First Murder

It was already daytime, but it had not stopped raining, and the number of clouds in the sky prevented the passing of direct sunshine.

"Felipe?" Henry got up; he was under the tree that fell; the tree didn't entirely fall, but the base was still attached to the trunk, thus making a square triangle.

Henry would be dead alongside him if the said trunk were to fall as he was also under the burning trunk.

"…" Felipe looked at him with eye bags under his eyes. He didn't say anything.

"From now on, I am making the decisions. We are getting ourselves out of these mountains." Felipe said softly.

"…" Henry looked around as he remembered something.

"…" Felipe looked at him without saying anything. He wanted to be sure he was not hallucinating.

"The… kid…" Henry said, very vigilant.

"He left…" Felipe said as he was forcing himself to breathe.

"… But… But…"

"He was the same kid I killed in the barn," Felipe said.

"EHHH!? He survived?" Henry asked, too surprised as he saw how much blood the kid had lost.

"No… tell me, Henry… do dead people return to life?" Felipe asked.

"… No… of course no."

Felipe smiled and said: "Apparently, they do… He was here to torment us, nothing more."

"EEhhhh!? Ghosts?"

"…" Felipe didn't want to argue anymore; he was thinking about what they would do next; he had only slept for 1 hour, as long as half asleep could be considered sleeping.

"So cold," Henry complained as he realized Felipe would not answer.

"Yeah, we must keep going or die from the cold. This the fire from this trunk has died out. There is no other way that we can survive if we stay here." Felipe said as he slowly got up.

*Sneeze.*

'Fuck.' Felipe's course as his whole body jerked when he sneezed.

"…"

"Just keep going," Felipe said; he remembered the kid's words. They were branded to his brain.

"Ah! Wait!" Henry said as he also sneezed. They were catching a cold.

They began to go down from then on, but they discovered that the path was much more treacherous than yesterday; they had created 10 landslides in just 1 hour of walking downwards.

All in all, they could finally see any civilization on the far, not too far, though by their own standards, it would be around 3 hours of climbing in the jumble.

"That is Cape, that is Cape," Henry said as he smiled widely. They were in a tunnel, and they just saw the end of it.

Cape is where Felipe and his father ended up after weathering a hurricane. There is where he was made a saint.

"Good, let's go." Felipe quickly went ahead as he was surveying the land for landslides.

40 minutes later, Felipe and Henry were on the ground, land, leveled land. Felipe couldn't be happier. He was sure that as long as he arrived in Cape, he and Henry would be saved. He has forgotten that there were still people out there looking for him, not a child nor a woman, men, men that kidnapped them in the first place.

"We did it, Felipe, we did it," Henry said as he went forward and began to sprint. Felipe only walked as his whole body was hurting. The number of trees he had to hold on to as they descended the mountain was too many; his hands and feet were hurting due to their constant stress.

All in all, the rain was still heavy, so when they arrived at a road, it was all flooded; they were walking on flooded roads, yet they didn't care; plus, it was not too bad, at least 1-2 inches of water depending on the level of the road.

All in all, Felipe had gotten accustomed to the sound of water splashing, though he really wants for that sound to be over, to be in his home with a warm blanket. Funny enough, he has not been thinking of his previous world; he was thinking about the life where he is the next king of The New Granada.

Acceptance of his circumstances and what he is. He will not let such an opportunity slip his hands so easily; he will just not let it happen.

Suddenly, from behind him, there were loud barks out of nowhere.

Felipe looked back and saw a golden dog aggressively bark at him as he was running with the forward part of his body elevated. In contrast, the backside of his body was lowered due to the sprinting efforts done by its back legs.

"Fuck!" Felipe said slowly as he waited for the dog to attack him. He got his rusty old nail and held it in his right hand as it was the dominant one.

The dog was just below his chest level; nevertheless, very fatal for a kid like him. His only thought before they made contact was: 'You better not have rabies.'

Felipe straightened his arms out as the dog was about to bite him and, somehow, perfectly needled his feet inside the mouth of the canine.

It bit hard, but almost instantly, the canine whimpered as it let go.

Felipe had been able to scrape the entire inner mouth of the dog with the rusty nail. Despite being old, it was a deep cut as the nail was very sturdy and long, making it very thin at the top.

The dog let go and retreated a few steps to look Felipe in the eyes. It was already bleeding from its mouth.

Felipe looked at the dog and realized that it wasn't rabid as it was unbothered by the amount of water it was in; a large puddle was receiving massive bleeding from the dog's mouth.

Even though it whimpered, the dog could ignore his bleeding and pain and just looked at Felipe. No Barking nor growling; it was just staring, trying to figure out the best way to take down Felipe.

"You fucking dog… I met fucking death; I will not die to you." Felipe's anger increased as he held the nail in a better way which would be able to cause more damage if used as a dagger to stab.

Felipe could not come up with something logical to what happened that night; he just decided to label the entity as death, which was fitting as he told him that it was not his time. Nevertheless, the very near close encounter made him realize how vulnerable and weak he was.

Bark.

Felipe swung his arm, and the dog fell for thefaint and moved his body horizontally to evade the hand that made it feel so much pain.

Felipe didn't lose his momentum but just increased it. He was going for the dog's side body with all his strength while using his body as weight.

Felipe was successful and was able to make the dog slip sideways. With his right hand, he began stabbing the dog without a care in the world as the dog desperately tried to escape his dead weight.

Felipe could stab the dog's neck multiple times as he blindly swung his arm.

There were howling cries from the dog, yet Felipe didn't stop.

Then he felt a huge screening howl; Felipe could feel it, he had hit an eye, and the nail went deep enough to hit bone. Felipe could feel its head's violent moves as it tried to escape, but he maintained a firm grip on the nail. Thus, he was able to pin down its head.

Feeling anger again, Felipe used the little strength he had left, removed it from its skull, brought it close, and began stabbing the dog's left. The dog continued to cry out of pain, but Felipe didn't stop.

Behind him, Henry finally arrived; the sound of heavy rain had drowned the barks from the dog, but the high pitch sound of the dog's howl finally brought Henry's attention. It was too late; Henry arrived when Felipe made the nail enter the dog's spinal cord right below its shoulders, making its behind legs unable to move.

Henry finally got up and began to breathe heavily.

"You are a fucking asshole," Felipe screamed as he looked at the defenceless dog whimpering in a pool of dirty water.

Felipe didn't see any cute animal; he only saw another living being trying to take his life. And even though he was already defenceless, his rage didn't diminish; it only increased somehow.

Felipe just used his weight as he pounced off the animal, and with his hand, he pushed the nail more profoundly, not that it mattered; after all, it was not able to feel it anyways. The part that made the dog start crying out desperately again was when Felipe pounced over its neck and, with his forearm, began to devoid the life out of it.

Felipe could feel its heavy breathing and its heartbeat.

Slowly, its heartbeat began to slow down. Yet, Felipe didn't stop and kept pushing in. He was going to kill it, and nothing would stop him.

Henry was not going to stop him; after all, Henry Himself killed a woman with no regret, so he didn't have a right to tell Felipe what to do.

Felipe felt its breath die out, and then his heartbeat stopped. He has taken a life on purpose. Not a human's but still a life.

His mind changed at that exact moment.