The reptilian man circles to my right, in the direction of my mother.

He appears to lunge at me and I instinctively move to guard Ma. However, there is no attack. It was just a feint to test my reflexes and very likely my priorities. He continues to creep forward at a slow pace, seemingly aware of my ability to move quickly after a brief channel. I’ve heard the summoners have psychic connections with their summons, so the reptile has at least as much information on me as the summoner does.

I test his proficiency with the spear by dashing barely into his range of attack, planning to weave back out immediately. This was nearly a fatal mistake. The crocodilian was expecting such a feint, and lunged in to overshoot his spearing jab from a max distance. He twists his shoulder into the stab, adding an extra couple centimeters. I narrowly avoid impalement through a quick parry off the side of my blade, while simultaneously dipping back.

Even with all my efforts I still get grazed, and the spear opens a small flesh wound in my right tricep. I refocus my efforts into a counterattack, but despite the attack seeming like a high committal move, the crocodilian had already returned to his original stance by the time I had returned to mine. He stands poised for my next action, spear raised. This was not your average warrior. I step back once, and the crocodilian man shifts forward slightly. I’m right outside the distance of his max lunge and he knows it.

The situation went from near-assured victory to almost impossible.

A very quick analysis of the situation would have me losing on every front. I am at a huge range disadvantage against a skilled opponent, wearing no armor, with a cripple to watch out for. The summoner, albeit magically exhausted and incompetent in combat, could still have another trick up his sleeve.

Ah, wait. I have one trick left too.

I remove a stealth scroll from my cloak and quick-activate it, dooming it to a short life. In an instant I’m cloaked from head to toe, preparing for my turn to aggress. The crocodilian hisses. I make a break for the nearest tree and jump to its lowest branch. I grab it and swing into a standing position atop the thickest part of the branch. It shouldn’t be able to detect me now. No point in being invisible if he can see my footsteps, right? I check to see how the crocodilian responded to the new development.

Strangely, it hasn’t moved. In fact, it’s so still, if you didn’t look close enough you might mistake it as a statue. I move briskly to take advantage of this. Jumping from branch to branch, I try to gauge the warrior’s openings. Considering my noisy commitment to the high ground, he at the very least knows that it’ll be a blitz from above. That means I’ll have to dodge at least one rising stab before getting close enough to kill it, assuming that it has the instincts to react in time to the noise of my leap. Deciding to attack the nape of its neck, I begin to slow my movements in an effort to mask my whereabouts.

One second turns to two. Two turns to five. Five turns to ten. The standstill continues in eerie silence. As soon as I feel ready, I bound from my position directly above the croc. I prepare to parry the spear.

The crocodile makes no effort to raise its spear. Instead, it stomps the ground beneath it, and rock begins to crawl up its skin at an extremely rapid pace. Before I reach a striking distance, it’s completely coated in rock armor. I quickly switch my slicing motion into a blunting one, using the hilt of the dagger to bludgeon the roof of the croc’s rock-shielded head. It does next to nothing. Forced by the law of gravity, my body collides with the rock shield. I bounce off of it onto the ground and the dirt molds to my shape. The crocodile, still coated in its armor, turns to face the newly-formed crater and skewers the ground.

I’m not there anymore, but that hardly helps my situation. With no feasible way to injure the crocodilian, I’m now effectively neutralized. My invisibility fades, and the crocodile is in the same spot as before. This time, though, he’s invulnerable.

The only option left is to run before he kills us.

I strain my legs once again, and they scream in pain. Doing this twice is ill-advised but cannot be helped. The crocodilian leans into an offensive stance, likely preparing an empowered charge forward to match mine. I perform an empowered jump backward to retrieve Ma, and then another retreating to the trees. I hightail it north, in the opposite direction of the fire.

The crocodilian man wastes no time in his pursuit. In a manner very similar to mine, he propels himself forward at a breakneck speed. He shoots up the nearest tree like he’s climbed them his whole life, and gives chase.

Ma, sensing the severity of the situation, begins to mumble under her breath.

(We won’t be able to escape like this.)

She shakes her head, already writing off possible success. I open my mouth to say something back, but I can’t seem to find the words. My legs are already starting to give out and my arms are tired. Blood coats my right tricep and the bleeding won’t stop anytime soon without treatment. Worst of all, the crocodilian is gaining fast, and there’s no way to fight him when he catches up.

We’re all but dead in the water.

Even still, I continue racking my brain for some way out of this mess.

‘Anything. Just give me something, please.’

As if responding to my plea, the crocodilian man lands on a particularly wide branch and stops giving chase. However, his intentions were not so merciful.

