We made our way through the rest of the wooded path and came out to a small concrete pavement that led towards an underground tunnel. Above the tunnel was a dual carriageway where the only thing I had spotted was a lone car that had crashed into the verge months ago, doors wide open.

But when we arrived at the tunnel… the sight and smell that was before us made my insides turn cold.

The tunnel had the chewed up remains of what appeared to be a family of 5 composed of a man, woman and 3 little ones.

“Fuck sakes…” I muttered as I covered my face with the back of my sleeve, grimacing at the putrid stench and grotesque sight.

Catara pulled out a rather large protective breather mask and put it on, covering over half her face.

Both of us treaded carefully down the tunnel, keeping as much distance from the remains as possible. The trick, or a ‘pro-tip’ to getting through these kinds of situations I’d found, was to just distract my mind with something else.

Anything else.

But this time I failed.

It was too difficult when seeing kids, especially since these ones looked younger than 10 easily.

Based on the position of the bodies and a few weapons lying around, it looked like something had caught them here and the parents fought to protect their children but couldn’t hold out long enough. The kids, may they rest in peace, looked like they fought with everything they had as well.

There was evidence of a few food items from the shop we were headed to, but we decided not to loot the bodies or even try to bury them.

It was just an unnecessary risk considering they possibly were killed in the last 24 hours.

As we came out the other side of the short tunnel, we turned right and went up a steep slope surrounded by sparse woodland. It came out onto a small street that led further onto a main road.

From the wooded area I sensed movement and immediately my sight and hearing worked together to draw my attention to two spots on the floor.

Catara didn’t say a word but slowly started getting into a defensive position, keeping an eye on me and our surroundings.

It felt almost like my vision zoomed in as I strained to identify what was bothering me about those two spots… and then it hit me.

Literally and figuratively.

A rock floated up and struck me in the face.

I had managed to move quickly enough to avoid it hitting me in the forehead but instead it hit my cheek, causing me to curse in minor pain as a small cut and bruise formed.

“ARGH! Hey! Come out! For goodness sake, you don’t need to attack us, we’re friendly!” I shouted.

I had realised the two spots I had been looking at were small foot-prints compressing the leaves on the ground and I could very faintly hear a child's quickened breathing. But directly above the footprints was something that looked like a mirage or a heat haze.

Has to be a Stealth class.

Catara looked at me, mildly alarmed. “Godu what is it?”

“There’s a person in stealth or camouflage, most likely a child…” I said in a low voice, looking around in case any further rocks came my way.

On cue, I heard rapid footsteps rushing to a different spot, snapping twigs and crunching leaves on the way.

She straightened up and put her shield onto her belt.

“Come out mate, we just want to talk. Do you need any food or help?” She spoke softly, though her mask might have helped with that.

Focusing again, my ears picked up a faint whimpering coming from behind a large sycamore tree.

My heart would have felt sympathy if not for the fact that the little bugger had thrown a rock at my head… but then again, they must have a good reason not to be trusting of others, which meant bad people could be nearby.

There was silence as I watched Catara pause, waiting for a response, before rummaging in her backpack, and pulling out a chocolate bar.

“Listen.” She said, “How about I throw this crunchie into the woods. It’s yours. But in return, you just let us know you’re okay. Sounds good?”

Damn, she had a crunchie?! Food of the gods!

There was still silence.

“Hey if you don’t want it, I’ll uhh, I’ll have it.” I said out loud to the woods.

Catara frowned at me and pulled her mask off.

“Got anything to trade that this big fool doesn’t have?” She said out loud as well.

I got the subtle hint and started rummaging in my backpack. She probably wanted to show a mundane trading conversation to show that we were savages or weirdos.

I mean, it is weird we are standing here doing this, but…

“Hmm. I’ve got a snickers and a pack of cashew nuts?”

“ARE YOU FROM THE STORE?” A young boy's quivering voice called out from the trees; he was trying to sound gruff and fearless, but it was not fooling anybody.

“Uhh, huh? What Store?”

YOU SWEAR YOU WON’T HURT ME?”

“Hey dude, really, we won’t hurt you.” I replied.

There were another few seconds of silence before I went for broke.

“Look, I know the worlds gone to shit but our community is doing okay, I mean, we haven’t had to resort to cannibalism yet!” I snorted before getting a light slap on the arm and a tut from Catara.

