1 day until the Last Ordeal

It was one thing to say we'd deal with Chris, but the truth was that I had no idea how we were going to find him. Julio had an answer for that: Apparently there was a run-down abandoned shack out in the woods - the real woods at the edge of town, not the ones behind the scohol - where he and his friends used to hang out and smoke sometimes. If he wasn't at school, and he wasn't at home, that was probably where he was hiding.

It was a group of four of us who went out looking for him - myself, Julio, Keiko and Aiko. We didn't really have a good plan, just a conviction that we had to do something about him before the Last Ordeal started. Would we be able to talk him down? Would we have to kill him? I didn't think I had it in me to kill someone, not even him.

If was evening when we found the place. I had no idea what it was originally supposed to be; maybe there was plans to turn these woods into a campsite at some point. If that was the case, it had never happened, so all that remained was one sad-looking, half-rotted cabin full of holes. We stopped, and I listened carefully. I couldn't say for sure, but I thought I could sense someone's presence from inside. I was still thinking of how best to approach the situation when Julio kicked the door off its hinges.

"CHRIS!" Julio yelled. I ran to join him, and just made it in time to see Chris jump through a broken window to escape back into the woods and make a run for it. We followed.

"I TRUSTED YOU!" Julio kept yelling as he sprinted after Chris, faster than the rest of us could keep up. "Julio, calm down!" Keiko called out, clearly worried. Our chance at talking this through peacefully was already gone.

As Julio closed the distance between them, Chris eventually gave up running and turned around to take a swing at him. Julio summoned his weapon, and sword and axe clashed, one fueled by fear and one by rage. I moved around one side and Keiko around the other, to try and keep him from escaping. Akio had an arrow ready, but his aim was shaky. I don't think he wanted to shoot a person, either.

"Go away!" Chris shouted back in a panic. "I don't want anything to do with this! I'm out! I'm leaving!"

"You should have thought of that before becoming a fucking MURDERER!" Julio roared. I moved in to try and trip Chris, but when Julio said that, I felt a wave of invisible force smash into me. The woods became a blur of green and brown as I tumbled back to the ground, looking up in confusion. Everyone near Julio had been knocked away by something, and Julio himself looked strange. Red, pulsing veins grew from his eyes, spreading across his face in sharp angles, like the wires on a circuit board. The whites of his eyes were the same shade of red.

Julio roared again, this time like a wild animal, and charged Chris as he scrambled to his feet. His attacks were faster, stronger, and more chaotic than before. Every time his sword hit Chris's axe, it looked like it was going to knock it out of his hands. Every time Chris backpedaled, Julio closed the distance instantly and continued attacking. I tried to chase after him, but slowed to a stop as I realized that I had no idea what to do. He was out of his mind. If I got close enough to support or stop Julio, he would probably kill me. If I didn't stop him, he would kill Chris.

That was around when the monster descended. It must have been hiding in the trees overhead, and we were all too focused on our own fight to notice it. It looked like a ball covered in human-like arms carved out of obsidian, extending in all directions. It landed right between Chris and Julio, and I immediately put their fight out of my mind. Keiko and Akio had the same thought, and the three of us caught up to help fight the thing. Monsters first, humans second.

I barely had time to think of how to fight the thing before it died. Julio didn't even slow down. His sword flickered, and a dozen arms shattered. They hadn't even hit the ground when he cut the core in half, killing the monster in the blink of an eye. I was stunned by how much stronger he must have become in this weird state. He had barely stopped to kill the monster before he caught up with Chris again, knocked his axe aside, and picked him up by the throat, pinning him against a tree. He had his sword in his free hand, ready to use it to pin Chris to the the side of the tree.

"JULIO!" I called out, getting as close as I could while still feeling safe. "Don't do this! You don't have to kill him!"

An arrow flew past me, just barely scratching Julio's cheek. I had no doubts that Akio could have hit him if he wanted to; this was a warning shot, something to get his attention off of Chris for a moment.

"WAKE UP, ASSHOLE!" Keiko punctuated the sentence by throwing a tree branch at Julio. As improvised weapons went, it was pretty useless, but it caught him off guard, which was all it needed to do. Between the three of us, his trance broke. He looked back, his eyes clear again, and blinked once. It was the last thing he ever did.

There was a deafening pop, like the sound of a fuse breaking, as the red veins withdrew. Blood began to trickle down from his eyes and mouth. Then, he fell to the ground limply, like a puppet with its strings cut.

I ran to Julio. I tried to feel for a pulse, to figure out someting I could do. It was too late. Chris was gone, too - while we were focused on Julio, he had made a run for it. We had failed.

I wanted to scream until my throat was raw. Why? What was that ability he used? Why did it kill him? How many of us were going to be left to fight the Last Ordeal?