The world’s Rebirth

The world was crumbling. It was the end.

Monsters have existed since the dawn of history. They’ve always been here, accompanying humans in all their miseries. But they had never been as numerous, as vicious as in these recent days. They were everywhere, killing relentlessly. Something had shifted in them. They were beginning to coordinate, showing more unity in their quest to decimate humanity.

A disheveled individual stood facing a monster with a swollen face, whiter than plaster, and long hair blacker than ebony. Its eyes were simple black dots in its featureless face. Its nose was abnormally long, and its mouth was a straight line without lips — like a face drawn by a child.

The human with the untamed locks gently raised his bloodied hand in its direction. He didn't need special weapons to kill it; his body was a weapon in itself.

The monster's neck began to stretch, extending into the sky like a white serpent coiling around the void, so high that the human could no longer see its face.

Killing it wouldn’t be difficult; the monster wasn't really a formidable target. In a second, he could end its life — just as he had done with hundreds of monsters before and as he would with the hundreds to come. Killing monsters was easy, but how many more must he eradicate before all of this came to an end?

The world was sinking. At some point, he would be the sole survivor, and only then would he die. Seeking to be the strongest, his curse was to witness everyone’s death before his own.

But what difference would it make to die now or later? There was no compelling reason urging him to eradicate monsters. And if there had been a motive that once drove him to embrace this profession in a distant past, he no longer remembered it.

People were dying all around him, his colleagues falling one after the other, and no entity came to their aid. He was aware of all this, yet he couldn't bring himself to stop.

He would die fighting, not in defense of an admirable cause, but because killing was all he knew.

Even with the knowledge that he would slay this monster in the following second, deep down, he had already surrendered. The call of the void had never been so alluring. Would it be so wrong to succumb to it?

Blood not his own flowed along his arm, streaming down to his hand to the tip of his finger, where a small droplet began to form. No longer able to bear its weight, the droplet collapsed onto the pavement, without a sound. The creature let out a shrill cry from the sky. Lowering its head, its neck began to move towards his direction at a dizzying speed.

Its body followed the movement of its neck very slowly, and in the narrow alley, the human accessed for the first time the view behind the monster.

The corpse of a little girl was laying there. Under the orange light of the street lamp, her pink sandals shone with a surreal glow.

A memory surged violently to the surface, hitting him with the force of a punch to the liver.

Earlier in the day, he had been asked about his favorite color, and he hadn't given an answer. He remained silent, as he often did. Now, he stared at the gray asphalt. Was gray his favorite color? He had no idea. Just as he was about to sigh, a pair of sandals entered his field of vision. Pink sandals.

"I heard you wanted to become a hunter. Why?"

He raised his head and found a girl staring down at him. Her head was round, blocking out the entire sun behind her. Her eyes were a light brown, and her hair was tied in two high, uneven ponytails. He didn't know her name, but he recognized her from his class. And, oh, what a chatterbox she was!

He couldn't recall the answer he’d given her. If only he could remember! But he knew that his response was the catalyst for the relationship that would later unfold between them.

"I want to be like you. I want to become a hunter," she replied with a grin.

She used to follow him everywhere when they were children. Now, he rarely found her by his side. Perhaps, he was the reason behind this change, as he never showed appreciation for her presence.

Another memory resurfaced.

They had grown up. She no longer wore her hair in ponytails.

"A real robot, you are!" she exclaimed

She was angry with him. He couldn't remember why. She had never been angry with him before.

He didn't reply, but hearing her describe him that way felt strange. He was not very introspective, rarely putting names on his emotions. "Do I love her?" He never asked himself that question. He wasn't even aware that he felt more comfortable in her presence, more on edge in her absence.

A few days had passed after that incident when she came to apologize. Her eyes were sad as she offered her apologies, and he didn't know the reason. Why did he feel like she was surrendering, as if she was abandoning him?

Once he’s done dealing with this monster, he will call her. He wants to know why she was so sad on that day. He’ll suggest they fight the monsters together, and if she refuses, he’ll beg her. Let them, at least, face the end of this world together!

Another memory follows.

He disliked seeing her sad. He’d prepared a whole speech, and it went as follows: "Sometimes, I have no idea what's going on inside me, and I don't know if it's because I feel too little or because I feel too much. One thing I'm certain of is that it is only when you’re with me, that I feel truly good. My body and heart have always known that; it's my head that took the longest to admit it."

"A monster killed her. She went alone on a mission" he was told.

The monster's neck was dangerously approaching him.

How could he forget she had died?

After her death, everything spiraled out of control. It all unfolded so quickly that they only realized too late that the structure holding hunters together was collapsing. It wasn't really her death that triggered it; after all, hunters were always dying in the field. It was long-buried issues that were only resurfacing now. The unity that once made the hunters an admirable organization began to disintegrate. At their nadir, the monsters gained power.

He was continuously occupied after her death, not a single moment for himself, not a single second devoted to her memories. He became an empty shell.

He would give anything to hear her laughter again. And he didn’t even dread the sacrifice he could make to have her back. He could embody a monstrosity greater than those of the monsters surrounding him if it meant another minute by her side.

He raised his hand towards the sky and thrust it into the monster's heart. So deeply it came out of its back. He withdrew his hand from its body just as swiftly. The monster collapsed with a dull thud.

Her death would not be in vain.

"I saw the corpse of a little girl killed by a monster. I never want to see that again," that's how he’d answered her. That's why he wanted to be a hunter and that’s what he’d forgotten.

After all these years, he still hadn't managed to fulfill his wish. Here was the proof that something had always been amiss with the hunters' approach.

It wasn't the end of the world, but its rebirth. And in this new world he would be the one to dictate the rules.