Ethan was wearing the helmet. He’d thought about testing the air but hadn't been able to convince himself that it was worth the risk. Besides, it wasn’t like it hurt anything for him to use the oxygen scrubber, and he had spent a lot of time building it after all. Thoughts like that swirled around inside his head as he made his way towards the broken chunk of ship he’d set his sights on. It looked like a tower, or spire. As it was long and thin sticking up at a slight angle out of the ground and above the trees.
He had been moving at a normal walking pace, until he hit the tree line some fifty feet from his ship, then his pace slowed to a crawl. Just like with the helmet, Ethan couldn’t convince himself to rush, not when he could potentially run into a goblin rider, or a whole band of them, at any time. Luna, much to his displeasure, had insisted that he didn’t take a gun with him. Saying that long range kills didn’t award kill energy. Ethan hadn't agreed with her at all, and in the end had brought the 1911 anyway. Although he had agreed to only use it as a last resort.
That had left him with only two choices. Well, three if he wanted to include the goblin’s spear, but he hadn't thought about that while he was packing. So, the choice had come down to the goblin axe, and his brother’s gladius. Not wanting to lose or ruin the gladius, Ethan settled on the goblin axe, which he currently held in his right hand, fingers wrapped tightly around the roughhewn handle.
Since he’d been converted into a dungeon boss after the planet exploded and he’d been fully healed. Ethan had done several things that could be categorized as brave. He’d gone exploring the ship. When every closed hatch potentially held death behind it, he felt like he’d done very well there. He’d also fought with a pack of goblin riders. That had been completely outside his control, and he’d been terrified from beginning to end, but he’d done it. In the stories, this would be about the time for him to start shaking off the cowardice a lifetime of easy living had imposed on him. In the stories. In reality, the more life and death encounters he had, the more terrified Ethan became.
He supposed he could sympathize with Luna. She was stuck in one small room after all, unable to see out, unable to move, and totally reliant on him for her very survival. That didn’t mean he agreed with her assessment that goblins and war dogs weren’t a threat to him. Sure, he had on a professionally crafted suit of armor that also looked quite fashionable, and, if she was to be believed that they were in earth standard gravity, then he was probably about as strong as Mark had been during his gladiator days. Having good equipment, and a strong body didn’t mean shit though, if he didn’t have a clue how to use it properly.
He looked up, through the trees that looked to have their summer leaves and were a pretty even mix of hardwoods and evergreens. He spotted the tower like section of spaceship just up ahead. It was closer than he’d thought, some six hundred yards at most away from the Luna. His pace had been a crawl so he could look for enemies, yet he’d gotten so caught up in his head that he’d neglected to even check the surroundings as he walked. Cursing himself for a fool, Ethan moved past a tight cluster of pines, when he spotted movement. Crouching down, he gripped his goblin axe even tighter and stared hard towards where he’d seen the motion.
It was right at the base of the tower-like chunk of spaceship, and, like a tower, it seemed to only have one entrance at ground level. A rent in the hull some six feet across, but a good four feet off the ground. A pack of four goblin riders on their war dogs swarmed around the opening. Letting out loud howls and angry yips as they tried to get inside. Again, Ethan was astounded he hadn't heard the commotion before now, though he supposed the thick tree cover must have muffled the sound enough that he’d missed it over the noise his own feet were making through the thick undergrowth.
“What are they even… ah,” Ethan muttered quietly to himself as he watched the riders trying to get into the hole. He hadn't been able to figure out why they didn’t just climb inside. The flash of light on a chunk of metal being stabbed from inside the gash, and the scream a goblin rider made before falling to the ground in agony answered the question before he could even finish it. People. There were actually people in there. Excitement filled him, and he half rose to his feet, on the verge of running right over there before his better judgment kicked in and he squatted back down.
No, running in there was probably the fastest way to get himself killed, but he couldn’t just stand here and watch, could he? The person, whoever they were, looked like they were holding up just fine under the attack, they’d already wounded one of the goblins after all. It would probably not be a good idea to get in their way at this point. Not when they had a well defended location to fight from, and their opponents were only goblins, a foe so easy to beat that Luna had contempt dripping from every letter when she told him to fight them.
