“NOOO!” I shouted, and started running as fast as I could to my sister.

However, after no more than five steps, I saw her turn to look at me, raise her hand with difficulty, and signal me to stop. I looked with widened eyes at her and despite the distance and being unable to hear her, I could clearly read her lips saying, ‘Astor, run.’

But how could I?! There was no way. I ignored her and broke once more into a sprint, only to be forcefully stopped when someone crashed right in front of Estelle, sending shockwaves all around her and causing me to fall on my back. I quickly looked at what happened, and saw a large man in a black, intricate armor, wearing a helmet that had a couple of horns at the front, popping from the side of his head, that covered his face and only allowed me to see the glowing red eyes.

He towered over Estelle, and his hand was gripped on the sword that was piercing her. “What is this?” he asked, his voice distant, like an echo, but at the same time, clear as if he was talking directly to me. “I was certain that this is where the Goddess of the White Star was supposed to be… But—”

Without any compassion, he lifted the blade and my sister with it, who just struggled as she held onto the blade with a bleeding hand.

“This is nothing more than some bug…” he said, looking straight at Estelle's pained face.

I felt my blood boil, and the terrifying aura that this man was letting out was put aside as my desire to save my sister overpowered my fear. The man noticed my rage, but as he was turning his face to look at me, the two halves of the cut dragon crashed to the ground between me and them, lifting dirt, water, and causing a rain of blood to follow.

“No!” I shouted once more, trying to find the quickest way to get over the dead dragon.

However, as I was gathering Wind Magic to my feet to jump over it, a bright light illuminated the periphery of my vision, and I turned to look at it. Something else was coming. From the horizon below the mountain and across the trees of the surrounding forest, something that looked like a white, rising sun was coming.

It was moving so fast, that the trees in its way were uprooted, the rocks were shattered, and even the mountain itself started trembling under the pressure of that magic.

In the blink of an eye, that blinding white light crossed the mountain and crashed in the place where Estelle and that man in the black armor were supposed to be. The loud sound of metal hitting metal spread through the mountain, and I was forced to cover my ears. I still tried my best to see what that was, which is when I saw that white light pass right through the spot and launch itself to the sky with the man in black armor being at the end of it.

“What in the Underworld is—”

“Astor…!” I heard a woman’s voice with a similar effect to that of the man, however, this one was a rather familiar one. “You can’t stay here, you must—”

“Aha! So, you’ve shown yourself!” interrupted the man, sounding the same despite being launched away by that light that kept going further and further up into the sky. “It saves me the trouble of hunting you down!”

There was another explosion in the sky, at the exact place where the man was. This one was of a red mist, so large and powerful that the sky all around us turned red. Not allowing itself to be overpowered, the white light also exploded, and tiny rays of light spread between the red clouds in the sky.

I tried to focus on it, trying to figure out what was going on, since I was certain that the voice of that woman sounded exactly like my mom. But the man in the black armor said something about the ‘Goddess of the White Star’. That was supposed to be the Goddess of our world, and there was no way that mom was that person. It couldn’t be!

However, none of that mattered. I had to get to my sister, so I tried my best to ignore the spreading red mist and ran to where my sister was.

“Astor, my son, don’t bother,” the woman’s voice—my mom’s—said, causing me to hesitate on my steps, “Estelle… She’s gone… You can’t die here as well. You must—”

Another large explosion followed in the sky, and I heard the woman’s voice moaning in pain. I stopped to look up and saw the white light crumbling under the red mist that was eating away at it.

“Mom?!” I shouted, not denying anymore the fact that she called me her son.

I did as best as I could to look into the light, and as I strained my eyes, I saw that it was indeed my mom. Her hair was swaying with a white glow on it, and her body glowed just as white as the light surrounding her. She was currently trying her best to remove the sword that pierced her shoulder, while the man looked just as fine as when he first appeared.

“Is this all that you can do?” he mockingly asked, pushing the sword deeper. “How can you call yourself a Goddess if you’re going to die like this?”

Mom groaned, clenched her hand on the sword stuck on her shoulder, and without hesitation, pushed herself deeper into it to be closer to the man, which is when she opened her other hand, and a blast of white light was fired from it.

Her light spread through the sky, cutting the red clouds, the normal clouds that were further away, and even going to the horizon as if the sky was splitting in two. I was certain that with that much power, mom would’ve ended that evil man, but the sound of glass shattering caused me to widen my eyes.

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“Pathetic,” the man said, his hand stuck inside my mom’s chest, going to the other side. “I am the One True God, and there shall be no other beings that compare to me…!” He pushed his hand deeper, and my mom’s body seemed to shatter further, with the red mist spreading through the cracks, and blood falling from the sky. “I shall be eternally immortal once none of you so-called Gods remain.”

“Ghk!” mom let out, grabbing the man’s arm with her hand. “You will die too. Immortality is nothing more than a myth, and like with me, someone will claim your—”

“Nonsense!” the man interrupted, and the red mist spread through mom’s wounds even further, causing the white light in the sky to lose all power.

