Everything is on fire.

Those words rang in my head, only those four, when I ran. I didn't notice the blood streaming down my cheek, I didn't notice the sweat stinging my open wounds, I didn't see that everyone around me has fallen.

Fire.

Everything, all was ablaze, covered with raging fire and ash. It didn't matter though, it would die soon. I ran up a tree with deep claw marks, right afterwards it was red too. I leaped and stabbed the monster in its neck, it screamed, deafening me. The flames weakened the tree I launched myself off of, it started to creak.

Run.

It was a thought I didn't notice, instincts took over before I noticed, it fell and I heard a sickening crack. It looked up at the remains of the battle, in a year's time there will be no remnants of the fight. Everything would be forgotten, including those who chose to fight alongside me.

All but me.

I new better than to run to the shells of them, most of them were turned into a crisp. I couldn't tell the charred bodies from the others who suffered the same fate. But I saw a friend who lasted the longest, now he lay down, bloody, broken and bruised. It was simple to put it, they all had died. I saw each and every one of their last breaths, recalled their last words, saw the final blow.

I didn't even try to shake one awake, like many others would, or even sob. One glance, I knew they were gone. I had outlasted them, and I would for many more years. I took a bag, I didn't look inside, it didn't matter, and stuffed it with what it had dropped. And then I left.

I left their bodies, the remains of what they once had, the forest I lived in for a few years.

It doesn't matter, others will come, he always finds some fools to trap.

They were close, I'm not denying it, but this had happened again and again. If I kept doing a proper funeral and mourning for all of them, I'd be wasting decades of my life. The best I could do was just thrive on for them, and preserve one item for each of them. In their memory.

A small blue ribbon for the Ballerina.

A working pick from the Inventor.

A diamond from the Aristocrat.

An last, but not least...

A Featherstone from Him.

I would have more items, but the others had left it behind, calling it foolish. They were the fools though, they boasted on how they would survive the fight. How they would conquer and continue. But look at you now, nothing but ashes.

I kept 'whining' as they would say, to join. The others before who had fails to slay the beast had done it, and others before. But they didn't listen, they refused. Because of their foolishness I would forget everything about them. If they didn't bother, they didn't matter. That was my moral.

Bleeding, badly.

I was aware of the horrors of my physical state, if I had just laid down anyone could mistake me for a body. I wasn't keen on being buried alive by empathetic Pig People, I needed to keep going. Darkness seemed to be on my side that night. The flames the latched on to my cloak were less then the minimum amount of light to ward her away, but night didn't attack me. I felt her presence roaming around me though, I was walking alongside Darkness.

This won't be forgotten.

I find myself by a village of the previously mentioned Pig People, dawn had just revealed the first few rays of sunshine of this day. I staggered into the center, a few came out and didn't notice me right away, but soon one did, and another, and soon all of them were aware of my presence. This had happened before, a broken and dying human, who managed to make their way to be their home. But this had never happened before..

Never before had I ever been the one asking. Never before had someone stood in the middle of the village and still stayed up until they got every last one of their attention. They were horrified at my wounds, the deep gashes, and the infections I could have. I only stayed up for a minute more, before allowing myself to faint.

Hours.

It took hours...

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

I sat up, I realized I had be uncomfortably laid down onto a touch stone. I knew what had happened, I had died in the short span of time I had collapsed and they picked my corpse up. Time seemed to mock me, hours of emptiness, hours of death. But time was glue and I was rubber, it's insults didn't stay. And I couldn't stay here either.

I would leave when before they would notice I was alive, in my gratitude I left behind my bag of loot from the ferocious fight and whatever was inside before I picked it up. The gemstones were precious to them, this would make a good impression on them about me. They had better appreciate it, I would never return.

At least, until my mental scars have healed and made my stronger. Until I was once again innovative and tinkered with my beautiful creations. I was a playful child once again, to befriend the fools he had trapped in this land. Until then, them, I would make myself an alien to my native land. I would disappear for years.

Until then..

Until them...