Ah, crap. I didn’t think that one through.

“Sorry! Sorry. Terrible joke. I’m transitioning into becoming a dad so it comes with the job.”

A little snicker shot out from behind the tree followed by silence. but after a few more moments a young extremely thin lad with dark matted brown hair came round the tree, dark green eyes fearful and glistening.

“M-my dad used to make the same bad jokes too..” He looked over at the tunnel and burst into tears.

Me and Catara glanced at each other before she walked over to the boy and awkwardly embraced him.

***

We moved up the path and sat on the curb as Terin, the young boy, told us his story.

He was a part of the family in the tunnel and they had travelled from a coastal military base, where his father and mother were stationed near Southampton.

About 2 weeks ago, the base had been overrun by a single giant crab, codenamed Crab Norris as an obscure reference, apparently, that had shredded the base and the people in it within days.

I have so, so many questions, but I should wait for him to finish his story before bombarding the boy.

Terin and his family managed to escape with a group of others and they were all making their way towards a base in Norfolk.

But they made incredibly slow progress, having to seek shelter as people kept getting injured or because huge predators kept blocking their way, forcing them to either go around or go back.

They only managed to do 30 miles after 5 days, landing them in Basingstoke where they came across a big store where they decided to hold up and rest in and refill their supplies.

But this is where things went really bad.

There were 20 of them remaining and as they slept in the store, they were attacked and imprisoned by a large gang who were in control of the area around the shop.

Terin didn’t go into detail, but he said they tortured and ‘sacrificed’ anyone who didn’t follow their orders and they took away the girls sometimes… including his mother and little sister.

She was 10.

I had to forcibly unclench my jaw as I could hear my teeth grinding at this point.

Fucking cunts.

After 3 days of this hellish torture, his father had snapped and a huge fight broke out and most of the prisoners, including his father and family, managed to flee. But they were forced to go in different directions to escape the pursuing gang; and so Terin had made a run for it and found this strip of woods.

He spent over 24 hours by himself, hiding from the monsters and on one close call, one of the gang's groups on a hunt or patrol.

Terin started choking on his words. I couldn’t fathom this poor kid's story getting any worse, but as he continued I listened in muted shock and horror, unable to find the words to console him. He managed to explain how he had seen his family on the dual carriageway, and then as they rushed towards him, there were “screams and screeching and a pack of big monsters” and they “tried to run for the tunnel but…”

He couldn’t continue and just hugged his knees, gently rocking in between the sobs.

We gave him 15 minutes to calm down and explained to him that we’d take him back to our community and that he’d be safe there. He just nodded gratefully whilst eating the food we gave him, well, eating is not quite the word; inhaling is more like it.

I did the maths in my head, and he must have been out here on his own for 4 or 5 days surviving by himself, stealth being the main reason he survived for so long, he had admitted.

Just as we were getting up to abandon the store visit and head back, I heard voices faintly in the distance.

Terin had been enthusiastically explaining his stealth and how it worked and what it was like, our subtle tactic to keep him distracted, so I had to interrupt him twice before he stopped talking.

“Shh SHH! Quiet! I hear voices. Terin, the shop wasn’t an ALDI was it?” I hissed, unconsciously grabbing his shoulder.

His eyes went wide and he started to frantically look around.

“Shit. Okay sorry, we need to make a move quickly then.” I patted his shoulder and gave him a nod.

The poor boy had gone white as a sheet as I pointed to the woods.

“Catara, I’m going to stay on the path and find out how these guys react. You guys find a good spot to hide. If things look really bad, I would recommend you stay hidden or just make a run for it, but either way focus on letting Sylvie and Steve know about what is happening here.”

Pausing, I looked over towards the incoming voices. They were getting louder and I could now make out a few disgusting words.

“Haha you dirty fu-### wrong’un, she was only #### old.”

“She ### ####### for it. Lapping ## ##. Never #### tears were good ### lube.”

A round of laughter and I had a feeling there were 4 different laughs.

My vision went black. But then it flickered like an incandescent light bulb, making me feel nauseous. Blinking hard several times settled the flickering and then I saw information appear in the same black mind space where the Pecho Tech information appeared.

(!)SEV II TASK TX(!)

