“There was something deeply wrong with this person. He kept smiling at me without a single change in his facial expression.

The chair he was sitting on wasn’t any chair either. It was a strange kind of Iron Chair.

It indeed had multiple blood stained iron spikes all over the seat and the armchair. It even had some kind of syringes installed and ready to be injected to the victim.

Some were empty, while others still had strange kind of fluids charged in. I can vividly remember one of them, it was quite the disturbing sight. A strange black substance was ‘kept’ in there. Inside of its glass-like prison, this ‘thing’ was constantly moving, pulsating as if alive.

I needed to do something, to help this man somehow. However, shockingly so, he wasn’t bound to the chair in anyway. If he wanted he could simply stand up, obviously that would have caused him a great deal of pain.

I could have treated him immediately with a first aid kit I was carrying with me.

My heart was already aching for the sudden disappearance of my teammates, this place was none other than a slaughter house, it wasn’t safe. Yet there wasn’t much I could do, if not helping this poor fellow. At least he was still in one peace, I wondered if he could ever recover from this nightmare.

I was about to ask him if he could stand up so that I could treat him with the medical kit. However he preceded me.

KEKHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

His hoarse voice reverberated through the room, it was none other than the hysterical laughter of a madman. Yet what he did next appeared to me even more as a delirious and disturbing. He lifted up his right arm from the spiked armchair. Blood started to copiously gush out of his arm, as the stench of the rotting suddenly entered my nostrils. The men must have been here for days for his arm to be in that state.

Then he pressed his thumb on his neck, thus he quickly painted a bloody smile on it.

He must have gone completely nuts due to torture, or so I thought.

Then as I decided to turn around and search for another way to exit the floor, I heard a strange and deep voice coming from behind me.

Then nothing. I simply have a hole of about what happened after, until I found myself with the team outside of the villa at night.

They said to have found me and the other two unconscious on the first floor, then they carried us outside to heal us with what they had. Since we were all wounded, in particular I was the most critical.”

Everyone was rather speechless, such terrible things were happening not that far from their location, while the perpetrator was still free and probably continuing his crazy slaughter.

“What a crazy bastard would behave like that during a damn apocalypse?! We must d-”

Jhon heated speech suddenly stopped.

“Boss! Your nose is bleeding! Didn’t you say you were okay?

The hot red liquid that was slowly descending from his nose, confirmed his subordinate remark. However a simple nose bleed wasn’t certainly a matter of concern. Even if it was some kind of disease there wasn’t any doctor that could actually check him out. If it really was a serious illness he just had to send his boys to search for a cure at the system’s base. Quite the optimistic kind of view indeed.

A privilege that in these times quite a few humans could afford to have.

Suddenly he felt his legs giving in, trembling before not being able to keep him standing any more. Thus he fell on his knees.

Everyone started to worry for their boss strange behavior. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well and needed some rest.

To prove them wrong, Boss started to heavily cough out blood without stopping. He definitely had some problems now.

“Quick Joel give me a hand, we must take him downstairs with the rest of the community! Then we can assemble a team to search a remedy at the system base together.”

His concerned tone emphasized the emergency of the situation even more, as Boss kept on wriggling and coughing blood on the cold ground.

“I am sorry. It is too late now, for that person it has already been for a few days by now.”

Flabbergasted by Joel strange answer, Jhon remained silent for a few seconds, trying to decipher Joel’s straight face.

“Alice, you know what to do now right?”

The small Alice knew what her dad was going to do. Bad things.

She had been badly injured because of an ambush of the infected on the second day since the start of the apocalypse. Her father had been in a desperate rush for finding a cure for his daughter. Yet the special shop required an extremely high amount of AP for a suitable cure.

Joel had started a desperate hunt for the cursed parasites, without conceding himself rest nor a single pause. Nonetheless it wasn’t enough, he had too little time to eventually succeed before the little Alice finally exhaled her last breath.

Fortunately her dad found someone that offered him the help he desperately needed. He didn’t care whatever this being was, he was simply grateful for having his daughter safe.

Now it was time for him to repay such kindness, through whatever mean he could.

“Alice understands.”

The little girls suddenly run away, hiding behind some rubble nearby.

“Why di-”

Jhon found himself being interrupted mid sentence, as Joel’s blade already pierced his heart.

“I am sorry. But these are tough times for everyone, you must adapt to survive.”

Soon after a throwing knife finally stopped Boss excruciating agony and lament.

Then Joel quickly picked up something from his backpack. It was a disturbing mask, painting over it was a screaming and terrorized face. It expression as distorted as Munch’s scream.

[Reporting… Mission commenced.]

Soon after the various members of the group finally snapped out of their initial shock and sheathed their weapons. Through the fury in their eyes, Joel understood how dear they held each other lives. He felt both deeply sorry and disgusted by his actions.

It has been a while since he passed from killing the disgusting infected to murdering innocents. At the beginning he simply couldn’t commit himself to do such atrocities.

However for his daughter he might as well fall to very the depths of hell. Thus one mission after another, Joel had become more accustomed to the nasty feeling of killing the innocent. It felt as if every time some filthy was been added over his figure. By the day the weight more increased the burden he felt pressing over his shoulders.

Yet he kept going.

The increasing screams of the enraged were followed by their charge, to eliminate their enemy and satiate their anger. To avenge the fallen and honor their memory.

“I know any of you will never accept my apologies. Yet there is still something else I can do. Fear not, because I will mourn their deaths in your stead.”

No one could hear Joel’s feeble plea of forgiveness, as he danced through the desperate attack of the enraged humans.

They tried to avenge their comrades, yet they have been tricked one again. Joel had already reached the second rank of the system, thus his skill ‘blade dance’ had been upgraded and revealed to be extremely useful against against group of humanoids. As even now his nano enhanced twin sabers butchered their way through the seemingly defenceless humans. Their weak shields shattered, their strikes failed, only utter defeat awaited.

Once silence fell over the rooftop Joel finally made signal to Alice to come out.

“Alice you can come out. Now pick up all these kind Sirs in your ring, you know that master Xeno hates wasting resources. Wait me here, I’m coming back in ten minutes.”

Then his head started to repeatedly ring, also giving Joel an headache.

He then quickened his pace and crouched down near Boss dead body.

[I did not forget about you, stop whining, will you?]

Then a high pitched shrill invaded his thoughts.

[Heheheh I was only teasing you, I know you wouldn’t forget.]

Soon after Joel picked up one of his trusted knives and started to cut open the poor body of the deceased.