BANG! BANG! BANG! A gunshot rang out behind me and the bullet went straight to the village chief.
"Akio..."
While I was looking at the village chief who was shot, I was lost in thought even though someone had called out to me.
"Village Chief?"
The village chief was lying on the ground with blood dripping from his head.
"Did he die?"
"Akio, wake up!" The voice was getting closer to my ears.
When I turned towards the source of the voice, a gleam of long silver hair appeared in my eyes.
"Shiva?"
"Akio, let's get out of here. This village has been attacked by Astral Beings. We have to get out of here quickly."
"But… that village chief…"
"He is not the village chief, he is an Astral being disguised as the village chief. The village chief is long dead." Shiva grabbed my hand and ran.
But before that, I looked back at the village chief, and he was trying to stand up even though the blood on his head was still falling.
"The village chief is still alive."
"I told you, he is not a real village chief. He is an Astral Being disguised as a village chief."
"But..." I looked back at the door, which was carrying a large pile of people. "They're still there."
"They are dead. It's useless for you to go there because they have been killed by Astral Beings."
Convinced by Shiva's words, I resigned myself to this condition.
When we got out of this house, there were already many monsters with various shapes and dominant black colors.
"Lies..." I was shocked to see one of the monsters tearing the human body there. The shape resembles a dog but the body is larger, 3x. Its eyes are red with long fangs visible in its mouth.
Shiva kept running while shooting at the monsters, while I looked around and saw the villagers being eaten by the monsters.
When I looked back, I saw the village chief running towards us with fast steps and a face grinning like a madman.
"Akio, you said we were having a party, why did you run away from me instead?"
"The party is postponed, I want to run away now."
I don't know what I said, maybe because I'm innocent and it's easy to answer someone's words when talking to me, what is clear is that I answered what he said.
"Get down!"
After a while, Shiva suddenly pressed my head to make me squat.
Taking a gun in a pocket on her thigh, then turning the gun around, Shiva aimed the gun at my side.
BANG! BANG! BANG! The gunshot came from Shiva's gun which she had aimed earlier.
Turning to the side to see what was happening, I was startled by the appearance of a monster in front of me.
"Ugh..."
"We have to run from here!" Shiva took my hand again and started running again.
However, the village chief was still chasing us and several times.
"Akio, come here! Let's have a party."
I also glanced at him several times, but I immediately looked away because the blood on his head was still falling, it made me feel sick and sad.
"Hueekk..."
"Ah... You're right, this village was attacked by that creature. Come pick me up."
Hearing Shiva's voice, I immediately saw it, and I saw Shiva turned out to be talking to someone through her earphones.
She suddenly saw me.
"We are leaving this village."
"What do you mean?"
"This village is no longer suitable for habitation. This village will be destroyed right now."
"But..."
"This place no longer exists, you have to accept that, Akio."
"Akio-kun, let's have a party."
Hearing a voice behind me coming from the village chief, I immediately looked down and picked up a piece of wood, then threw it at the village chief.
"You are so noisy, Village Chief. I don't want to party you know."
"We have to get out of here." Shiva again grabbed me and ran.
A few moments later, we arrived in the middle of the road beside which was full of rice fields. And I just remembered about my parents who are still lying in bed.
"My mother and father..." Without thinking I immediately ran fast after I released Shiva's hand from mine.
"Akio, where are you going?" Shiva shouted as I left her there.
"Mom and dad are still at home, I have to save them."
"No, Akio. It's too dangerous to go there, you might get killed later."
"I don't care about my life, their lives are the most important."
The fact that it was my parents who raised me to this point with love, is a fact that I can't reply to. After all, their services cannot be repaid even with me.
So, what I said to that Shiva, I will never go back on my words.
"Mom, Dad, I hope you're all right."
Halfway to my house, I saw a hut covered in blood on the side of this road.
I stopped for a moment to look at the hut.
"Lie..."
It wasn't just a pile of humans there, I also saw some animals in that pile.
"Uncle Gio... and Buki..."
In the pile, there is a human that I know very well, namely Uncle Gio, and there is an animal in the form of a sheep that I love and care for, which I named Buki.
Both of them were covered in blood.
While I was looking at the hut, suddenly a dog-like monster appeared behind me.
The monster tried to bite my head, but since I noticed it, I managed to dodge by jumping sideways causing me to fall to the ground.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch." While I was scratching my butt because it hurt quite a bit to get hit by this ground, the monster tried to bite me again.
Luckily for me because I have pretty good reflexes, I managed to kick the monster's neck on the forehead and make it bounce quite far from me.
Hurriedly, I stood up and ran from this place.
"What kind of monster is that? Is that monster the Astral Being that Shiva spoke of earlier?"
Full of question marks in my mind. This is my first time encountering such a monster. I know absolutely nothing about that monster or that thing called Astral? All I know is about the "spiritual energy" that my father once told me when I was little.