DESTROY NEGATIVE KAR ENTITIES

(IDS 192319145, 922912, 25510110, 15814, 19812514, 1891257, 21189209, 1414161518205, 18510922)

[SWAINE, IVIL, YEJA, JOHN, SHAYN, RILE, GURI, TINN, PORTER, EJIV]

SUCCESS [+250 PER TARGET]

SUCCESS [BONUS SKILL EVO - 80% CHANCE: [ NULLIFY_EXP_CORRUPTION I ]]

SUCCESS [+KARMA (KAR)]

FAILURE [-KARMA (KAR)]

FAILURE [POSITIVE KAR LOSSES THAT ARE BENEFICIAL FOR SURVIVAL]

FAILURE [CORRUPTION RISK]

TIME LIMIT [N/A]

DETAILS [NEGATIVE KAR ENTITIES CLOSE TO CORRUPTION AND MUST BE DESTROYED. SHOULD THEY BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE, THEY WILL INEVITABLY BECOME CORRUPTED AND CONTAGIOUS.]

Well, well, well. It looks like our new world is not best pleased with these pieces of human excrement’s actions.

There had been a few rare occurrences of people receiving these tasks in the past few months. Which had led me to believe that all these evolutions had introduced a new kind of organic communication network of some sort. Steve had suggested we were all cells living in a bigger organism and that we were being given ‘chemical instructions’ when the network detected serious problems, which at this point could well be true.

But aside from thinking ‘Gaia’ had awoken, we took them at face value for what they were, rare tasks that are high risk, high reward.

Catara gasped, and when we looked at each other, she simply said “Task.” before nodding and whispering to the boy to duck down.

I started slowly walking towards the top of the slope and it was clear they were getting closer as I heard a gruff voice barking at the mongrels as they laughed moronically. They sounded somewhat drunk and they spoke intentionally poorly pronounced English, how your typical mega-chav scum sounded like.

“SHUT-ET! You fukin’ battybois. We ain’t bin’ on a long ting’ mish for bare ages. I dun' wanna fight sum’ big boss beast that clocks your loud moufs yea?”

Translation: “They have not been this far out doing missions for a long time and he didn’t want their loud voices to attract some large creatures.”

I think.

“Tut. Allow it’ Swaine mate. Nobody has #### from these ends for months. Every### went ## city-centre, sure ting. Those spider##### murked every fucker on this #### of the postcode, roadman Rile said it ### a wasteland after he ######### from there remember? Haha but the dark fucker left his nan in one of the #### to get chomped, so, can’t trust #### wasteman really.”

They all laughed, agreeing on how much of a ‘wasteman’ Rile was.

Swaine. Rile. Two names on the task list.

It made my blood boil already listening to them, but kept my cool as I had a flexible plan set out in my head. I would scan them all, hopefully get an idea for how strong they are, and then, if need be, lure them into a trap with Catara or into the tunnel.

The fact they hadn’t come this far was a good indication of how scared and weak they were, especially if they had the type of scum that would leave their poor grandmothers to die.

As I peeked around the bush, they came into view about 200 metres away from around a fence and house that had been reduced to rubble. Surprisingly, there were a dozen burnt out cars visible in the surroundings, the most remains of vehicles I’d seen in months.

They weren’t wearing any visible armour and they had clean clothes, which pissed me off because Terin had mentioned they forced people into slavery, meaning they were forcing others to do their washing for them.

Their weapons consisted of a machete, a bat or cudgel, a crossbow, and… a samurai sword?

Shit. The crossbow could be bad news, but I’m pretty unphased by the other weapons.

There had not been a single thing that could damage my shields so far, but then again, I hadn’t fought against other people yet. I knew this day would come though.

Identifying them, I was relieved that it worked on humans.

Label = Swaine

HP = 92/92

MAGN = 9.134

KAR = (-)

Label = Yeja

HP = 71/71

MAGN = 7.651

KAR = (-)

Label = Porter

HP = 50/50

MAGN = 5.812

KAR = (-)

Label = Ejiv

HP = 90/90

MAGN = 9.905

KAR = (-)

Swaine was small, lightly tanned, with thick arms and a buzz cut of dark hair; he looked like your typical menace, especially wielding the machete.

Yeja was likely arabic; his skin tone, bushy beard and head wrap all good indications. He was quite tall, slim, and was holding a samurai sword on his shoulder.

