Owen took the safety off the gun with trembling hands.

The boy had escaped, even though it wasn't even ten minutes since they had brought him here, and now he was making his way through the corridors, killing anyone who got in his way. It was only a matter of time before he reached them.

It had only been a matter of time before he escaped, as they should have known, though he supposed no one could have predicted this, but....

This complex was neither designed nor prepared to house one of the Witch's chosen candidates.

Clearly bringing him here had not been part of the plan, but now what it was, just as clearly, for some reason no one would bother to explain to him. Not to people like him.

To mere soldiers, cogs in the machine.

All that was left for him to do was accept reality... and the consequences of other people's mistakes when the candidate got this far.

Which would happen soon.

He could hear the bursts of gunfire. And the screams, the horrible screams. Owen didn't want to scream like that while dying. He didn't want to die at all, but even less so horribly, in a battle he couldn't win!

Together, maybe they could hold the candidate back, once he was wounded, tired.

Maybe.

But why should he be so lucky? Especially since the sounds coming from nearby offered no sign that this monster in human skin was tiring.

No, it was annihilating them. It was slaughtering them like it was nothing. And he would be among the corpses.

He would never see the sunlight again.

I'm going to die here, in a place like this. Here, like this.

Someone put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts. Rather roughly. Owen jerked, his back hitting the wall, convinced it was the monster. That his life had come to an end.

But it was just one of his comrades.

"Owen, calm down. We'll get out of this." He didn't look very convincing with his face as white as milk and the slight trembling of his jaw.

"We'll get out? What makes you so sure?

"Okay, we won't get out for sure. We might. It's not everything, but it's something. It's a lot." He squeezed his shoulder, trying to instill in him the courage he himself lacked. Except when it came to talking, he supposed. "Come on. Calm down, use those steely nerves of yours. At the very least, I know that if you keep going on like this, eating yourself up inside, you'll lose before that son of a bitch walks through the door."

He sido right.

He offered no hope, he offered no relief, but he was right. Owen took a deep breath.

And tightened the grip of his trembling hands on the gun.

"Yes. We're going to save humanity."

His comrade nodded firmly.

They moved into position. Unlike many of those who had fallen so far, they had had the luxury of preparing for what was coming.

That window was not something that could turn the tables on them on its own.

But it was something, and that was a lot, as his partner had said.

Sometimes one could form a deep connection with a complete stranger in a single moment. Perhaps it was only because he felt the breath of death on the back of his neck, but Owen regretted not knowing the name of the comrade who had bothered to pull him out of the dark morass he had been sinking into.

He regretted that they would most likely both die without knowing the name of the other, and that nothing would come of this beginning.

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

The candidate was approaching and could only enter through one point. The doors in front of him.

The screams, blasts and explosions ceased.

That, not the constant pandemonium, was what made his heart beat a mile a minute again. Naturally. Because that meant he was done with what was the last line of defense for them and would be coming here.

And because, even after killing so many people, the candidate wasn't making the slightest noise.

He wasn't shouting, he wasn't laughing. Even his breathing was not so agitated that he could hear it from the other side of the door.

A monster killing silently while everything and everyone else burst noisily around him.

Contrary to most of his people, or at least contrary to what they dared to say out loud, Owen saw the people on the other side of the world as human beings.

He believed they were just like them, no matter how many reprehensible acts they carried out. Even if they could be labeled inhuman. But about the humanity of the Witch and her chosen candidates...of that he wasn't so sure.

He had seen enough about them, though. He didn't want to see any more to be sure.

I'd seen enough of all this. If I get out of this... But he couldn't finish the thought. Partly because he didn't think he would get out of this. Partly because he knew that such a thought was tempting fate, and he needed all the help he could get. Don't jinx it.

He saw the shadow of that demon through the glass.

He broke down the doors, entered. Neither Owen nor any of his companions opened fire then.

Not because they were frozen with fear, but because there was no need to.

At least not now.

He hadn't noticed, so he fell right into the trap. The explosives went off, engulfing him in a cloud of smoke and fire, everything shook, the floor, pieces of the ceiling came off, various pieces of furniture flew back and forth and only by a miracle did everyone manage to avoid an unfortunate accident.

When the aftermath of the explosion was over, the team opened fire on the cloud together, tearing through the smoke.

But the demon emerged from the smoke without the slightest scratch. Only his clothes were affected. He was stained with blood from head to toe, but Owen would bet anything that it wasn't his own.

Still, that didn't mean he couldn't be killed.

Like any other human being, he was mortal.

He had heard, like everyone else, that this boy had risen from the dead even after his heart had been completely shattered by a bullet. However, that blessing had to have some catch or problem like all the others, there was nothing so convenient in this world.

The candidate could die. And they would kill him. They would kill him!

He approached them slowly and relentlessly, like a monster in a movie. Without hardly blinking, even when the bullets hit his body, they didn't open holes in his skin, not yet, but at least they should cause him pain, and still not the slightest reaction.

But he could bleed, he could die, he knew it, he knew it.

Owen bent down to reload the rifle, the new magazine, when he tried to put it back in place, slipped through his fingers and fell to the ground. Shit, shit, he was too nervous.

He bent down to pick it up. His heart was pounding painfully against his ribs, as if it was going to explode.

He was hyper-aware of every process in his body and everything around him.

But, above all, of the footsteps of death that was almost upon him.

A corpse fell beside him, without screaming or moaning in pain or fear as he realized his sad fate, because he had no time for anything. And the constant bursts of gunfire engulfed what little sound the body had made as it hit the ground.

He looked at it out of the corner of his eye.

The bullet had gone clean through his head, killing him almost instantly. Twisting his face until it was almost unrecognizable.

Almost, but he recognized him all the same.

It was a face he had seen recently. Seconds. The man who had told him they could get out of this.

The man who had given him the push he needed to die here, like a fucking rabid dog.

He finished reloading and stood, turning it over, holding the rifle in both hands.

In the precious seconds he had wasted he had also lost sight of the enemy.

He looked around, desperate. But he was unable to see it coming. Less than a second after following the gaze of the other soldiers, it was all over for him.

He fell to the ground, without knowing why, without uttering the slightest sound, just like the corpse.

The difference was that he wasn't dead.

But quite small, as he saw when he looked down and noticed that his right leg had disappeared, leaving only an amorphous mass and a heap of blood.

Pain? No, no.

For seconds, with his mind blank and his body paralyzed, there was no pain. There was nothing.

Then the pain woke up and Owen found he didn't even have enough energy to scream. He let out a hoarse, pitiful sound from the back of his throat, as if he were drowning on dry land.

He wasn't going to die like a rabid dog. It was going to be much worse. At least the executed animals received a peaceful death....

Watching his comrades die around him, Owen burst into tears.

But not because of the deaths. He was simply afraid. He didn't want to die. He realized, too late, that living was above all else. That living for the sake of living was the only meaning life needed.

After all, he had killed so many people, trampled so many lives, always believing that his actions served a greater good. That it was for the good of his kingdom, his family, his friends, and that it would be worth it in the end....

But now... ah, now....

He could only weep.

With the last scraps of strength in his dying body, Owen reached out a hand, grabbing one of the demon's legs. Not in a last futile attempt to contribute to the fight. Because there was no fight to contribute to.

Everyone else was dead already, and he would soon....

"Please," he pleaded with his blood-stained lips, "Please let me live. Save me."

The demon looked back at him.

And there was, indeed, not the slightest trace of humanity in those empty eyes. Ah, what a fool he had been to have harbored even the smallest flame of hope in his heart.