Soon after, Gilliam heard a strange crackle of flame. He felt rather too warm and it hit him, there really was a flame. He jumped on his bed and went to his mother, but she can't be seen in the house.
"Mother!" He shouted but then he heard different people outside of the hut and his mother was on a pole and the people he doesn't know was calling her mother a witch and she should die.
Shocked that they wanted her mother to be killed and burned, Gilliam ran towards her mother.
Gilliam was seen by the people on the clearing and they restrained Gilliam hard, Hee struggled but to no avail. Then he saw a familiar group of people came out in the crowd and then the people stopped shouting and swearing when a man wearing a silver and iron plating with a sword on hand entered on the middle of the crowd where her mother was bounded on a pole, together with an old man who wears a white and golden robe.
"Tonight! We can finally rest in peace now that we found the witch that was controlling the forest and takes out our children as a sacrifice" After the announcement of the old man, the cheer of the people was surprisingly loud, and as soon it broke out, it was dead again.
"Now what do we do with the Witch?" Asked by the old man towards the crowd.
Gilliam saw her mother was injured and was tied to a stake and was just silently listening to the people. Then, it looked like her mother noticed the presence of Gilliam among the crowd and look towards Gilliam.
He knew that her mother who took her in when he found himself running in the dark Forest of Erud and gave him life and name was a witch, but she was only protecting the forest through her powers to keep it safe and sacred for the animals and other beasts to leave in peace. She was the guardian of something that is sleeping within and she had lived a hundred years just to keep the forest peaceful. She was not a witch that takes out human away. They are mistaken.
Now he heard the people saying that she should burn at the stake so that her witchery would stop. Gilliam tried to struggle on his bindings but the men that took him down was too strong for him and he could not do anything.
"MOTHER!!!!" she shouted as she saw that the stake where the blind old woman was tied up. The old woman in a black dress didn't move. "Please, let her go, she didn't do anything wrong. My mother won't do that!" He pleaded to the men that held him in the ground. But they didn't seem to hear him. "Please! Please don't burn her! She is innocent!" He shouted and finally the men said that he should be still because after the burning of his mother, he will be next, Gilliam felt terror and a cold chill crept on his neck down to his spine slowly as if reality wants him to feel slowly and surely what is happening.
The men in silver plating armor finally held out a torch and the people screamed like wild animals in Gilliam's ear.
When the torched touched the bottom of the stage where the stake was on, he saw how quickly the dried woods and leaves caught fire and how quickly it spread towards the area where her mother is.
Gilliam saw the horror where the humanity was brutal to another life. Everything slowed down in his time as he felt hopeless. He looked down at the ground and a tear left his eyes. He looked up again towards his mother and he saw as her mother was burning at the stake for being a witch, he noticed that she was smiling and is saying something.
I release you from the bound. Free to use your sword. Be free and explore the world.
It troubled Gilliam but he felt a certain feeling of cold and years of longing. He was rather surprised by the sudden surge of emotions filling up his whole life and brain as if something big returned to him.
He was a little astonished and he didn't clearly know what is happening until he saw that the fires on the stake swallowed her mother full. And another tear left his eyes and he was being carried by the people towards a dead tree and it was tall than the most normal tree. There is a rope on it. He is going to be hanged to death by the people that killed his mother he was rather lifeless now that the one who gave meaning to his life was gone and died in a painful way. So he let the people led him and sometimes beat him.
Suddenly, the earth shook for a brief moment and the crowd was silenced for a minute. Another shake was felt and everything was quiet.
The next thing that he saw is that people around him are dying suddenly and some are being taken away by vines and some are being attacked by the animals in the forest. And he finally sank by the disappearance of his consciousness.
*
"Hey!" He heard a womanly voice. Gilliam Remembered his mother.
"Mother, I just had a bad dream." He finally opened his eyes and was surprised that he saw a lady with a green hair and some flowers on it. She was wearing a white short dress and it was sleeveless. He saw at the back a burnt stake and the house where he and his Mother was living before.
On the ground, different states of human corpses are scattered around him as well as on the smoking pole where her mother's solid ashes can still be found.
He wept softly without covering his face but he faced down to let his hair cover for him.
"I'm sorry about the protector, but you must live on from now." The lady told Gilliam as if she knew the loss
As she was leaving the boy alone, she stopped and she noticed a sheathed sword of black and red color and as if it was a glowing faintly of orange in the hands of Gilliam.
She felt a dark presence on the sword. "Kid, where did you get that sword?" The woman in a white one-piece skirt inquired. Gilliam wiped his tears out and look at the sword in hand, a little bothered on how he had a sword on his hands when he had no recollection that he has such an item.
"I remembered having this sword with me when I was running from something. But ever since I was rescued by mother, I haven't seen this sword from that moment." Gilliam's eyes started to flood again and he can't stop it and it fell down through his cheeks and directly towards the ground. "I forgot that I had such an equipment. If I had known, I could have saved my mother."
The green haired lady looked at Gilliam and the sword and gave him a moment to calm down and gave a little space.
After a while, Gilliam moved towards the burnt corpse of her mother. "What are you doing?"
"I have to bury my mother properly. Even though she was burnt, she is still part of the forest."
The lady sighed again and stopped Gilliam with her slender arms. She just nodded at him, but somehow, Gilliam understood what she meant. The lady then raised her arms towards the tree. And as if by miracle, the trees began swaying and some branches have extended their reach towards the burnt body and slowly took it down. They also cleared where the burning at the stake was initiated and dug a hole in it.
"With this, my protector should have been more at peace." And Gilliam watched as the earth embraces her mother and became part of the forest.
*
After a few hours after the burial of Gilliam's mother, Gilliam stood up again from the grave and started walking on the right side of the forest.
"Wait a minute!" The lady who has been on his side ever since started running towards Gilliam.
Gilliam stopped and looked back. He had a face where anger and resentment can be clearly seen. The lady stopped for a while feeling concerned but nonetheless stated her business to Gilliam. "Make a contract with me."
"Huh?" He made a face like 'are you messing me at a time like this'
"I said, make a contract with me!" Said the lady and Gilliam stood out rather annoyed as he was looking at the grave where her mother will be sleeping for now on.
After looking at the grave, Gilliam then looked intensely towards the sword he had in his hand. "I will annihilate every human being in this world."
Those words made the lady with green hair flinched and hurriedly said, "Whoa, whoa there boy, I don't want you filling out of darkness."
All she got was a cold stare from Gilliam, she flinched a little but sighed at the end. "Look, my name is Maaya and I am the one your mother is protecting. I am the guardian of this forest." But Gilliam walked away towards someplace he doesn't know.
"Boy, the first Pillar Vessel that I found after waking up for the first two hundred years and this is how he acts?" She sighed. "Hey! Wait up! I still need you to make a contract with me!" She then ran towards Gilliam who is filled with emotions of revenge towards humanity.