Porter was a pale, greasy looking sack of bones, acne on his face, and he was wearing a flat cap half assed on his thin looking head.

Finally, Ejiv, the one with the crossbow; he was the one I was most concerned about. He seemed a bit out of place from the others; he was slim, pale, with blonde hair, but he was a few paces behind the other three and seemed more focused on his surroundings.

Their EXP levels were much lower than I was expecting, considering they are murdering people… maybe the rewards from EXP cannibilism is poor?

I checked my own status and information, thinking it would be a good habit to start getting into.

STRY.KYR - MAGN.15.219

HP [==176/176HP==]

MP [==180/185MP==]

EP [==99%EP==]

DS [==100%==]

Sword 18

Shield 17

Feather 22

Glyph 23

KAR (+)

Shoulder Rush II

Improved energy impact and speed. Static position use enabled.

SMDS - Majiglyph II

[ADI enabled]

Improved Speed and Defence.

OMDC - II

I - Overbreak Mass Drain combat effect enabled.

Combat skill set increased.

NS long latency reduced by 50%

Autonomous Target Intent Prediction (ATIP)

High Value Area (HVA) feedback & bonus damage on next HVA hit.

II - ATIP efficacy improved and visual cues enabled, incoming high risk attacks or projectiles will now be highlighted.

Successful drain attacks have a chance to siphon a random attribute point. 10% chance.

Pecho Tech I

Neural Visual Display (NVD) [INSTALLED].

Current Target Data that can be obtained: LABEL, HP, MAGN, KAR.

If my HP was any indication, I should be considered nearly twice as strong as their strongest.

Time to find out.

There was little actual fear as I stepped out of the path, but I put on a show to make it look like I was scared.

It wouldn’t do, if I were to stroll out like some kind of paladin, ready to bring down righteous judgement.

No no. I’ll be playing this one as dirty as they get.

“OH! Thank god! People! HEY!” I waved as I jogged towards them.

They flinched briefly before stiffening up and shifting their weapons forwards. Upon seeing this, I faked being nervous and slowed down.

They instantly all took on the red outline.

“WOA. Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, I was just too excited seeing others alive. I’m looking for some friends of mine, a family?” I waved my hands reassuringly, but still moving forward.

My act seemed to be working, as a few of them exchanged glances, and though they tried to hide it, I could see Swaine and Porter exchange predatory smirks.

“We ain’t scared bruv. You’s just surprised us innit. Where’s yo weapon rando guy?” Porter, ironically being the weakest, was also the most bold.

“Uhh. Oh, right, my weapon.”

Shit, didn’t really think about that, no matter.

“I have this foldable knife that I use to make wooden spears. But I had to leave my last one behind after running from those spider monsters in the woods. They are everywhere back there, I was lucky to get out with my life!”

Blend some bullshit with some credible info.

Getting closer, I was now 50 metres away.

“Tut. See Swain, tell you fam. Crawlies run that side bre.” Porter sounded drunk, but his actions suggested drugs now that I could observe him. He was moving his jaw, gurning nervously.

“Hmmm. Yeah for sure they do..” Swaine tensed up as he narrowed his eyes at me. He looked back over to Ejiv with his crossbow and he nodded in my direction.

Ejiv stared at me and squinted slightly as I saw a flicker of red in his eye.

SHIT. Can he scan me?!

I started to walk forwards with my hands up, nervous that I wasn’t yet close enough to attack; there were 40 metres remaining and I needed to be within at least 20.

“Guys, lads, I just want to know if you’ve seen any families around. Can you help me out please?”

“YO WHAT THU FUCK!” Ejiv shouted, eyes wide.

SHIT!

I skipped forward 4 steps. Nervously I glanced back, thinking there was someone trying to sneak up on me, but there was nothing.

Now only 34 metres

“OI! STAY there a sec bait man.” Swaine must have some sixth sense ringing alarm bells in his head, because he really did not like this. All the toughness was visibly shrinking as I got closer. He glanced at Ejiv who was looking puzzled. “Ejiv?” he said impatiently.

“Please! Any information would help! If not, perhaps I can come with you guys for a few days? Do you need help cooking? I was a chef before all this crazy stuff.” I was amazed with the stuff I could come up with as I ignored his request for me to stop.

28 metres - 8 more steps.

“YO dik’ead. He told u to stop. R u dum or sumfin?” Porter pointed his cudgel at me threateningly.