“Aaahhh,” the person inside the opening, a man by the sound of it, let out an anguished cry as one of the spear wielding goblins managed to get in a lucky hit. Ethan watched as his improvised weapon fell from his limp fingers as the other two still fighting goblins and all four war dogs rushed in at once to take advantage of the opening. Before Ethan could even second guess what he was doing, he’d gotten to his feet and rushed in to help.
It was purely instinctual, no conscious thought behind his actions at all. He’d heard the cry of pain, and his feet had just moved. They were moving fast too, by the time he realized what his body was doing he’d already come within striking distance of the nearest goblin and was forced to take a swing with his axe. A blind swing that didn’t connect, and that sent him off balance. The same couldn’t be said for the spear wielding goblin’s return attack, and he felt the spear head skittering across his chest armor before bouncing ineffectually away.
Righting himself, Ethan made another blind roundhouse swing attack with the axe. It was a single-handed weapon to the goblins, and in his hands was closer in size to a camp hatchet, but he was actually pretty strong, and that strength translated to speed as he swung. The goblin, surprised that his strike hadn't landed, was caught off guard long enough to be caught by the side of the axe. Once more, Ethan had failed to line the blade up with the direction he was swinging. Though in his defense, the handle was far too irregular in shape to really know what way was right just by feel.
Regardless, when the axe connected to the goblin’s chest, it buckled in like he had connected with a loose bundle of sticks. Sending the dying creature tumbling silently to the ground. Ethan blinked in shock at how easily he’d dispatched his first opponent, and in his distraction, the war dog mount was on him in a near identical attack to the last time. Forcing him to the ground with its jaws wrapped tightly around the forearm he’d raised to block the attack.
Unlike last time however, he was wearing his new armor now, and the teeth failed to find purchase in his flesh. Suddenly feeling more confident, Ethan took the second he needed to line up the axe head with his target, and delivered a blow to the creature’s ribs with as much force as he could bring to bear while lying on his back in the dirt.
The blade sunk deeply into the war dog’s flank, causing it to let go if his arm with a yelp and jump away like a scalded cat. Unfortunately, the move wrenched the axe from Ethan’s grip, and he found himself unarmed as three more war dogs, two of them sporting weapon wielding riders, advanced on him with death in their eyes.
Again, without giving his actions much conscious thought, Ethan snatched up the spear the goblin he’d just killed had carried and swung it like a baseball bat at the incoming foes. The blow caught the nearest rider across the waist with the shaft of the spear and tore it off the war dog’s back. The spear, which still retained a good chunk of its momentum, continued on and stabbed into the riderless war dog’s flank, the force of his strike, and the momentum of the animal drove the spear all the way through the dog’s body, taking it out of the fight, but also breaking the spear shaft off in Ethan’s hands.
The now riderless war dog wasn’t able to slow down and darted past him, leaving Ethan staring at the last mounted goblin. It held a hammer made from what looked like a stone sandwiched between a split stick wrapped in rawhide in its trembling hands. Ethan, seeing how reluctant to approach the last rider was, gave a self-mocking laugh.
“I guess Luna was right,” he said advancing on the goblin, who had terror showing in his eyes at the human nearly twice his size coming at him. “There really isn’t anything to worry about from gobli…” before he could finish the thought, the look in the goblin’s eyes shifted from terror to glee, and the air was knocked from Ethan’s lungs as the war dog who’d just blown passed him collided with his back at full speed.
Pain suddenly flared up under his left arm. His hands had been raised as he went for the last goblin, and the war dog had taken advantage of the opening to sink its teeth into the unprotected flesh of his armpit. Ethan tried to scream, but the wind had been knocked from his lungs with the impact. He lay there, face first in the dirt and struggled to breathe, to get up, to do anything. That’s when the primitive looking hammer came down on the back of his head.
