Year 1999 after the Big Madness

On February 26th my life changed completely because that was the day I started my own adventure. My name is Sabela Forte Godallo and what I like most about my body is my hair. It's a beautiful red hair and it is a family mark because my mother was also redheaded. I say she was because she died a long time ago, killed by the greatest villain of the Green Moor Kingdom: the King of Monsters Maeloc.

Mum was one of the Children of the Sun. This is the name given to the adventurer's guild in the Kingdom. She was the reason why I also wanted to join them to become an adventurer. Besides, I also wanted to avenge her death by killing her murderer, the evil Maeloc.

Well, the bad thing was that my dad didn't want me to follow in mum's footsteps because he was afraid I would end up just like her: dead. Even though he was also an adventurer of the Children of the Sun! But I was completely sure that I wouldn't die, that I would manage to kill Maeloc and maybe even become a heroine of legend. Well... things wouldn't exactly happen like that.

So I decided that I would wait until I was eighteen to tell dad that my dream was to join the Children of the Sun. But three days after my birthday I still didn't tell him anything and my life was still the same, working as a lumberjack with dad. In other words, a total boredom.

But on February 26 my life changed completely, even though the day started out quite normally. It was Sunday and, like every Sunday, I could afford to spend the morning lying in bed reading a Solman comic book. This was one of those superheroes who wore a cape and pants over his clothes. He had the power of the sun so he could fly and also shoot sunbeams out of his eyes. But what I really liked about him was that he used his powers to help people to solve their problems. In the comic book I was reading, Solman was fighting his arch enemy Dr. Luna. What Dr. Luna wanted to do was to activate the Hand of Helios, a super weapon that really exists, to completely annihilate Sun City and the only one who could stop the catastrophe was Solman.

I remember that at one point, I felt as if something was watching me, it was quite a strong sensation and I even got out of bed and looked around with my heart pounding. But nothing at all, I was alone and as soon as the feeling arose, as soon as it disappeared.

“Well, it was nothing..." I muttered, although I would later discover that it wasn't really like that.

I didn't feel like reading the comic anymore, so I picked up the photograph of mum I had on my bedside table. She didn't look very maternal, maybe it was because of her hard gaze or maybe it was the scars spreading from the corners of her lips and crossing her cheeks like a rather grim smile.

The door opened with such a force that the four walls of my room shook. In surprise, the photo of my mother slipped from my hands, fell to the floor and broke the glass. A gigantic shadow came over me, howling guttural sounds. It wasn't a monster, it was dad, and he approached me pale and trembling.

“Did you see your brother? Do you know where he is, you girl?”

“I don’t know, really. He probably went to the forest to look for truffles.”

“To the forest! Again! You have to go and bring him back home, right now!”

“Why don’t you go yourself?” I asked, annoyed because he came into my room behaving like a raging bull and broke my picture of mum.

“Well, if I go looking for him he’ll surely run away from me and you know what could happen if he gets too close to the King's Barrier!” dad shouted.

The King's Barrier is a shield made of magical energy that surrounds the Kingdom and protects us from all the monsters of the Nightmare Nation. Without it, the Green Moorland wouldn't last a day.

“No, actually I have no idea that what would happen because you never told me,” I said, and I was really curious.”

“Sure, I would tell you if I could, but... I cannot. Please, go and bring your brother back home,” dad said to me.

He was quite a big strong man, with a simple face and a full typical lumberjack beard. I'm pretty sure he grew that beard the day he decided to become one of them. Dad was that kind of person.

“It’s OK... I’m going.”

Dad gave me such a hug that, if I wasn't so strong from a lifetime of felling trees, he surely would break me a bone or three. After that he thanked me and ran out of the room.

I got dressed quickly because I wasn't going to go to the forest with my pyjamas on, so I put on my sandals, a pair of jeans that were a bit worn out and a pink tank top that let see my brown and strong arms from cutting down trees day in and day out, except on Sundays when I can rest and read comics.

I picked up my axe. It was my dad's birthday present. He made it and I have to say he did a great job: the handle is made of dark, well-polished wood; it’s a pleasure to hold it, while the blade is so sharp that when I ran my fingers along the blade I cut them right through it. The truth is I wished to use it against some goblins: those are weak monsters that are sometimes seen in the forest.

I went out of our home: a hut in the middle of nowhere. And in front of me I could see the beginning of the Purple Forest. Baron Mher of Nebula allowed Dad to cut trees and sell the wood from the forest. If he didn't and we were caught logging illegally, we would be thrown in jail.

