Three days earlier…

The last thing that Homer saw before his eyes, before losing consciousness, were the frightened faces of his close friends. Without understanding himself and his thoughts, as if he was drowning in a dark lake of his inner essence, where reality, distant and incomprehensible, appears instead of the sun, he fell on the wooden floor. Ofir ran up first, took off his cloak and saw how the shirt’s shoulder was soaked with dark red blood, took it off. Everyone saw how a dense spherical seal at the cut left by the metovis of darkness spread throughout the body across the blood vessels. The closer to the wound, the darker they were.

A minute later, Homer's right arm twitched, and then his whole body was seized by convulsions. The doubt that it was necessary to wait out the revolution in Roderick's house immediately evaporated. Egon rushed to the first floor without explaining anything, he jumped two or three steps, ran to the kitchen in two seconds, took a vat of spring water and poured it into two mugs, returned back in less than thirty seconds.

He splashed cold water from the first cup on Homer's face, trying to bring him to his senses, and put the second one next to him. Ofir tore the sleeve of his sweatshirt and bandaged the wound tightly. They gave Homer a few slaps on the face. Egon took the second cup, pinched the wounded friend's nose and began to pour cool water into his mouth in a small stream, so that Homer would not choke. When the procedure was over, Homer opened his eyes, but the pupils rolled back.

"Hold on, bro!" Egon shouted. "We'll save you."

"There is a doctor here in the northern part of the district. He doesn't ask questions. We need to take him there," Ofir said.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Together they lifted Homer by his arms and legs and carried him down. Guillotine was watching his friend's breathing, in case it stopped, so they could notice it in time. They passed by the kitchen and the living room. They walked down the hall to the front door and put Homer on the floor.

"I'll pour some more water, I saw plastic bottles over there," Egon said.

As soon as Egon left for the kitchen, several arrows pierced the door. Ofir screamed in fright, he was the closest. The tip of one of the arrows stopped at his temple a few centimeters away. A little more and there would have been two seriously injured people. They ran away from the door, and put Homer against the wall at a safe distance. Egon stayed to look after his friend, while Ofir and Guillotine went back upstairs and watched what was happening outside.

On the road, two gangs clashed with each other, dressed in about the same clothes: copper jackets, pipes in their hands, big googles and steam crossbows, firing two or three arrows at a time; which made Ofir wonder how they could distinguish each other in this scuffle. Arrows ricocheted off the walls of the house, and several hit the window of a neighboring apartment, women's screams were heard. When the ammunition ran out, the looters dropped their weapons, took out swords and maces and rushed into close combat. The brawl lasted less than two minutes, as a result, there was only one person left - in round dark glasses, a brown top hat, leather armor, and instead of a hand he had a gold-colored implant, with knives instead of fingers. He picked up a chest and walked away, stepping over the bodies of wounded comrades and enemies - it was impossible to make out who was who. But he didn't make it too far, a third gang crept up on him from behind, took off his head with a scythe, and then spent several minutes tearing off the gold implant so as not to damage the main mechanism. Then one of them took the chest, and they all ran away together.

"Is it for real that such a blatant fuckup is happening in this city?" Guillotine asked.

"I hope it was a rhetorical question, because "fuckup" has been haunting us for a week."

They looked at the pile of corpses right in front of the house and looked at each other.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Guillotine asked.

"Yeah."

They went downstairs, turned into the living room, did not switch on any lights. Ofir, moving by touch, found the inquisitor, took him by both legs and dragged him outside, Guillotine took Roderick. Both bodies left a trail of blood on the floor. When they came out of the house and saw what had happened to Jerome and Roderick in the light of a blinking lantern, and then saw the mutilated bodies of the bandits close up, both of them almost vomited. They swore and covered their noses with one hand. The smell of death made their eyes water.

Belatedly, Guillotine glanced at the windows of the nearest residential buildings to make sure that no one was watching them. The lifeless calm was broken only by the moans of mortally wounded looters, whom death was in no hurry to accept into its voids and hungry scavengers who flew out of nowhere, screaming at the top of their voices. They had to make their way to the center of the massacre in a hurry, waving away the annoying crows with their free hand and holding their breath for a moment. In less than a minute, they threw the dead prisoners into a suitable place, as it seemed to them, and returned to Egon and Homer, took the wounded friend by the hands and feet and left, without closing the door behind them, just to get away from here as fast as possible.

They went north on the tracks of the third gang. They looked around and would get startled at any sound or squeak. Then Egon proposed the following idea: he would carry Homer alone, Ofir would go ahead and see if there was an ambush waiting for them somewhere, plus he knew the way, and Guillotine would watch their backs. Everyone agreed.