“Mom!” I shouted again, knowing full well that I had no means to do anything about it.

It was while her body was cracking and falling to pieces, that she did as Estelle did and turned her way to look at me. “Astor… You must get away from here. You must—!”

A final explosion of red mist caused my mom’s body to shatter and explode in several directions, sending white shards of light all over the place, almost like snow. I fell to my knees, and watched hopelessly as how, in one instant, I lost both my sister and my mom.

I looked at the red mist that spread through the sky from the man, and I didn’t feel like moving from my spot.

That was, until from the many shards of disappearing white light, a particularly large one turned in the sky and went directly for me. I didn’t move. Didn’t react to it. There was no point in avoiding it if I was going to die just the same—in fact, it would be better if I died now, since I could join my family right away.

I watched it getting closer, until it was right in front of my face. However, there was no pain, nor any force or anything like that, as a small white shard, just like a crystal, floated in front of my chest. I reached for it with my hand, but before I could touch it, it burrowed itself into my chest.

A warm sensation spread through my body, and I closed my eyes.

What could it be? I didn’t understand anything that was going on, and I didn’t feel like understanding it. But an image flashed through my mind, despite my efforts to give up. It was my sister in her last moment just now, mouthing me to run away. And then, the voice of my mom resounded in my mind again telling me that I had to run away. I had to survive. She said that I must… Do something.

I opened my eyes and looked up with hatred towards the one that did this. The evil man in the black armor. That Evil God.

He was floating in the sky, right above the place where my sister died, his arms spread to the side like a victor. “Another God, and another world under my heel,” he said, lifting his chin up proudly, before shouting, “Kneel!”

From all around his body, the red mist that had been spreading from him turned into a storm that crashed down to the ground, right on the spot where my sister died. There was a strong desire for me to run in there; to fly and kill that bastard, but I knew that I didn’t have the power to do anything about it.

I wasn’t going to die until I claimed his life. He called himself the One True God, with the goal to be eternally immortal, but if he could kill our Goddess—my mom—then he could be killed as well.

With trembling hands, I stood back up. I watched the storm of red mist surrounding the body of the dragon until it disappeared behind the cloud, and I turned around from it, running away as fast as I could down the same trail that I took to come here just a few moments ago with my sister.

The animals in the forest did the same as I did, all of them trying their best to get away from the growing storm behind us. Birds flapped their wings all over in the opposite direction of the storm; rabbits, foxes, deer, bears, and even drakes, all came out of their spots, ignoring each other as they all did as I did, in hopes of outrunning the storm.

* * *

I huffed and heaved as I approached the town, where people were standing outside the gates, looking agape at the incoming red storm, and all of them ignorant of the danger that it posed. I had to warn and let them know that they, too, had to run away.

However, before I did, droves of knights in shiny armor rode out of the gates, and squadrons of mages took to the sky from the middle of the town, all going in the direction of the storm, but they didn’t understand!

“Hey!” I shouted, waving my hands at the mages that flew past me. None of them paid any attention to me. Eventually, the knights rode past me, and I did the same, trying my best to attract their attention. “Hey! You can’t go that way! It’s dangerous—”

“Move out of the way, peasant!” shouted one of them. “We’ll handle this!”

I watched as they all marched into the storm; into their doom. I could try again to stop them, but I didn’t have the power to do so, so I turned around, and continued to run to the town’s gate, run through the town, and to where I needed to go next, my dad. My dad should still be at our home, and I had to let him know what happened.

I didn’t see Grahm or Roy by the gates of the town, so I sped past them, and by all the people that looked at the red skies.

As I ran through the streets of the town, surprisingly, I found dad hastily walking through them, in the opposite direction. He carried a small locket in his hands and had an anxious frown on his face.

“Dad?!” I exclaimed, causing him to look at me.

“Astor!”

“What are you doing here?!” I asked, heaving when I stopped in front of him.

“I… I’m going to your mom,” he said with a forced, tight-lipped smile.

“Dad… Mom and Estelle, they… And mom, did you know that she was—”

“Yes, I knew,” he answered, placing a hand on my shoulder as I looked down.

“Dad, I left them behind. I—I couldn’t do anything. I should’ve stayed and done something, or at least die with them, or—or—”

My dad embraced me and held me tightly for a moment. “It’s okay, son. You don’t have to worry about that.” He let me go and looked at me with one hand on my shoulder and the other gripping the locket. “I’ll go find them for you. I’ll keep them company. But you’re as special as your mom was, and I’m sure that when you’re ready, you’ll come find us. We’ll be waiting for you.”

“Dad—I…” was all I could say before tears spilled.

“You must run now. It’s okay. I’ll be fine—We’ll be fine,” he said, tapping me on the shoulder a couple of times with a forced smile, before going around me and continuing with hasty steps towards the exit of the town, and in the same direction of the approaching storm.

I watched for as long as I could, until I couldn’t see his back anymore, which is when I turned around and continued to run with tears falling from the side of my face. I didn’t know where I had to run, but I just knew I had to run away.

What I didn’t know, however, was the kind of world ending calamity that this truly was.