The trees in this forest are not normal as they are affected by being close to the Nightmare Nation: they are purple, if you rub their bark you feel a touch of flesh and the leaves looked like severed tongues. It also smells quite bad, it reminds me a bit of sweat.

I had been walking through the forest for ten minutes and there was no sign of my brother. I spent a long time looking at the bark of a tree because it had a shape like a human head with its mouth open in a gesture of terror. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked at me. Even though this was normal, I couldn't help but feel bad about it.

“Nooo! Get away from me, you monster! I don't want you to eat me!” shouted a voice I recognised as my brother's, so I wasted no time and I run after him.

In no time at all I reached a clearing in the forest. My brother was leaning his butt against the trunk of a tree and shivering because there was a monster in front of him: a goblin. They are vicious, despicable green creatures, just over a metre tall, with teeth so sharp they could smash nuts into powder, and claws as dangerous as hell.

“Sabelaaa! You've come to save me!” my brother shouted when he saw me.

Well, that's how he ruined my plan. I was trying to go behind the goblin and hit it in the head with the axe before it realised I was there. The monster looked at me with its two big yellow eyes and its mouth twisted into a grin.

“Buah! More people! Now more fun for everyone! Muhahahahahaha!” shrieked the goblin.

I hated the monsters because I thought that all they wanted was to do evil and I was sure that it would be best if they all disappeared from the Kingdom.

“Break his dirty face, Sabela! You're such a brute! I'm sure it's very easy for you!”

I didn't really like him calling me a brute, but I couldn't think of any witty retort and besides, the goblin just jumped in my direction with his arms up in the air. When he was close to me I swung the axe directly at his head and it was quite satisfying to feel the blade plunge between his eyes.

The blood flowed from the wound and the goblin took a few steps backwards, his hands trying to grasp the handle of my axe with clumsy and weak movements. In the end he fell to the ground and from there he would never move again.

I neared and retrieved my weapon. As soon as I touched the dark handle I felt a pulse coming from inside him. It was quite faint and I thought it was my imagination, but now I know better.

“Fufu, you idiot... You know that the Dark Hole Cave is near here and there are usually goblins there, why don't you stay away, eh?” I asked him, but as usual he paid zero attention to me.

My brother was running towards me, his muzzle congested with snot and crying tears of relief. You should know I call my brother a pig because he's a real pig. He's a pink-skinned pig with a curly tail.

“A hug, Sabelaaa!" shouted Fufu.

I didn't want my pink T-shirt to end up full of pig snot, so I stepped aside and Fufu hit a tree trunk. Fufu staggered back with drunken steps and before collapsing to the ground he was able to say:

“I have been... defeated…”

The poor pig was left with his hams upside down.

“Oh! Sorry..." I said because I didn't mean to knock him out.

Well, at that point I picked Fufu up in my arms, which was easy because he was a teacup pig, and got ready to leave.

“Not so soon, human... Do you think I'm going to let you go after killing one of my family?” a hoarse voice asked me, it belonged to a monster and this time it was a hobgoblin.

Unlike the goblins, the hobgoblins were quite large and it was a few heads higher than me. It was dressed only in a loincloth, so you could see a muscular greenish body and it was pretty clear that fighting him was a bad idea. But I already had my axe in my hand, after defeating the goblin I was eager to continue fighting and I had never fought a hobgoblin before. I pointed my weapon at the monster and said:

“I defeated him and I also can defeat you.”

“Do you really think that?” He asked me with a cruel smile and he jumped in my direction so quickly that I wasn’t able to react.

“What…?”

The hobgoblin hit me with his club all over my head and killed me with one single blow.

Well, I died. It wouldn't be the first time and it wouldn't be the last. The next thing I remember is that I was in a place and all around was darkness: up, down, left and right.

“Hello? Is anybody there? Hello?” I shouted.

Red letters appeared over my head:

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE A SKILL?

That's when I knew what was happening: sometimes people receive special powers and, in the vast majority of cases, this happens after a near-death experience. That was happening to me at the time, even though my "near-death experience" was my own death. But I wasn't going to complain, having a special ability would help me a lot in my career as an adventurer.

“Well, I could need it... How I do it?”

As soon as I asked, a big wheel appeared in front of me with a lot of symbols inside: a dove with three heads, a duck with a two-horned helmet, a golden glass from which light was coming out... Suddenly it began to spin at full speed and the needle stopped in a space where I could see a burning heart.

LUCKY YOU, GIRL!

YOU WON THE ABILITY:

THE 900 LIVES!

