“Hoeksak!” one shouted through a mouthful of raw grains and jam.

“Derecho!” another shouted.

“Kill it! Kill it!” a third barked.

Without spending even a fraction of a second to hesitate, Jarne rushed back up the stairs, cursing his own stupidity. ‘Of course they were going for the pantry,’ he thought bitterly, ‘why else would they be here?’ The kitchen soon reared in his vision and he leapt up, three stairs at a time, screaming, “Run, we’ll have to find another exit!”

Plus started moving for the doors, all ready to herd the children and their mother out, but…

Kitty took one look over his shoulder, at Mole. He frowned lightly. And as Jarne tried to push him away and out of the kitchen door, he instead found Mole deposited in his arms. “Hold him,” Kitty said calmly. “We’ll be going through the pantry.”

“What?” Jarne said. “What the hell are you—”

“Kitty, no!” Plus said. “I won’t let you! We need to get going, this is no time to—”

But Kitty, of course, paid no heed to the orders of anyone whose name wasn’t ‘Moleman.’ With an expression of singular apathy, he headed towards the stairs. As he did, Jarne thought he saw something shift in him. Some little twitch to his lips, that changed everything he was—everything he had been mere moments ago—into something far more animal—something feral.

Plus must have seen it too, because he hurriedly went after him, sword brandished, crying at him to stop and turn around.

Jarne’s hands were trembling. He turned to Jazz. Her eyes were darting between the doorway into the cellar, the exit out of the kitchen, and Mole. Jarne grit his teeth. Despite what he might like to think, Jarne was neither a large man, nor was he especially strong—certainly not enough to carry Mole for any period of time. Neither could Jazz. Maybe if they worked together, sure, but then they wouldn’t be able to protect themselves or the mayor’s wife and her kids.

Hissing a few choice curse words under his breath, he leaned down and placed Mole on the floor, making sure not to bump his head. He affixed Jazz with a gaze. “Keep tending to him. I’ll keep an eye on the kitchen hallway. Scream if anyone comes up from the cellar. Whatever happens down there… We can’t stop it anymore.”

She hesitated for a moment. Then, blinking tears out of her eyes, she wiped her face, and nodded resolutely. “Got it.”

Nodding back at her, he left for the kitchen exit, only pausing to assure their escorts that everything would turn out alright. The wife, holding the youngest in her arms, thanked him so gratefully she started using words he couldn’t understand. Pretending this wasn’t the case, he smiled and went out to keep an eye on their flank, trying not to think about the screams coming from the basement.

Kitty wouldn’t die. Lord only knew if he even could at this point. Taking care of a few dozen goblins, armed though they may be, wouldn’t be an issue for him.

The trouble was Plus.

He still didn’t have his armor on. Sure, he was unusually tough, and he had plenty of skills and resistances, but that didn’t mean he could shrug off a stab to the chest or anything. If he got hurt down there… If Mole and he both died…

Jarne felt his hands tighten into fists. He refused to die in this stupid fucking city. Not to some plague, not to some dumb goblins, and especially not to that asshole Kitty. That’d be too ironic. No, he wouldn’t let this be the end. He absolutely couldn’t let it. If he did, that made him even suckier of a teammate than Mole.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He couldn’t let it happen. He absolutely couldn’t—

There was a scream.

Throwing every thought and worry aside, Jarne launched himself back into the kitchen, knives at the ready, only to freeze in place once he figured out what he was looking at. It wasn’t a goblin with a sword. It wasn’t some kind of monster. It wasn’t anything like that.

It was Kitty, covered in blood and cuts and shredded flesh hanging off his bare bones—and Plus, only barely supported on his shoulder, his clothes drenched in blood. His white shirt was red. His blue pants were a deep, blackish purple. His red vest was darker. For a split second, Jarne had a horrible thought. He thought, that despite everything, the state Plus was in now was merely psychological. He’d watched Kitty slaughter a bunch of people, and now he was in a state of shock, and maybe he’d slipped on the floor, too. That was why he was covered in blood. That was why he looked so dazed. That was all. A little sniffing salt and a slap to the face and he’d be okay. It was just a shock. He was okay. He was alright.

Plus stumbled forward, Jarne’s body reacted of its own, and when he was barely able to catch Plus’ falling weight with Jazz’ help, he realized that the blood was warm, and it was still coming. He was bleeding. Plus was bleeding, and his eyes were almost closed, and…

He was dying. He knew that. Like a lightbulb went off, Jarne realized Plus was dying. His heavy breaths, his weak, slowly beating heart… That was why Jazz screamed. She’d known it at a glance.

