Yorogo sprinted forward. It had been three hours since he had started running, and he was getting extremely tired. To be frank, he had run out of energy roughly three hours ago; however, the looming threat had revealed abilities within him that he didn’t really know he had. If he were by himself, he probably wouldn’t have gotten very far, yet the eggs he was carrying that would soon hatch into his offspring provided sufficient motivation to keep on going forward.

He placed one ambulatory pod in front of the other, unable to register the cuts and bruising that they were receiving. He was unable to register anything really, because only one thought, one impulse, dominated his head. Run. RUN.

Such was its overwhelmingness that he could barely even spare a thought for his wife, the would-be mother of his offspring. The one he adored most in the world, the one he devoted his life and love to, the one who had handed him the eggs and yelled at him to flee. The one who was now dead.

He carried on forwards over rocky terrain, doing his best to ignore the faint scent of smoke and blood that was being carried over the wind. If he tried and listened hard enough, he would have heard distant screams, yet thankfully he wasn’t trying. Yorogo was only running towards safety, which to him was a cave he frequented when camping.

To his almost unfathomable relief, he saw that the cave was nearby and most importantly, empty. He continued running without letting up, until he was deep enough inside that the entrance was a mere speck of light. Finally, he could put down the eggs and rest. Well, at the very least he tried, however its difficult to sleep on the very same day as the death of your wife and what was most likely the end of his species.

He instead opted to sit down and process the events of the past few days. Yorogo was, until a couple of days ago, a leading scientist of the Kimbri Global Space Agency. A couple of years ago, he and his contemporaries had managed to put a Kimbri on their closest moon, which was the greatest scientific achievement known to Kimbri kind. The future had looked almost blindingly bright, with his people having overcome a global conflict thirty years ago and choosing to focus on science and technology. The strides that they had made have been monumental, with society choosing to embrace rationality and reason.

How ironic it was then, that the very gods and deities his people had fought countless conflicts over, would choose to reveal themselves.

The arrival of Kurata and his pantheon had been quite literally ground shattering, the capital of Kimber being split in two. It had taken a few days to sort out the facts from the fiction among the chaos, however every Kimbri could recognise the striking visage of their god of war. He towered over them, his ruby eyes contrasting with his strikingly blood green scales. His arrival almost led to a conflict rivalling that of the great war thirty years before, but thankfully through some miracle the people managed to stay calm. People even started to become hopeful. Perhaps the gods that the people had spilled so much blood for would guide them into a new age of prosperity, one where the people would never have to suffer. I mean, that’s what gods are for, right? To do right by their people?

Kurata had stood still for two days. Two days in which the Kimbri people would wait with bated breath, wondering what their most senior god would have to say. There were people who were adamant on reminding others that his presence could mean no good, such was the essence of a god of war. But the people chose to remain hopeful. The people chose to see good in the deities that represented the base urges and desires of the Kimbri people. If they as a whole could turn over a new leaf, why couldn’t their gods? Unfortunately, this feeling wouldn’t last.

Because Kurata chose to speak words of total doom.