“The 900 lives? What's that about?”

The darkness melted away and I found myself back in the clearing of the Purple Forest with the hobgoblin in front of me with his club in the air about to give me a good blow. He didn't move at all, he stood as if he were a statue.

His ugly face was petrified in a grimace of triumph because he was just at the moment when he would give me the final stroke that would kill me.

“What's going on here?” I wondered, and as I looked around me, I discovered that the rest of the forest was also frozen in an instant.

I noticed that something was looking at me from the trees and I could faintly make out a being in the distance, only noticing that he was dressed in colourful clothes and little else. But for some reason just seeing it made me feel quite scared.

“Time forward!”

As soon as he said it, everything went back to normal and the club fell on my head killing me again. Because I was terribly afraid of the strange being I’ve seen in the forest, I forgot all about the situation I was in...

Once again I found myself in that place where all was darkness, I felt like I was lost in the middle of a gigantic space and don't you think it was a very pleasant situation.

OUCH! YOU ONLY HAVE 899 LIVES LEFT

FRIEND'S ADVICE: BEWARE OF WHAT'S HIDDEN IN THE TIME BETWEEN THE SECONDS.

As soon as I read it, the darkness slipped away again and I returned to the real world. Well, the Time between the Seconds, which was more like reality itself, except that everything was at a standstill and I was the only one who could move.

The hobgoblin's sword was over my head and if I didn't do something very quickly he would kill me again. I thought of moving and getting behind him to attack him from behind, but my feet wouldn't leave the spot. Then I tried to kill him in the Time between the Seconds by hitting him with the axe, but no matter how hard I hit him, it didn't hurt him at all.

“Okay... I guess we'll just have to kill him the normal way... Time... I'm done!” I shouted.

The sword fell on me, but as I was already prepared I dodged it easily. Then I plunged the axe all the way into his neck and the blade sliced through his flesh with astonishing ease. Dad certainly made me a fine weapon, one cannot say otherwise. Blood was pouring out from the wound of his neck, and putting his hands over it did no good as it ran down his fingers, leaving them all bright red. The hobgoblin collapsed to the ground and from there he would never get up again.

I felt again a pulse that seemed to come from inside my axe, it was quite faint and lasted less than a heartbeat. But that it happened again confirmed to me that it was not my fantasies, although it was impossible at the moment to know what it was.

I realised what a feat I had accomplished: killing two monsters in a row, one of them was a hobgoblin, and those are considered really dangerous. I wanted to go to the village immediately to tell my best friend Lucia about it, but dying is by no means a party and I was quite tired.

“I saw the whole thing, Sabela, it was amazing!” I heard my brother shout, as if he had just woken up from his fainting spell.

“Did you see how I killed the hobgoblin?” I asked him.

Fufu started to run around me, even though a few minutes ago he almost cracked his head open.

“Yes, it was awesome to see how you dodged the attack, now I believe you can become an adventurer, Sabela!” said Fufu and that made me happy. At least I had someone in my family to support me in my dream.

It didn't take us long to get home, and as soon as we entered we found Dad in the living room. He was pacing back and forth, dead worried, and as soon as he saw us, a relieved expression appeared on his face.

“Oh, you've found the pig! You've found the pig! Thank goodness, thank goodness! I thought it was going to be a big mess!” he exclaimed and ruffled my beautiful reddish hair.

Fufu scampered to dad's feet.

“You should have seen Sabela, daddy! She took out a hobgoblin all by herself and in just a second! She was like a real adventurer and not like she normally is, a real brute who only knows how to cut down trees and fart? Isn’t it true, Sabela, isn’t it true?”

I don't know how she expected me to take that well.

“Now that I think about it, isn't it a little weird that I have a pig brother? Pigs are not brothers, pigs are food… "

Fufu turned pale and hid behind dad.

“Nooo! You're scarier than the monster!”

“A hobgoblin? Is that true?” said dad and looked at me with an uncharacteristic seriousness.

“Well, yes, I hit him right in the throat and there's not much you can do about that... and there's something I’ve been trying to tell you for a few days. I... I want to be an adventurer... I want to join the Children of the Sun," I told him.

Dad turned so pale that he looked like a ghost.

“As I didn’t know that. All your life since you were a brat you wanted... We need to talk... seriously," he said and shuffled over to the dining table.

Once seated there, he looked at me with a pitying face that made me want to tell him that I didn't really want to be an adventurer and that I'd rather continue as a lumberjack. It didn't last long because I thought it was my destiny to become a heroine of legend and kill Maeloc.