"Commander, I am not going to give up!"
"My duty as the knight battalion is to fight until my heart no longer beats, and if death is my purpose, I'll die with pride."
"You shouldn't say such things, James. You're not dying before I do. You're my son, and I will protect you no matter what," Victor said lightly, patting his son on the head.
"I am proud of your will, and that's what will make you survive this ruined world."
"Yes, Dad, I will make you proud."
---
On the battlefield, Victor descended with sheer might, shattering the earth.
His eyes were bloodshot red, rage pulsating from his soul. Blood rushed to his head, clouding all thoughts that ran through his mind.
The scene before him burned itself onto his retina.
Because in front of him was his precious son, his priceless jewel, impaled with a spike and lying lifeless in his own pool of blood.
"Ahhhh!!!!"
Victor screamed in utter fury, erupting with crimson energy as he phased from his position, appearing behind the lethal creature. In the next moment, it split apart.
The cut was so clean and precise that the two halves took a second to crash to the ground.
Black blood sprayed out, painting him with dark goo.
He let his heavy katana fall with a resounding thud. As he dropped to his knees, filled with regret and a petrified expression, he called out softly.
"James... please stand up for Daddy... You can't die on me like this! ...JAMES!!"
He shook his son slightly, his mindset breaking down, only a void dwelling within his heart.
"James, no... no... no, you can't leave me like this. You're the only one left..."
Some of the soldiers who fought saw their commander broken in the middle of the battlefield. The proud and glorious leader they knew was nowhere to be found.
"Look out, Commander!!"
Unbeknownst to Victor, one of those creatures, the main foe that threatened human existence, stood behind the broken soldier.
A massive energy attack gathered behind him. His lieutenant rushed forward, yelling for the commander, yet it was futile, as it was already too late.
The blast from the creature, which incinerated everything within its wake, took the commander, his son's body, and half of the battlefield with it.
Victor saw nothing but plain white afterward before he found himself inside the void.
---
Back to the present...
His expression turned gloomy. He had lost the final remnant of his family.
Memories didn't come to him in order. They arrived in pieces, sharp and out of sequence, like someone else's photographs shoved into his hands.
A sixteen-year-old kid, staying up late over borrowed textbooks, dreaming of becoming a doctor — not for the money, not for the prestige, but because his father was dying of cancer in the next room and no one else was going to save him.
His mother, gone in an accident before that, leaving just the two of them.
Two years of watching his father waste away because there wasn't enough money for the treatment that might have worked. Then nothing , just his father's face, still, and the particular silence of a house with one less person in it.
And then, before the grief had even finished settling, the sky itself had turned against him. Something had come through it , things that didn't behave like anything from Earth. Cities he recognized crumbling in memory-flashes that weren't his memories, not really, and yet his chest ached like they were.
He remembered enlisting. He remembered why, there'd been nothing left to protect at home, so he'd gone looking for something bigger to protect instead. He remembered a woman's laugh, sharp and unexpected, the first thing that had made him feel human again in years. A ring. A boy with her eyes and his stubbornness.
And then that boy, on a spike, in the mud, while his father screamed a name that wasn't his own.
"What have I done to deserve all this?" Victor thought, the images still clawing at the inside of his skull, foreign and yet unbearably familiar.
From the wreckage of it, one fact surfaced clean and cold: the owner of this frail body had been starving for a long time. His skin was rough, pale in a way that had nothing to do with fright.
"How am I still alive in this state?" he wondered. "Right now, I look like a walking corpse."
What worried him the most was his facial appearance.
The clear steel of the katana, shimmering under the sun's touch, caught his attention.
He quickly moved closer to see his face. The moment he saw it, his gaze became intense.
Initially, he had hoped that, since his body structure was that of a malnourished man, at least his facial appearance would be decent.
Unfortunately, it seemed the one who owned this body had been dead for a while. His cheekbones forced themselves outward, his eyeballs sank deep into their sockets with dark circles surrounding them.
His skull could clearly be seen despite the layer of skin covering it, and even his ribcage protruded through his torn shirt.
Now he understood why he couldn't lift the katana, much less stand on his own two feet, it was like a skeleton trying to lift a heavy object.
Thoughts ran through his head, wondering whether to kill himself and put both him and the body's original owner at peace.
"Who would want this weak body?"
While he squabbled with his chaotic mind, trying to figure out what to do next, a bush shook rapidly, drawing his attention.
"Something's coming. Fuck!!"
Victor shamelessly dragged the katana with all his strength. Even though he used both hands, it still felt like pulling an object half his weight.
Eventually, he managed to get behind a large tree capable of hiding both him and the weapon.
Quickly, he went back to erase the line the katana had drawn along with his tracks — an instinct for his safety.
Fortunately, he had just enough time to hide before a shadow crept in, which he cautiously glared at from the side of the tree.
Creeeeeek!!..
Deep clicks filled the expanse, the same sound he remembered from a hundred nightmares, the sound a Drak's jaw made when it was deciding where to bite first.
Fear gripped him immediately, his eyes widened as beads of sweat ran down his face.
He was sure of it, from the unnaturally shaped shadow of a creature walking on all fours, joints bending wrong, too many of them.
"Damn my fate. I just came back to life, and I already encountered a Drak."
...