Time was ticking by. Hydred slowly felt himself becoming one with the thick, black sludge that was eating away at his feet. He heard the voices of those whose feet have been where his were whisper to him. “Give up” they chanted. “Join us” they echoed.  He was trapped in the River of No Return. The more he moved, the angrier the sludge would get and the deeper he would sink. Hydred knew he wasn’t going to escape. He knew that before long, he would sink completely and his spirit would never leave that crowded graveyard. He closed his eyes and began to dream about his past as the sludge climbed its way up to the nail beds of the razor sharp claws that he once used to tear apart his opponents.

He had the feeling that his days were numbered for the past few months. Ever since the villagers destroyed his forest dwelling with torches and pitchforks, Hydred had been on the run. Some political oaf had vowed to have Hydred’s head on his wall. Apparently, it was fabled that his heart had the ability to heal any wound, no matter how severe in mere minutes. The people of the village were ecstatic. Why wouldn’t they be? Clearly anything that they didn’t understand is a threat to their livelihood.

Usually, Hydred would ignore the murmurs of the villagers. He knew that they were ignorant of the past and ungrateful for the fights he fought for their wellbeing. This time, however, he had acknowledged that his relationship with humanity had been severed. They had their own armies and powerful machines that could deter the hungry demons at their doorsteps. The world no longer needed him. Hydred no longer needed to put his neck on the line. He could no longer stay near the village. He left that rainy night.

While running, Hydred heard a brutish scream. “Halt! In the name of the king!” Hydred continued running. The yelling got louder. He ran faster. His paws were beaten from running. He heard the clinging of metal and he felt the breeze of the bullets skim his fur. He narrowly avoided the first round of bullets. The masked assailant on a horse began to reload his gun. Hydred was still running at top speed. He heard the second round of bullets but didn’t feel them pass him. He realized that he had been shot.

The bullet burned its way past Hydred’s thick fur and lodged itself between his bones. He leaked a trail of blood as he began to lose his stamina. Hydred felt his heart beating at an unnatural speed. It was going into overdrive in an effort to fight off the bullet and keep him alive. He began to wonder how his relationship with humans changed so dramatically in the past hundred years. His crystal blue eyes welled with tears. They fell to the ground like his blood in the rain. He only needed a few minutes of rest. That’s the only way he could heal his wound and return to fighting level. But the pain from the bullet was too much. Hydred felt the world leave him. He finally collapsed into a puddle of his own blood.

Hydred’s eyes opened. His ankles had been tied to each other. His fur had been shaven and he had lost most of his blood. “So you’re finally awake,” said the masked assailant. “My name is Arthur. I assume you know why I have you here?”

Hydred growled at the man. The man held an axe to the sky and began to sharpen it against a rock. “The king is willing to pay top dollar for a beast like you, but I think I can get something more with you alive. I’ll give you two options. Either you follow me to Calamaiku Village, or I kill you now and take your heart back to the palace”.  Hydred’s eyes popped out with anger. His heart had begun to regenerate his body.

The beast let out a furious howl as he burst out of his ties. Hydred charged at Arthur at top speed. Arthur charged back wielding his mighty steel axe. The two foes fought relentlessly, clashing with so much force that even the trees rooted deep within the ground trembled. Arthur had the advantage, he was much faster than Hydred. Hydred knew that the fight wasn’t in his favor. He backed off to the edge of a cliff.

“Give up. You can’t win. You’ll always be a beast! We don’t want you! Filthy animal!”

 Hydred had two options. He could give in to the hatred that the humans had for him or he could back off of the cliff into a deep, black river. He chose the river. Hydred backed off the cliff and smiled as he saw Arthur gasp in shock.

Hydred shed a tear at his memories. He knew that he made the right decision. By this point, the sludge had eaten its way to the base of his heart. It was throughout the past few hours that his heart had kept him alive. As the sludge reached his heart, his heart began to swell. Hydred refused to lose himself in the sludge. Thick vines began to spurt out of his body. They circled around each other as they grew out of the river and reached the top of the cliff. A thick bush of leaves grew from the vines, forming what looked like a colossal banyan tree. The massive tree glowed a bright yellow and shortly after, so did the entirety of the river. The black sludge slowly began to evaporate Arthur watched in awe from above. After an hour, the river had been drained completely and all that was left was a short bed of grass.