The boys were gone, and there was no way Marcus could call them back. So after a short moment of consideration, he headed towards the Mud River docks. There would no doubt be guards around the place at this time, possibly both from the community collective and the gangs that had control over the territory. He needed to sneak past them first, and if he was not careful, the situation could be of grave danger to him. But with the tight deadline of the Food Festival, he did not have the luxury of collecting evidence the normal way and calling for a team to raid the place with a warrant. He needed to at least find something out, if nothing else then at least learn about the surroundings.

The night was more gloomy than usual, thick clouds in the sky blocked the light of both the moon and the stars. There was hardly any night breeze, even though it was close to water. The smell of rotten fish and garbage became even thicker and more stale due to the lack of airflow.

Marcus hid in a dark corner right below a broken street light, from this location he could clearly see two watchers guarding two high points on top of two buildings. If it was any brighter they would notice Marcus almost right away even if he was wearing dark and matte clothes. Yet with the street lights mostly broken and the clouds being thick, Marcus was able to swiftly bypass these two watchers and headed into the docks area.

There were two two-men teams patrolling the area, but their patterns were pretty easy to detect. Marcus waited for around twenty minutes before he was certain he could find the right window to get in and started heading toward the general direction the two boys pointed to.

Many wooden shacks and warehouses broke down or were severely damaged during the fight he had with the two martial thugs. And until this day, none of them were fixed. Instead, there were just a few more crude warehouses and shacks staged on or around them. There were some more guards and watchers around some important looking warehouses, which Marcus averted.

But when he inched closer towards the direction to which the two boys pointed, he found that the place seemed to be an empty space, a platform with only some uneven parts and a small concave part on the ground, with almost no place for him to hide. And what was weirder was that there was a team of three individuals in the space, seemingly watching over something. They had a few portable lights placed around them to provide visibility, yet not too many or too bright to seem out of place or attract unwanted attention. With the help of the Qi from Ferocious Tiger Style, Marcus could see more clearly in the dark than most, and thus he could see, though very roughly, what these three men looked like.

They were dressed in dark cult-like/liturgical robes, the hoods on their heads covered their faces, and all three of them had strings of beads on their wrists.

One obvious thing he could see was that the platform was almost on the edge of the docks and thus was near the water unless he wanted to be seen. So Marcus had no choice but to get into the water and slowly moved along the edges, in an attempt to evade the attention of the team of three. Before getting into the water, he put his phone on mute and zipped it in his inner jacket pocket along with his gun, hoping that the water wouldn’t damage them too much because he would definitely need them.

The water was thick and a bit oily, aside from the slightly pungent smell up close it also left a sticky sensation on his skin. Especially so when he moved some clothed part of his body above water, and the clothes just stuck to his skin leaving almost no room for air. And because he had to keep the water around him quiet and undisturbed, he could only move slowly without breathing too much. Not that he could anyway because of the smell of the water.

The team seemed to be mostly watching the road leading to this space, so Marcus was able to move some distance along the edge, and finally he made it to a position that was furthest away from the main road and where the ground was at a few high points and he could hide his head behind it and get some deep breaths in because he was not able to earlier.

Just this moment, Marcus felt a gentle tuck on his wrist, when he looked over, he saw something was floating to his side. When he pulled it closer, barely using any of his muscles, he noticed that this was a heavily damaged piece of clothing with some burn marks and a few dark holes. There were some parts that were just whole enough for him to see the color with the tiny bit of light coming from the lights placed on the empty space - it was red. A red hoodie.

Some more floating items seemed to have emerged from deeper water, and for some reason, Marcus felt that he might have seen small faces below the water. There was a short pen, a hair clip and a tiny pencil box floating on the water, all of which seemed to have belonged to young children.

Just when Marcus wondered where these items came from, the sound of cars approached, and seemingly at the same time, a vision flashed before his eyes.

Red hot fire, dark and cough-inducing smoke, the disgusting and horrifying smell of melting and burning skin and flesh. The children were crying and screaming for help with all their loudest voices and struggling, but their voices were not heard, and their bodies were bound by rough and prickly ropes.

The vision lasted for but one moment. When he came to, the cars approaching the place were just pulling into some wider spaces on the side of the empty space. It was three black SUVs with completely tinted windows and seemingly expanded back trunks. From each of these SUVs jumped out two men, all wearing different clothes, some of them with styles that were typical to the residents of South-Eastern District, and some to the Northern and South-Western District.

And almost too quietly but carelessly, each pair of the men opened up their back trunks and pulled out several children that were tied on ropes with their hands behind their backs and their mouths taped shut. They were still struggling and trying to scream. But like the children, whose pre-death vision Marcus just experienced, they could not do much.

“You’re late!” One of the men waiting at the platform complained, with what appeared no intention at all to conceal his frustration: “It’s already past prime time.”

“Well, it’s not gonna be that easy transporting all these goods across different parts of the city, ain’t it?” One of the men who got off the SUV responded with an almost equally frustrated tone: “Some fucker shot at us, okay? Let’s just get this over with!”

“It’s past prime time, the curse is not gonna be tamed and easy.” The man who spoke first shook his head, then pointed at a spot at the center of the empty space: “Get them in there then. You’re sure you’re not followed?”

‘Who do you take us for? Amateurs?“

“If you’re professionals, you wouldn’t lose some guy to PCPD, or be late!”

“Hey, fuck you!” Another man who brought in the kids cursed: “You bead twiddlers don’t know shit about doing this kind of business!”

“Shut up! ” Another one of the three robed men waiting spoke up: “We don’t have much time. You want us to die here? The furnace is still running while waiting for you, we’d be in bigger trouble if the oil runs out!”

“Alright! Alright! Fuck!” The men that just came out of the SUVs complained and murmured: “Let’s go then! Fucking furnace and your disgusting oil!”

Marcus elevated his body slightly to try to get a better view of what was at the center position of the empty space, and at the same time grabbed a piece of sharp, broken stone and held it in his palm. Some kind of smoke was rising from under a trap door at the center of the platform, and a rich, oily but nauseating smell came from it. Unfortunately Marcus recognized it - it was the smell of burned flesh, hair and skin, commonly present in sites of arson and horrible murders.

Marcus slowly took out his phone and sent out some pre-formatted call for help messages to everyone he could find right now. Then just when all the men were trying to carry the children into the open trap door, he raised his body from the water more and threw the piece of sharp stone at one of the SUVs.

“Boom!” The piece of stone, infused with Marcus’ Qi punctured one of the tires, and the explosion instantly made almost all of the men in the empty space either stand up or jump.

“What the fuck!?” “Who is it!?” “You guys were fucking followed!”

“Lights! Lights!” One of the men yelled: “Must be some of those watch and patrol members! Turn on the lights!”

The kids were thrown onto the ground, with no regard to their health or safety. And almost all of the men scattered around the space with their portable lights and flashlights pointing everywhere in attempts to find whoever it was that broke the tire. And luckily, just as Marcus wanted them to, these men were looking mostly in the direction of the road from which the SUVs came, instead of at the water around the empty space.