despair have gave way, leaving only regret behind. Did that always happen just before dying? Did one’s mind clear up, stretching time to infinity, as if time refused to let one go? Maybe that’s how life gave everyone a second chance, a moment to find a realization that allowed them to leave the world in peace.

But in that moment, regret was all that was left for the three of them. The wobbling beast that agonized while running at full speed crashed just where the three of them were. It has stopped abruptly, falling into the ground right there and then.

The woman, the Goddess of Death that had returned to recover the strength she had been robbed of, could only watch as the crash happened, transforming that vision of three men in the way of the boar into three corpses piled on top of each other.