February 1496, Puerto Rico, northern coast, ruins of a Taino West Bay Tribe village.
Dusk sank over the sea, reflecting a blood-red sunset. Battered Taino fishing boats drifted along the shore like withered logs several meters long. The fishponds by the sea were still there, and the cassava fields in the distance remained lush and green. But the West Bay Tribe's village was nothing but the terrible traces left after destruction.
Most of the thatched huts in the village had burned and collapsed. The shell-and-stone altars once used to worship the Zemi god tablets, once visible everywhere, had all been smashed to pieces. The largest ancestral great house at the center had been burned completely into ruins, leaving only a blackened base and faintly exposed charred bones.
"Ancestors! Sky God! Main God of the west!... How could this happen? How could this happen?! When I left, the West Bay Tribe was clearly still here... More than two thousand tribesmen, so many clansmen! All gone..."
The messenger Rabbit Leg stood blankly on the beach, staring at the destroyed village as two lines of tears slowly spilled down his face. Two months ago, he had set out from here, paddling a small boat with all his strength to the Great Island of Haiti to seek aid. But now, when he returned... everything was gone. And the Earth Tribe where he had been born was probably, at this very moment, reduced to the same scene of destruction!
"Wuu, wuu! Wuu, wuu!! Our West Bay Tribe... our village, our people... they're all gone! All gone!"
"Wuuuwaa! And the ancestral god tablets, the ancestors' souls are shattered!..."
At this moment, the West Bay Tribe messengers who had gone with Rabbit Leg to seek aid dropped straight to their knees, each of them crying until they