“Fuck,” Jarne heard himself say. “Fuck. Fuck.” He turned to Kitty. He was also covered in blood. He should be dying. But he wasn’t. Wasn’t that cruel? How dare he be okay? How dare he look at them as though they’re the weird ones for reacting like this? Jarne tried to calm down his breathing. Not here. Not now. “Is—is the coast…?”

“It’s clear,” Kitty said, completely apathetic to the sacrifice Plus must have made. “But we should move fast. A bunch of them are only knocked out and-or crippled because someone didn’t want to keep them down for good.”

Jarne gulped down the million billion insults and righteous curses he wanted to speak. Instead, he said, “Yeah. Yeah, we have to… We’ll carry Plus. Can you take…?”

Kitty gave them an odd look. “But he’s dying. I was thinking, since Plus is clearly going to die, we could fix this whole situation by using him as a donor for Moleman, and then—”

“Hospital!” Jarne screamed. “Hospital, NOW!”

Kitty stared at him blankly. Then, he shrugged. “Well, alright.” Thankfully for everyone, he then went on to lift and carry Mole, just as usual.

Jarne turned to Jazz. “Let’s shift him a little. I’ll take the left shoulder, and you…”

“Yeah, the right one… On one, two…”

They shifted him. In spite of this, Jarne still came to regret that he didn’t push harder for the man to go on a diet. If only Mole had been there, then… Jazz’ floaty stuff skill only worked on inanimate things, but Mole’s wind ball spell… Jarne shook his head. There was no time for that. Grunting, they began to step forward, one step, two… The cellar stairs gaped beneath them. Jarne was already panting. “We can do this. Just a few steps. We can… do…”

“Wait,” a familiar voice said. Jarne paused. Slowly, he turned to his right. Plus dragged a heavy breath into his lungs. Something rattled in there. He winced. “I can…” He stepped out of Jazz and Jarne’s arms. “Hah, hah… I can walk… Myself. Please, Rat…” He turned to Jarne. “Could you, haah, keep showing the way…?”

Indignation reared in Jarne’s chest. “You—you shouldn’t be moving at all! Please, we can carry you, the hospital isn’t…”

But Plus had already turned away, deaf to his requests. “Jazz,” he breathed, almost mumbling the word. “Please… keep healing Mole.” He smiled bravely. A gash on the side of his face gurgled out a bit of blood.

Jazz’ hands trembled. “I—I don’t know if…”

He took a step forward. His massive fist grabbed a hold of the staircase railing, and he almost stumbled, only for Jarne to hold him up again, pressing his small body underneath Plus’ massive shoulder. Plus blinked down at him. Jarne smiled up at him. “Come on, you’re not that big. I bet I can lift half of you all the way there!”

For a moment, Plus merely stared at him in silent confusion. Then, his thick lips broke out into a smile, and he chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “Show the way, mouse.”

“Hey, that’s not my name and you know it!”

Plus simply laughed again, coughing up a bit of blood as he did. Jarne pretended not to notice it as he supported him down the stairs. Halfway down, the bodies began showing up. Jarne turned to Jazz and Kitty, hissing, “Please tell the kids to keep their eyes shut.”

The sight down there was grisly, but not as bad as the one above. Not everyone was dead, but the ones that were had been made into something less. Mushy organs melded with the dirty floor, the ground fertilized with blood and viscera. A few ruptured stomachs showed that some of the goblins hadn’t even chewed the food they’d eaten. How starved did you have to be to swallow a carrot whole?

But the living ones were hardly better. Some simply looked asleep, but others made Jarne question what Kitty had done to them. There was one with half his face drooping, like he’d had a stroke. Another was still spasming around, not to mention one that had puked and was trying to gather it up. But none of them so much as turned to look at the party walking by. Jarne tried not to think about it too much.

The stairs leading outside were lit by the moons outside, beyond visible. Jarne hesitated.

“I took care of the ones above too,” Kitty said from behind him. “No worries there.”

Strangling the urge to thank him, Jarne helped Plus up the stairs and out into the cold night air. There weren’t as many out there. Listening carefully, Jarne guided everyone out of the exit gates and out onto the streets. Before they left for the hospital, he checked the gatekeeper’s booth, only to find it empty, and the gate wide open. No trace of any body or forced entry. On that note, where were the other guards? Since the first attempt on Mole’s life, they’d made a habit of keeping guards stationed around the house at all times.

Acting on intuition, Jarne decided to avoid the guards on the way to the hospital.

They arrived a little more than two hours following the beginning of the raid, and were welcomed by a pair of stretchers and a more-than-ready Benevil. Jarne almost wanted to feel suspicious, but he had a feeling Benevil didn’t have anything to do with it.

He simply knew these kinds of things.