Everything, after I pulled the trigger, happened as if I was on autopilot.

The shot passed through that guy’s head right between his eyes…

It was an easy shot...

His enraged eyes showed surprise for a second and then lost their light.

He fell to his knees first and the next second he was lying face down motionless.

The first problem was solved.

I bought a stun grenade and threw it towards the other two guys, and I was lucky it landed quite near both. The loud bang left them unconscious.

Part of their cover fell too, but there were no notifications from the system this time.

It was our chance to move before the reinforcement arrives.

The second problem solved.

I told my friends to follow me, and when we reached the end of the street, I put a new trap with a tear gas grenade, in case someone tried to keep track of us.

Potential third problem partially solved.

We pass through a trail in the wasteland and thanks to Dante we didn’t find any problems.

While we were moving into the wasteland, a new explosion sounded and I could see a cloud far behind us.

We arrived at a little cave midway to the central part of the city. Rose went in with Hayley after looking at me for a second.

Neither G or Hope went inside for obvious reasons, but they continually gave me weird looks. Hope was a little paler for using her power earlier, but after a short rest, she should be fine.

[Ding]

This time I checked all the notifications.

[You killed your first E rank Human you receive 25 points]

[Mission Completed: Kill another human being

Reward: 25 system points, F(+)-Rank ticket]

[Mission Completed: Move to a safer Place

Reward: 25 points]

[Achievement Unlocked]

[Point points and more points

Points are raining!!!

Get more than 100 System Points.

Shop Discount ticket (50%)]

With that many rewards, I should be happy, but I was troubled.

There was no other way, right?

I just killed a person.

It was to protect us. It was them or us. Jamie made them do it. Excuses kept coming to my mind, but none of them made me felt better.

“I’m going to see if someone is following us.”

Before anyone was able to say anything I already left.

I heard something moving by my side. It was Dante that had followed me.

Even if we are already in a safe zone, I wasn’t sure if more people were looking for us or if the trap was enough to scare them away.

At least it is going to make them more careful in the tracking, and that would slow them enough for them not to come here yet.

I looked around.

This wasteland was part of an environmental remediation project and used to be a landfill. After it was filled with garbage, it was covered, and the responsible of the plan put plants on it to make it look good.

Since underneath was full of garbage, you can’t build anything on top of it. When our neighborhood was built, I learned that it was cheaper because of the distance it takes to get to the city and the fact that its next to a wasteland.

Contrary to what everyone thought at the beginning the remediation project had good results, and in a couple of years this place was going to become a park, they were a couple of tests away of declaring that it was completely safe, it was thanks to a particular type of tree they planted or something like that.

When we were kids, we used to come here to play a lot. But we stopped hanging out here when Hope and Rose discovered that our secret base was on a pile of garbage. We changed the secret base to a park near our houses and stopped coming here.

Remembering old times help me forget the fact that I’m a murderer… but just for a moment.

I replayed that moment multiple times in my head, each time the result was different. But what worried me the most wasn’t the fact that I killed someone…

After replaying that moment lots of times I found out that I wouldn’t change any of my actions…

And that scares me.

I was focused on the direction we came from, and Dante was lying next to me keeping me company, even with his new-found intelligence some of his old habits remain. Every time he notices someone in the family was either sick or was troubled by something he would snuggle next to you and keep you company.

I put my hand on his head patting him, he started to purr right away.

‘Thanks’

He looked at me while purring and tilt his head to the side. Looking at him acting like a cat instead of a veteran scout was a nice change.

I finally relaxed a little when I heard a branch break and found Hope looking at me, her cheeks recovered the color again.

“Everything ok?”. I was worried that something happened to the others since I wasn’t there.

“We are fine… all that was scary, but thanks to you we are fine… Spence, we are worried about you... are you ok?”.

She saw Dante and sat on my other side.

Am I?... after what I’ve done I thought that they would ignore me, be scared or try to leave me… but those looks, the silence. They were just worried.

“No… not at all … but I will be”. She was about to say something.

But I had to interrupt her because far away I saw two people coming here.

“Someone is coming this way. Dante go tell the other we are leaving, someone is tailing us”.

Dante looked in the direction I was pointing and went back to the cave.

I got up and helped Hope, I was thinking of putting another trap. But the path wasn’t that obvious, so it was possible that they didn’t fall on it.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait…” she stopped me gave me a hug and told me at my ear. “We are all here for you if you need it… thank you for protecting us”. A little peck in my cheek followed her words.

I was surprised by her words, but it was what I needed now. Unfortunately, there was no time for long hugs and deep conversations.

I went back to cave, and I bought bullets for the rifle on my way, I hate the idea of firing it again, but if something happens because of me not being prepared, I would never forgive myself.

I was left with 105 system points. And a rifle with five bullets.

Since the ones tailing us needed to track us and be careful of potential traps, they moved slowly and even if a saw them, they had no way of noticing me, unless they had a power.

We started to move again.

“G go in the front Dante will tell you the way, I’ll be the at the back this time”

We moved with the little change in the formation and arrived at the city without any significant troubles. At some point, I lost sight of our pursuers, but they were so far behind that it's not possible for them to catch us inside the city.

We only found a couple of bunnies and birds in our way, but we avoided all of them. Unlike before in this part, the amount of beast and people were less.

Most of them move away from our way trying to avoid us, maybe Hayley’s presence scares them, thanks to that it was easy to get to the city without problems.

The condition of the city left me dumbfounded.

I knew that Hayley came here looking for help but I doubt she noticed how bad this place was with the troubles she had at the time.

Dante already told me the general situation, but seeing it was an entirely different matter.

It was like a movie…

We were alone in a long street in the middle of the road. Cars parked around, some involved in crashes even with people still inside, there was also a car embedded into a wall.

At our right, there was a collapsed building, and I could see a hand among the rubbles. If I looked far away, I could see the same scene in most of the streets some corpses were lying around.