The helmet, created to keep one safe in the void of space, was well put together. Still, it hadn't been designed to take impacts like what it had just suffered. Although his head wasn’t injured, the helmet split from the impact and Ethan could feel the cool breeze that blew into his face. The first breath he was able to pull in was the fresh, nature scented air of the forest. Thankfully it hadn't killed him, but blood was flowing down his left side, and the last goblin rider was rearing back the hammer to take another swing.
“Help me,” he screamed in his mind. Knowing no one would answer, but not in a position to help himself. When the four, pure white blurs exploded out of the hard sided pouches on his lower back, Ethan, who’d forgotten all about them, was almost as surprised as the goblin who was already bleeding out above him.
The stoats, whose white fur was now streaked with red, dropped from the goblin once they’d ripped the arteries in its neck open, and set to work on its mount. The animal howled in pain, and darted away into the surrounding woods, shocking the last war dog, the one with its teeth sunk into Ethan’s back, enough to loosen its grip on him. Having finally caught his breath, Ethan took advantage of the momentary slip, to turn around and grab the dog around the neck with both hands.
Already having experienced this once before, he hugged the black body of the war dog to his chest with all the strength he could muster, until he heard the crunching sound that indicated a broken spine. He almost instantly felt a little better as the kill energy flooded into his wounded armpit, however it wasn’t enough, so he staggered to his feet and stomped a booted foot down on the goblin who he’d knocked off its mount a second ago. It had clearly had some broken bones, but it wasn’t dead yet, and the kill energy that flooded into his wound let him know his action had paid off. Ethan spent the next few seconds going from body to body, stamping on their heads in hopes that he could snuff the last of their lives out and get just a little bit more healing for the wound in his left side, and after he’d stomped on the last one, he was confident that he wasn’t going to bleed out at the very least.
It was at about that time when the stoats came back, more red then white, and larger than they had been before by a little bit. There were only three of them, meaning the war dog must have gotten its teeth into one before it died, but in exchange for his life, Ethan was happy to make that trade any day of the week.
“Thanks guys,” he said to the rodents, as he mentally ordered them back into their pouches. “I’ll have to treat you with something good when we get back to the ship.” Waiting until they’d scurried back into their pouches, Ethan moved around the battlefield, double checking that everyone was accounted for, before bending down to pick up both the hammer that had split his helmet, and a spear off the ground. He’d been impressed with both weapons and decided that he’d give them a try this time around.
Reaching up to the broken helmet, he pulled it off and slipped it into his bag. He didn’t think it was fixable, but he’d wait to let Luna take a look at it before he made that determination. Having run out of things to distract him, Ethan finally turned his attention towards the opening in the ship. He’d been avoiding looking at it, because he was afraid, he’d done all this fighting, risked his life, and been injured, all to save someone who was already dead.
“I’m friendly,” he called out as he neared the opening. Wouldn’t do to go through all that word to be killed by friendly fire. “I killed the rest of the goblins and am coming in to check on you.” Ethan didn’t know if anyone could hear him, but he really didn’t want to startle whoever might be inside, so he kept talking as he approached. Plus, the very act of speaking helped to calm his nerves after that quick, but intense battle. It had ended almost before he had the chance for terror to seep in, but he could feel it now, and his hands were starting to shake like crazy as the adrenaline left his system.
“All…alright, you’re friendly, just… just come help me already…” A strangled male voice said, from within the tower. Ethan, relieved that the man hadn't died, crossed the last few feet that separated him from the gap and looked inside.
What greeted his eyes was strange, and it took his mind a moment to understand why. It was because the tower, as he’d been referring to the broken chunk of spaceship, was sticking up out of the ground on something like a thirty degree angle, had hit the ground end first. Everything that should have been located on the ground was on the wall instead. Sticking his head through the gap, he looked up and down, realizing that the rent in the wall, though only four feet above ground level on the outside, was something like ten feet off the ‘floor’ inside. The defender had been forced to climb up the wall and had been standing on a chair that had been bolted to the floor, now the wall, of the structure in order to keep the goblins outside.