It was said, if a human's spiritual energy was high, that person would be able to go against the Astral and defeat it. I also once asked him who it was who had spiritual energy, my father replied, that it was the chosen people in this world. I again asked him, how he knew that person had spiritual energy, and my father replied, that there was a mark on his palm. Then I asked, if there was such a person in this village, and my father replied, that no one in this village had one, so Astral beings would never come here.
So far, that's all my father has told me about spiritual energy.
But seeing conditions like this, is there anyone in this place who has the spiritual energy to make Astral Beings come here? If so, who is that person?
While running and running, I saw my palm which was nothing.
"O-Oh, it wasn't me. Thankfully, I wasn't the cause of any Astral Beings coming here." But when I focused my eyes on my right palm, I saw a small dot there as if it had been hit by the tip of a pen. "Since when do I have a temp? Um... never mind, it's not important. I have to get there quickly."
With a scream, which meant nothing and didn't change anything, I ran as fast as I could.
"WUUUUUAAAAHHHH!!!"
***
Arriving there, I fell silent when I saw my house was burning with a big fire.
"Father... mother..." Walking slowly and tears falling from my eyes, I approached my house. I then ran towards my burning house. "Mother, father."
With compulsion and only thinking about the condition of my parents, I went straight through the burning door and entered my house.
My nose started to smell thick smoke, but I tried my best not to suffocate this thick smoke by covering my nose with my hand. And all around me was filled with fire, but I tried my best not to get hit by the fire.
"DAD, MOM, WHERE ARE YOU?" Shouting as loudly as I could and hoping for an answer from them, I walked towards their room.
However, when I was about to reach their room, a piece of wood suddenly collapsed and fell just above my head.
"W…" I looked up and tried to push the wood away with my hands. But looking at it no matter what, the wood was filled with fire and was also huge. So, what I did was useless.
BUUK! The wood landed right on my arm and made my arm hurt.
"Ouch… this hurts."
Even though my hands hurt, but at least my head didn't get hit by the wood.
Seeing my black and blue arms, I walked back to my parents' room.
"Ugh… Ugh… Ugh… Dad, Mom."
Arriving there, with my legs, arms, face, and almost all of my skin that had been blackened by the thick smoke of this fire, I went into my parents' room.
"You..." I was speechless with what I saw in front of me. When I found out that someone was standing there, "who are you?"
When he turned to me, I saw blood on his lips, and I also saw on the bed there were 2 humans whose skin had peeled off but was still conscious.
"Oh, Akio."
He can talk and I was surprised by that. He does look like a human, but his body doesn't show that he is human. Its body was covered with black fur and looked very sharp, and its legs were like those of a horse. And he said my name.
"Who are you?"
"Akio, I will prepare dinner for you."
When he said that, he changed his shape to look like my mother but the eye color was red, and I was surprised by that.
"Mother?"
"Oh, Akio. I'm sorry, I can't be a good father."
He even changed his shape to look like my father.
"Father? Actually, who are you? Why did you change shape like that? Can you not…"
"Grrrr..." He changed his shape to his original form with a sharp gaze directed at me.
Seeing those red eyes, I immediately knew that he was the monster I met earlier, just like the village chief.
"A-Akio, run!"
"Eh? Mother?" Hearing the sound from the bed, I immediately focused my eyes there and saw that it turned out that the two people were my mother and father. "Mother, Father..."
Without thinking about the creature, I immediately ran past it.
However, a ball of thorns suddenly appeared in front of me, and behind me was a hand that was trying to hit my head.
"Akio..."
BANG! BANG! BANG! A gunshot came from behind me and made the hand behind me disappear. And I quickly ducked down to avoid the ball. I then went straight to my parents who were lying there.
Not thinking about the wound, not thinking about who shot the hand, not thinking about the creature's whereabouts, I immediately carried my parents out of this house.
However... my parents took my hands off their bodies instead.
"Akio, take good care of yourself, okay. I'm so proud of you, even I want to live to see your mature body. I love you, Akio."
"Mother..."
"Akio, you're a boy, you should be able to be independent after this huh. What I have taught you, you can use it. Never be a rotten man to a woman. Be yourself. No matter how hard the world is against you, you can fight it."
"Father..."
"Now, we don't suffer anymore. And you... we don't bother you anymore, Akio. Thank you for taking care of us, parents who can only trouble you. Thank you..."
"No, father. You... you don't bother me. You can't die here, this is not the place for you." While I was running towards them, suddenly a piece of wood fell again and cut my way to them.
"Take care of yourself, Akio-darling. I… I love you more than anything else."
Seeing my mother who said that with tears in her eyes, I immediately tried to lift the wood with my hands. But sadly, this wood is stronger than mine.
"Ugh… ugh… Come on, wood-ass, move!"
"Shiva, please take care of my son. Don't let him die like his parents."
Looking back, I saw Shiva was there heading towards me.
"Shiva, help me! Please lift this wood with me. I beg you, help me!"
"Akio, I'm sorry..."
BUKK! A pistol grip hit my shoulder and almost made me lose consciousness.
Shiva calmly took me out of this house.
But before that, before I lost consciousness, I saw the creature pulling my parents in the thick smoke.
"Mom… Dad…" I closed my eyes with a feeling of sadness.