They continued to run, turning from one street to another. All along the way, nothing was found on the mud road except corpses, blood and fragments of destroyed windows. The flying red and yellow leaves were replaced by ash and exploding signal arrows, from time to time illuminating the thick blackness a hundred meters from ground level. Ofir turned right, into an arch between the houses and right in front of him huge oriel window of an apartment building collapsed, blocking the passage. They came back. Homer began to whine in pain. He was getting worse. His eyes lost color, the skin turned pale, and the veins turned black. Egon stopped and gave him some water to drink, but it didn't have much effect.

"Fuck. He's dying. Let's run! Fuck who sees us here. Fuck the ambushes. Fuck everything. This is a matter of life and death!"

Ofir took Homer by the legs, Egon by the hands, Guillotine held the body in the center, they ran forward headlong.

"Take a right up here." Ofir said.

"Why? There's a dead end there."

"Let's go through the factory – it will save us ten minutes. Trust me. Let's go."

They turned and ran, drowning in mud and fire. Right in front of the steel gate of the factory, there were revolutionaries trying to get inside. A series of small explosions followed, as a result of which the gate gave way.

"Let's hide around the corner here."

"We don't have time!"

"How in that case do you propose..." Egon just managed to say, as the iron gates fell and three volleys of 125-mm shells fell on the revolutionaries from the muzzles of gun tractors coming forward. The houses nearby shattered into splinters, pieces of dirt and hard ground flew into the air. Most of the people fell and did not get up again, the remaining miraculously alive ran in all directions to the disgusting metal screeching. There was a melancholy, a threat, and something else in these gloomy, growing sounds that could not be explained in words.

The gun tractors followed in the opposite direction from Egon, Guillotine, Ofir and Homer, trying with all their strength not to leave anyone alive, and two minutes later, the winding road, illuminated by the fading twilight, was cleared. Egon said it was time to move. They ran up to the middle of the street, trying not to pay attention to the hell under their feet, turned into a small alley, and did not see two armed representatives of the rebel movement hiding behind the turn. They blocked the way and pointed their weapons at the four young men, with an unnatural smile on their face.

They stopped. A thin stream of blood poured out of Homer's mouth. Egon saw this and said:

"Let us pass, our friend is dying."

"What do we care about him? What is important to us is - whose side are you on?"

"What kind of stupid question is that?" Guillotine said, and at the last second barely dodged an arrow flying to his head.

"Whose side are you on?"

"We're on your fucking side, can you get the fuck out of our fucking way now?"

"And you're a guy who doesn't appreciate life at all, right? Talk to us like that! You are not the only one who has a friend dying in his arms. Don't fucking whine here."

"And if you had the opportunity to save your friends, would you leave them to die face down in the mud? What are you doing here? What is your goal to let our friend die or to change this city?" Ofir asked. "Do you want to kill us for trying to survive? But then how are you better than the Inquisition? You will kill everyone and what's next? A country without its people is not worth a penny."

"Everyone who is able to fight should join us."

"We'll give our friend to the doctor and join, okay?"

The revolutionaries looked at them, lowered their weapons and waved them to come up, then they attached a symbol to each of them on their clothes so that they would not be killed by "their own" and said:

"We'll keep an eye on you."

Guillotine met Egon's gaze and hinted that he would quickly deal with them, but received a negative reaction. They came out of the alley and found themselves on the right street, took the symbols off and threw them away. There was nothing left of the road. Everything was covered with pits and craters. Ofir looked at the house numbers and pointed to the right one. Homer was shaking again, Egon grabbed his head and kept saying: "Hold on!"

They came to the doctor's house. Guillotine and Ofir knocked on the door without a break and shouted:

"Open up, we need help! Please!"

Egon held Homer, who was getting worse and worse. The veins in his neck were all blackened, and so was his arm. The body is scary to look at.

"Open the fucking door!" Egon shouted. "Or we'll break it and then you!"

A key turned in the lock, and a frightened man, about forty years old, with wrinkles on his face and a white velvet dressing gown, appeared in the doorway. Before he could ask what had happened, an arrow flew past the heads of Guillotine and Ofir and hit the man right in the eye. He opened his mouth and fell. Ofir screamed, his emotional state could no longer withstand such horror. Guillotine also shook. Egon was the only one who was first enveloped in fear, and then anger swallowed his mind completely. He turned around and saw the same revolutionaries holding their previously discarded symbols in their hand and shouting: "Have you decided to fuck us up?"