There were first many explosions. Or rather, many sounds that made one think of a series of explosions. Although it could have been something else entirely—fists colliding, blows pounding the air and producing that same terrible crashing sound, or even real explosions executed in every rule of art, triggered in one way or another.
Then, in addition to the explosions, there were also screams, shouts, violent shockwaves, and a cry unlike any other. It was at that moment that the little boy opened his eyes, freed from the fog of dizziness that had paralyzed him in a corner of the hallway with his back against the wall.
When his mind became clear and he finally caught his breath, returning to normal, he first noticed the blood flowing from his forehead, sliding down along his nose. He wiped it away with a hand to assess the damage. Then he discovered himself badly injured and nearly disemboweled by a blade whose tip was still lodged in his abdomen.
He let out a small groan as he remembered the pain caused by such a wound and the agony that was eating away at the deepest part of his soul. However, that only made him suffer even more, so he resigned himself and fell silent, understanding that the pain making tears fall from his eyes was nothing compared to that of his mother, who lay on the ground, her gaze fixed, her head tilted back with a huge electric spear driven into her mouth and exiting through her neck.
The boy immediately thought he had to help her, but first he wondered which of his mother or his father—who lay just beside her, headless—was suffering the most and needed him right away, needed a saving help for a desperate case. He did not know. Or rather, he did know, but did not want to know.
He knew it deep inside. He knew it was already too late. That neither of them needed his help anymore. Neither from him, nor from anyone else, for that matter. And yet, he did not want to accept it.
So, powerless, he could only do what any other six-year-old child in his place would do: cry, letting hot, heavy tears fall. A frightened sound escaped his lips as if he were trying to smother the infinite sadness that was slowly taking hold of his being and his heart. Though he wished he could change fate, he resigned himself and was forced to accept that in that moment, he could do nothing more than cry every tear in his body and suffer in the silence of the red night, colored by the fires slowly devouring the city.
"No one could have saved them anyway," declared a heavy voice standing before the boy. "The shepherd chose his fate when he returned from exile. Alas, he left me no choice but to take up arms to prevent a new war that would put the entire world at risk."
The voice came from a creature pretending to be human thanks to a body similar to that of a man. But it was clear it was not one. Its body was divinely muscular, over two meters tall. Long, strong white hair flew around its head, and it was dressed like a warrior often described in heroic tales from ancient Greek legends.
A pair of boots shimmering like diamond, a skirt cut from a tunic of a kind that had never existed on Earth, and a champion's belt around its waist, as if proclaiming itself the strongest of all beings. It wore nothing else except markings on its torso and held a spear that it pulled out from the mouth of the woman lying on the ground.
"As his offspring, I should kill you too, but the sword of the underworld has already cut you deeply enough. So I will let destiny judge your case."
The man turned around and looked at the sky filled with threatening clouds, just as a powerful bolt of lightning tore across the heavens.
"The war of colonization is already over and must never return to life again. We can never be forgiven for what we made your kind endure, so at least allow us to protect them in your name. For the new enemy of this world is not a being that must be fought."
Immediately, the lightning that was gathering in the sky like a spear struck, and right after that, the creature vanished, leaving behind nothing but a city in flames and blood, hundreds of people in tears, overwhelmed firefighters, and a family bathing in their own blood.
The little boy tried to move toward his mother, but barely had he attempted to stand up when he collapsed to the floor, begging for help that would arrive far too late. His last memories were of a woman and a man in white uniforms with blue markings.
They seemed astonished to find him alive.
And that was when he suddenly opened his eyes, taking a long breath. He looked more surprised than horrified, with the face of someone who did not even know he had been sleeping like a baby in a classroom. Thus he discovered himself in a school uniform, sitting at a desk among about thirty other students.