“Sorry! But I don’t want any trouble. Can I just pass you guys, I don’t want to go back there. I’m no threat! I’m just on my ow-”

“EJIV?” Swaine roared angrily.

25 Metres, I don’t think I can reach Ejiv before he gets a good shot at me. They’ll just run if I use my shields. FUCK!

“OOP-Nah, he’s pussyman Swaine. Must have had too much zoot cos I fort it said dis man was level 15 innit ha! He’s level 2! Ha-ha…Foooooooowee!” Ejiv laughed nervously and straightened himself up.

By some miracle, something had given him the wrong information.

“Tssk u long dickhead. No way could this rando be more ripped than Ivil.” Swaine shook his head and glared at me, a mixture between fake friendliness and loathing.

“Baaahh Ejiv you sketchy durkhead!” Porter cackled out.

I put on a nervous smile with a confused expression as I approached.

19 metres away.

“Come, come, come.” Swaine beckoned me over, and as I moved closer they started whispering and chuckling at each other, calling me

When I was finally just a couple of metres away, I smiled with a sincere smile.

“Thanks guys.” I said, holding out my hand for a handshake.

Porter must have taken this as a sign of weakness, because he laughed and sucker punched me, much to the delight of the group, who all chuckled.

It barely hurt and before he had even moved towards me, I had noticed the arm he used to throw the punch had taken on a red glow.

I continued my act and sprawled down onto the floor.

“Ow H-hey! Please! I’m sorry if I caused any offence!” I cried out.

“Offence? Blud, ur being mugged! Pussymen like you don’t need stuff! Give me your bag pussyhole!” Porter pulled a leg back and tried to kick me, which I sloppily defended against.

“OK OK! Please! You can have it!” Scrambling up, I hastily took off my backpack and threw it to the side.

Ejiv had his crossbow trained on me.

Swaine used some skill that made him inflate visibly and bulk up all his muscles. He nonchalantly waltzed over and grabbed my shoulder and pointed the machete at my face.

“Blud. You fuk’d up proper. Now, ur stuff is ours and ur guna come back and cook us sum fukin gud food. Pussy bitch. Ur guna fukin do everyting i tell you from now on yea? Even if its eatin’ my shit or suckin' my balls.”

Ejiv lowered his crossbow and started laughing “Oh shiit this is that dark shit. You better do as he says.”

“S-sure.” I nodded, keeping my eyes wide open. But I was done. Good people were being gravely abused by these shitbags.

It was time.

“Tell me, battyman, wut’s ya name?” Swaine smirked as he talked, so smug and sure of his victory.

Dropping my disguise, I gave him a blank stare as the metallic-glass-tinkering sound of my shields deploying sung in the air.

“Haha bruv, his name’s Terin-”

“Godu.”

Me and Ejiv spoke at the same time, but he seemed to think my name was Terin.

Swaine snapped to Ejiv, then back to me, squinting in confusion.

“..wait. Wha-OH SHIT!!!” Ejiv shouted as I saw a red glint flicker in his bulging eyes.

The jig was up.

“OH FUCK! HE’S GOT THE SAME VOODOO SHIT AS IVIL!” Porter screamed in a rather high pitch voice.

“MERK HIM QUIC-!”

“SWAINE WATCH OU-”

Swaine and Ejiv managed a few words before my right shield smoothly extended and blurred as it sliced into Swaines wrist, causing a dark bronze shell that was covering his entire body to flicker and collapse. Some kind of shield.

Surprisingly it didn’t sever his wrist, but it definitely broke something as he dropped his machete and fell back, screaming and clutching his arm.

My focus zoned in on Ejiv as I brought my left shield round to get ready to catch his shot. Shoulder charging towards him, he did indeed shoot and, to my absolute horror, it glowed silver and pierced my shield like butter. It didn’t stop as it pierced my shoulder and flew out of my back, shattering bone and tearing all the tissue in its path.

It didn’t stop my momentum in the slightest and I hurtled into him, transferring the mometum energy and sending him slamming down into the grass with tremendous force

Fucking hell that hurts! I knew that shitter was going to be a problem. Must have been some kind of piercing skill.

My left shield had a hole, but it had started to close up rapidly and for a split second I glanced at my status.