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Looking down, Ethan saw the man laying on the wall below, that had now become the floor. He shook his head, trying to make it come to terms with what he was seeing. In the end, he figured it didn’t really matter. Deciding he could probably get back up the slope easily enough, Ethan clambered into the hole and slid down the steep incline until he came to rest beside the injured man.
“How bad is it?” He asked, skipping the introductions until he ascertained how bad the other man was injured. “Do you have any med packs, is there anyone else here?” Ethan moved the man’s hand away from the wound in his shoulder as he spoke, looking at the stab wound the spear had left behind. It wasn’t terrible, but the fall had torn the spear out at an angle, making the wound open further than was probably healthy. The fact that the man was only wearing a skinsuit with earth’s navy colors of green and blue, didn’t help either. The material was sturdy and pliable, but wasn’t designed to hold up to melee attacks, like a spear thrust.
“M… my na… my name’s, Ensign Leo Davis.” The man got out through teeth ground together with pain. “I’m… the only survivor… at least, I haven’t seen anyone else. Though… I haven’t been able to climb up into the aft compartments to check… and no, I don’t have anything to stop the bleeding.”
Ethan nodded along as the man spoke, he could tell the man, Ensign Leo Davis, was in pain. Despite that, he was holding it together much better than Ethan would have been in his position. Pulling the bag off his back, Ethan undid the zipper with a tug and fished out a can of medical spray foam and a sealing patch. Shaking up the can, Ethan searched the wound for any obvious foreign debris, plucking a chunk of Davis’s skinsuit out of the wound, to an accompanying scream of pain from the man. Then pointed the can at the wound and pulled the trigger.
The medical foam was like a combination of antiseptic solution, antibiotic, and glue. It filled up the wound and began to expand outward. That’s where the sealing patch came into play. Ethan pulled the backing off the large patch and slapped it over the wound, making sure to get it on before the foam expanded too far outside the hole. It was designed to seal out anything bad, while keeping the highly expansive foam inside the wound. It would force it to expand deeper into the affected tissue, sealing and disinfecting it all at one go. What’s more, it would break down over time, stimulating new growth and… Ethan couldn’t remember what the rest of the can had said. Honestly, he’d never even seen the stuff before he’d gone through the crates on board the Luna. Not something he’d ever had any real need for at his old job on the moon. Though he supposed a dungeon diving team like Mark’s would occasionally get into a position to use the stuff.
“I imagine that’s going to hurt like hell, but bear with it, Ensign Davis,” Ethan said as the man let out a pained scream. “It is supposed to help…” he trailed off, realizing the man had already passed out. Shrugging, he repositioned the man into a more comfortable position and got a proper look at him for the first time.
He was young, early twenties if Ethan had to guess. The blue and green skinsuit had clearly seen some wear, as it smelled of days old sweat. It was likely the only thing the man had to wear after all, so that wasn’t unexpected. Ethan would have been in a similar situation if it hadn't been for Luna. Davis’s blonde hair was cut short in current earth military fashion, or at least Ethan thought it was fashion, he’d seen a few recruitment commercials and they’d all had their hair shaved short like this on the sides, with an inch or so of length on the top. As for height, Ethan put the younger man at five foot seven, a good seven or eight inches shorter than Ethan himself and built just like Sven had been. His eyes were closed now, behind sunken lids with deep purple rings over pale white cheeks, but he remembered they were green.
“Well, you haven’t eaten in a while now, have you?” Ethan said absently, pulling a pair of ration packs out of his back and setting them on the floor next to the unconscious man. Pulling out another for himself, he scarfed it down quickly and tossed the packaging away before turning to look around the room he was in.
It looked like an office space of some kind. With desks and chairs bolted to the floor all the way up the wall that had originally been the floor. They were widely spread out, with a good ten feet of space between each row of desks. Looking up at it from this angle, it was clear why Davis hadn't been able to climb up the slope. Ethan was pretty sure he could make the climb, but he wanted to explore what was down here first.
