Faint Hope

500 years ago....

Freedom has never been bestowed upon humanity.

It has always been earned by Blood.

Through blood.

Through sacrifice.

Through the countless names history failed to remember.

''Whenever humanity stood before an insurmountable threat, there were always those willing to lay down their lives so that tomorrow could exist.''

Such was the fate of mankind.
Until the day that fate itself was broken.
The greatest catastrophe ever recorded...
The Stampede.

No kingdom foresaw its march nor its people.

The peaceful lands of mankind disappeared beneath an endless tide of creatures that knew neither fear nor mercy. Villages vanished overnight. Kingdoms crumbled one after another as civilization watched itself collapse.

These creatures possessed neither hatred...

Nor compassion.

Nor reason.

They came into existance for only one purpose.

To Devour.

From then on
Homes became ruins.
Fields became graveyards.

Families vanished before they could say their final goodbyes.

Yet the greatest horror began only after the slaughter.
When no humans remained...

The creatures turned upon one another. They devoured their own flesh and Shattered their bones

And grew stronger with every feast.

For the first time...
Humanity witnessed a nightmare from which it could not awaken.

Five years passed.
Five years of surviving instead of living.

Every battle demanded another city.

Every sunrise counted fewer survivors.

Every sunset marked another kingdom lost.

Then...

The world itself turned against mankind. An unknown plague swept across the battlefields.

Those who survived the monsters often fell before reaching home.

Entire camps became silent overnight.

Fear spread faster than the disease itself.

Hope... 

Had become a luxury.

Until...

The impossible happened.

Far from the battlefield...
Within a small settlement defended by weary volunteers...

Children waited for parents who would never return.

Among them stood a young boy.

Behind him...

His little sister.
The creature that broke through the barricades moved without haste.
It did not roar.

Nor hesitate.

It simply walked toward them.
The little girl gripped her brother's shirt tight.

"...Brother."

"I'm scared."

The boy's legs refused to move.
His body was scared by the claw.

His hands trembled.

He was no knight.
No soldier.
No hero.
He was simply... An older brother.

He closed his eyes.

"Please..."

"Someone....."

"Anyone....."

"please..."
"HELP MEEE.... TO PROTECT HER."

The creature leapt.
...

HEAT

Violent flames burst from the boy's outstretched hand.
The inferno swallowed the street in an instant.

For a heartbeat...
Daylight returned.
When the light faded... Only drifting ash remained.
The boy stared at his trembling hand.
He had no idea what had happened. Neither did the world.

But that day...

Humanity witnessed its first awakening.

Neither a miracle.

Nor a blessing.

But an evolution born from desperation.

As the years passed... More and More awakened appeared.
Some were able to command fire.

Others ice.
Water.

Wind.

Earth.

For the first time since the Stampede began...

Humanity pushed back and Hit harder.

Yet victory remained beyond reach.
For within the heart of the catastrophe...
There existed monsters that even the awakened could not overcome.
History one day would name them as.

"Castro Beings."

Humanity had reached its limit. And even hope seemed destined to fade...

Then the heavens answered.

A pillar of golden light descended from the sky.
Within that divine radiance...

Stood a lone figure.

History remembers that day...As the beginning of mankind's victory.

...
But history has a habit of remembering only the ending.

Never the whole story.