The Guardian of Mortality [A DreamWorks Fanfic]

Ｔｈｅ Ｃｒｏｏｄｓ [Ｐａｒｔ 1 ]

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With every sun comes a new day. A new beginning. A hope that things will be better today than they were yesterday.

But not for me.

My name is Eep. And this is my family. The Croods. We're cavemen.

Most days we spend in our cave, in the dark. Night after night. Day after day. Yep, home sweet home.

When we did go out, we struggled to find food in a harsh and hostile world.

And I struggled to survive my family.

We were the last ones around. There used to be neighbours. Uh, the Gorts, smashed by a mammoth. The Horks, swallowed by a sand snake. The Erfs, mosquito bite. Throgs, common cold. And the Croods, that's us.

The Croods made it, because of my dad. He was strong, and he followed the rules. The ones painted on the cave walls. Anything new is bad, curiosity is bad. Going out at night is bad, basically, anything fun is bad.

Welcome to my world.

But this is a story about how all that changed in an instant. Because what we didn't know was that our world was about to come to an end.

And there were no rules on our cave walls to prepare us for that.

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Night had fallen, revealing a sky of inky darkness dotted with silver stars that seemed to flicker, threatening to plunge the whole world into darkness. But as the moon crossed the sky, the craters etched into the surface mimicking the expression of a mourning man, howling in agony, a single light started to glow, brighter than the others surrounding it. A light that sparked for a moment before fading almost completely. But just before it disappeared, the light grew brighter, shining like a beacon in the night sky.

A young man glanced up from the fire before him, frowning at the strange light in the sky. He had been travelling for years now and each night was filled with the crackling of the fire and the twinkling of the stars. He had gotten to know them well after all these years, giving them nicknames to remember them. Had it not been for the sun, the stars, and the moon he might have gotten lost years before. Of course, the little sloth accompanying him was also very helpful regarding navigation, but that's beside the point. But in all of his years, he had never seen a light in the sky as he did now.

Slowly, he rose to his feet, his eyes locked on the brilliant light.

A sudden thunderclap shook the earth and the man stumbled, nearly stepping on a burning twig as he tried to find his footing. Light covered the earth and the man turned his gaze to the stars again, watching as the light shot across the sky, a tail streaking behind him in the night.

"Belt, are you seeing this," the man asked, speaking to his pet sloth.

The sloth – Belt – cooed at the sight, lifting his paws to shield his eyes. The man did the same and they watched the light as it grew brighter and brighter. And bigger. The sloth was the first to realise that the light they were watching was currently hurling directly toward him and let out a startled shriek before scampering off to a pile of nearby rocks, hoping for safety. The man scrambled after him, though it took him a long moment before he realised that he might be in danger.