STRY.KYR - MAGN.15.219

HP [==113/176HP==]

MP [==162/185MP==]

EP [==88%EP==]+

DS [==50%==]++

That’s alotta’ damage Christ! Over 30%!!!

Granted I was most likely doing 80% damage with my hardest hitting attacks but still, there was no way I could risk Ejiv getting back up. 44

I also need to regenerate this damage..

A very small part of me felt guilt as I sent my right shield down onto the completely stunned Ejiv’s neck, beheading him in one fluid motion.

It sent a cascade of blue rust over his body, now minus a head; and where the rust was flaking off, it turned into shimmer and flew right into my hand and travelled to my wound, healing it with such speed I felt the skin and bones being pulled around, making me growl in mild pain.

Porter was screaming as I turned to face him.

Yeja was silently standing there, white as a sheet and holding his sword with little confidence, and I could sense that Swaine was just about to make a run for it, towards the tunnel area.

How am I doing? I thought, as I half focused on my real world vision and the other half on my status information lurking in the black area of my mind’s view.

STRY.KYR - MAGN.15.219

HP [==170/176HP==]++

MP [==180/185MP==]

EP [==99%EP==]

DS [==80%==]

Much better!

Porter would not shut up, wailing about how ‘he cut his head off waaah-waaah’.

Well, you should have thought about that matey' before you made all those poor life decisions!

Like sucker punching me, for example… here, let’s see how you like it.

Truthfully, it was a very petty thing of me to use a shoulder charge towards Porters screaming face, cancelling it shortly, and instead driving a palm strike into his jaw using all that built up momentum.

His 50 HP dropped like a priest's jaw in a strip club as his jaw collapsed in half, tearing his cheek open and bursting his eyeball on the side that I impacted. His lifeless body crumpled to the ground as I briefly stared at my hands.

“Fucking hell.” I muttered. Rather shocked at the result of that move myself. I looked over to Yeja, who just stared at me wide-eyed with a line of saliva falling out of his mouth, before dropping his sword and running.

We'll never know what series of events made you all turn into these inhuman savages; but it was your choice to commit those atrocities.

He realised he was about to die but sadly I really couldn’t let him go, so I shoulder-charged forward and jumped after I cancelled it, propelling me forward in the air instead of being stabilised to the floor with the strange magnetic action that usually took place.

Here's my choice in response.

The move hurt to perform since I would take the brunt of the impact, rather than have that energy transferred through the Majik I expelled at the end of the charge, usually into my target.

But it worked as my right shield adjusted forward just before I impacted the fleeing Yeja.

I heard a horrible smack and snapping sound as he jolted forward and smashed face first into the tarmac ground; his head exploded like a watermelon as I tumbled over him, still at high speed.

There was a high risk of me really hurting myself, but I felt a strange confidence to perform a somewhat cartwheel-twist which allowed me to face the opposite direction I was moving; skidding on the floor backwards on my feet whilst leaning forwards and using my shields to catch the air, helping me stabilise.

I slowed down rapidly doing this and a couple of seconds later, I was running back towards Swaine, who was picking himself back up after slipping on the wet grass. He must have been watching his gang buddies get completely obliterated and I could see in his eyes that it was at this point that he knew, he'd fucked up and he was next.

Seeing him slip again made me laugh; but then as if to put me in my place, I bloody slipped and landed on my arse as he started wailing for forgiveness, scrambling to get away.

Grumbling, I pushed myself up and continued chasing, but slowed down as I saw Catara sprinting from the woods on a direct collision course with Swaine. He wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on around him, frantically glancing back at me.

Roaring, she dived shield first into his side, slamming him into the pavement, knelt down on his chest and pressed the shield edge up against his neck.

“Enjoy hell you fucking rapist pedophile.” She hissed, pure hatred burning in her eyes as her shield vibrated and the dark blue lines converged and shot out of the edge, searing through his neck and killing him.

As I strolled up, I looked over at Catara, who was breathing heavily, visibly shaking. She looked up at me and nodded with a grimace before walking back to the tree where I could see Terin looking at us with determination and slightly misty eyes.

“Sorry you had to see that Terin.” Catara patted him on the back and sat down on a log and pulled out a bottle of water.

He shook his head and sat down next to her, looking down at the ground between his legs.

“It’s okay. Like I said. He was the one taking the girls and sometimes younger boys...they all deserve it…”

***