The rock around his arms begins to peel off and fall to the ground. With his range of motion restored, he cranks his right arm back, holding the spear as if to toss a javelin. His hand is about a quarter of the way up from the bottom of the spear, shaft parallel to his arm. Shifting his weight backward and then lurching forward, he skips off his back foot and hurls the spear with the full weight of his stone body. The air is thick with mana, indicating a freakishly powerful enhancement of the throw. I don’t even see the spear before it rips through several trees, including the one I was about to jump to.

My momentum continues to carry me forward, and with nothing left to jump to, I tumble to the ground. The fall is long and my knee hits a root upon impact.

I try to get up, but my knee doesn’t have the strength left to hold my weight. I collapse onto all fours, barely holding myself up with the strength of my arms. My vision is blurred and my breathing is ragged.

“Fuck…”

Ma had spilled off my back during the fall, alongside all of the bags. After rolling along the forest floor to ease her fall, she crawls to where the pink bag landed, frantically searching for something inside. There’s only the wooden chest and frozen body parts in it, so it doesn’t take her long to yank the former out. She flips it open. It’s a small black rock with a symbol that I can’t quite make out.

The crocodilian man crashes into the ground behind us, finally having caught up to its prey. Now spearless, it clenches its half-reptilian hands into fists. It’s preparing to beat us to death while we’re still down.

I draw my dagger once more, but I can’t afford any semblance of a stance. I flip over into a sitting position, pointing my dagger at the crocodilian. The hopelessness of the situation begins to crash down on me like a waterfall, and fear overwhelms my body. The crocodilian man rushes me down and bats away my dagger, slamming his fist into my face. My head smacks against the ground and I see stars. He continues his onslaught, relentless beating down on my skull. Images of my life begin to flash before my eyes.

The picking of berries. Talking with the resident monsters of the forest. Eating dinner by the fire whenever we could afford to light one. Listening to stories of days long past. A hug, the only loving embrace I’ve ever known. A lot of these memories contain the same person, don’t they?

Even in my dying moments, all I have is my mom.

‘Ma, I don’t want to die.’

Another punch thrashes my face. My lip splits for the umpteenth time and my eyes swell over.

‘It’s… so unfair…’

Another.

My mind turns to static and my vision begins to fade.

She favors the adventurers so much, Gaia does.

Why?

Do the rest of her creations not matter to her? The irony of my impending death is just too cruel. Killed by one of my own, because Gaia gifted the ability to control my brethren to humans. As if they didn’t hold all the power in the world already, they had to take our warriors as well. OUR PEOPLE. Our techniques, our magic, our weapons, our flesh: all of them were the humans’ now. Can’t you just give us something?

I let loose a wail as loud as I can, pouring out all the emotion I have left into one last call for help. The anger, anguish, fear, sadness, helplessness, and betrayal I feel, all targeted at the god that I’ve prayed to since birth. As if mocking me, a fist once again connects with my dome, interrupting the last noise that’ll ever exit my mouth.

The last two cucuy meet their end here.

_______________________________________

I remember the days of my childhood, where she would feed me vague stories to sate my curiosity. It’s been many hundreds of years since then, hasn’t it? It doesn’t feel like it. Those were easier days. The adventurers weren’t as plentiful and our part of the forest always seemed to stay the same. There was never a shortage of food, and the plants and berries were plentiful and rich with flavor. Hunting wasn’t never even a subject that we thought about until a short while ago. We were safe in our little hut, away from all our worries. And in that same little hut, she would tell of the world she knew from ages past.

(Sun, our people were once a proud race. Thousands of years ago, our numbers were many. We were honored with the responsibility to withhold balance and peace in the world. We were loved by all, man and monster alike.)

I remember the sad smile on her face, an expression she only wore when recalling the days she walked on two feet.

(But the humans wanted more. Their intelligence turned to greed, and their numbers were too many to combat. They multiplied like insects, summoned heroes of their like from other worlds, and struck down our people. They demonized our race, telling tales of our horror. Their children were frightened into obedience by the mere mention of our name. The remainder of our kind fought until their valiant deaths, killing and consuming all the humans they could, just as the humans did to us.)

She would gaze down at her missing limbs, tears misting her eyes.

(As I fell from grace, I could not save your father. Only you, who still rested in my womb and gave me the strength and will to escape.)

I still remember how she would look at me, hope gleaming in her eyes, even after the hundredth retelling of this tale.

(You are the only light left in this dark world, Sun. One day I will leave you, and you will be the last of the cucuy. I will stay with you as long as possible until then.)

Her posture straightened.

(But when that day comes, the world will be in your hands. We all trust you with our legacy, baby boy.)

(And for that, I’m so sorry.)