Leaving Ensign Leo Davis where he was, Ethan walked to the closest hatch and opened it up. Not seeing any movement, he dropped through the hatch, descended further into the front of this section of ship. He slid down the steep slope, into a sterile room filled with several stalls and a row of sinks. It was a bathroom. He looked around, but there wasn’t anything of note in here. Using the stalls as handholds, Ethan climbed back out the hatch and moved to the second hatch he could reach down here. Opening it up, the first thing that hit him was the smell.
It was darker than the other room, which had a small emergency light shining over the sink. So, he pulled out a small flashlight and shined it down into the darkness below. Instantly wishing he hadn't looked; Ethan slammed the hatch closed and fought back his urge to throw up the ration pack he’d just eaten. As he worked hard to settle his stomach, he also tried to purge the sight of week dead bodies decaying in a heap at the end of the slope.
Most of them had been wearing lab coats and skinsuits associated with hospitals, but a few had sported the blue and green skinsuits of earth’s navy. It looked like this room had been occupied when it hit the ground. Looking back at the young man with newfound sympathy, Ethan didn’t want to think about how hard it must have been to throw the bodies of his friends and colleagues into that room. Looking up, he took a deep breath to settle himself down the rest of the way before beginning the climb towards the back of the compartment.
His initial impression had been accurate. This was an office space of some kind. There were no papers laying around, the ancient stationary had been obsoleted for space considerations long ago. No, each desk had a built-in display on its surface. All of them were dark now. Without power to keep them operational, they were just glass topped desks. Coming to a halt by the hole, Ethan mentally coaxed one of the three remaining stoats out of its pouch. With a thought, he commanded it to rest on the lip of the opening and scream for all it was worth if any more goblins came calling.
Then he continued his climb, which actually consisted of jumping the ten feet from the back of a chair to grab the edge of the desk in the row behind and above the one he’d just climbed over. It was a big space, and it took him a while to reach the top. At the back of this room, unlike on the other side of the office space, there was only one door leading aft. Working his way over to it, Ethan leapt up and managed to grab the wheel.
Unlocking the hatch didn’t prove to be difficult. What Ethan had a hard time with was figuring out how to open the doorway. Considering it opened into the room above and he was hanging off the handle. In the end he dropped back down to the desk he’d leaped up from and used the shaft of his spear to nudge the hatch open before jumping back up and climbing through to the next room.
This room was equipped with a full set of emergency lights. After his eyes adjusted from the room below, which had only been lit from light coming in from the outside, Ethan understood why. It was an operating room. Tables bolted to the floor, surrounded by a plethora of mounted equipment, like lights, magnification screens, and robotic arms equipped with numerous attachments commonly used for surgeries in the current age. The wall below his feet was littered with numerous surgical objects. Things like clamps, scalpels, hoses, metal bowls, and other things he couldn’t begin to recognize. There were also a trio of bodies pressed into a corner.
Two of them were lab coat wearing individuals who must be doctors. The third was apparently their patient. A woman who’s body had wasted away to skin and bones. Her limbs had been replaced with prosthetics, and there were several metal organs showing through the incision they’d made in her naked torso. Ethen shuddered and looked away. That was what his future had held… up until his brother, and Luna, had saved him from that fate.
Looking back down at the unconscious man below, Ethan determined he still had some time before he would wake. So, he took a few minutes to gather up one of everything he found, taking care to only grab the pieces that had the least amount of damage. Luna would be able to absorb them, and just because he wasn’t sure how to use them, didn’t mean he’d never meet someone who couldn’t.
Steering wide of the dead bodies, Ethan worked his way up the room the same way he had below. By jumping from one steal table to the next, until he reached the top, or back, of the operating room. There were two doors up here, and choosing the one on the left at random, Ethan repeated his trick with the spear to gain entry. Only to find a small office with a single desk and a single body inside. It looked like some sort of head surgeon’s office or something. There was a clean lab coat hanging askew on a coat hanger near the door though, and Ethan snagged it as he left for the other room.
This room was as high as the tower could go. Ethan knew that the moment he climbed inside because of the sunlight streaming down through the broken hole at the top of the spaceship section. It was also very different from the other rooms he’d entered, as there were ten clear topped medical pods, two rows of five, mounted to the floor in here.
One of the medical pods, the furthest one, was open and off. If Ethan had to guess, it belonged to the woman with the wasting disease in the operating room. Out of the other nine, eight of them sported red lights that flashed incessantly on the display panels that, miraculously, still had power. The final medical pod had a steady green light glowing from the display panel. As luck would have it, it was also the furthest away from him, apart from the open one at the very top of the room.
“Go figure…” he said with a sigh, as he began the climb. He stopped at each medical pod, looking in through the clear glass top at the clearly dead people, before moving on. Each one was a victim of the wasting disease. The symptoms were easily spotted at a glance. Excessively thin, lack of muscle tissue, later stage cases all sported several prosthetics as their limbs would fail due to a lack of muscles or the control over them. Those who didn’t give up and just die at that point would generally have a chest filled with artificial organs as well, since they would shut down too.
Ethan fought back his tears as he looked at these poor men and women. Their symptoms were clearly all advanced to the point of death. Why would they voluntarily subject themselves to this hell of a life? He’d sworn to himself he’d die before accepting a single prosthetic and had signed hundreds of documents to that effect back home. Seeing the restraints binding all the patients’ hands and legs into their medical pods had him evaluating if these people had actually voluntarily subjected themselves to this life. Finally reaching the only medical pod with a green light still glowing steadily on the panel, Ethan looked at the face inside the clear glass coffin.
It was a woman, age was hard to determine in a wasting disease subject, but he’d put her in her late twenties or early thirties. She was nude, just like all the others. So skinny that her ribs showed and not an extra ounce of flesh was evident on her chest. The only reason Ethan could tell her gender at all was what he saw when he looked below her waistline. Turning his eyes away quickly he took in the rest of her form. All four of her limbs had been replaced by prosthetics. The dull grey polymer limbs looked too big on her wasted frame and the material they were constructed of was very similar to the emergency plates he now sported as armor. The polymer was tough, as Ethan had recently proved, but more importantly, it was light. Knowing how weak those who suffered from the wasting disease were that was not a small consideration.
Her head was clean shaven and sported a few surgically implanted ports near the temples. One of her eyes was also artificial as well, showing just how far along her symptoms had progressed. The remaining left eye was sunken and ringed with a circle of such a dark blue it looked black. Her open lips were cracked and split. Her teeth, what was left of them anyway, were mostly yellow with dark brown spots forming around the withdrawn gums. She looked awful… the only thing setting her apart from the rest of the corpses further down, were the lines of determination etched deep into her withered face.
He looked at her for a long time, knowing he’d never have had the strength to make it as long as she had, and the look on her face… it tugged at Ethan in a way he couldn’t describe. He just, felt, for this woman. Looking at the softly glowing display, he read over what was shown.
Patient name = Number Nine
Age = Twenty-nine
Planet of origin = The Moon kingdom
The words after that changed from the common, system wide script to a binary code he didn’t understand at all. Still, it gave him enough information to make an educated guess about what had happened here. These people were prisoners, not patients. Prisoners taken from his home on the moon, by the people of earth. How or why, he didn’t know, but he intended to save this woman if he could.
Looking around the medical pod, Ethan struggled to find a way to turn it off safely. Going back to the panel, he pressed around on the screen, but only the first three lines were in a language he had any familiarity with. Cursing, he wracked his brains for something, anything he could do to help her. The problem, the real problem, with trying to help her was, even if he saved her, she was going to die soon anyway. The wasting disease was incurable. The only reason he’d managed to… wait, that was it.
Pulling the bag off his back, Ethan pulled out a small kitchen knife he’d put in there, just in case. Then. He mentally called out one of the stoats to come cling to his shoulder. Next, he took a deep breath and before he could change his mind, yanked the lid of the medical pod open. Reaching in, he pulled the tubes and wires out of the woman as fast as possible while trying not to hurt her any more than he had too. Then, he ordered the stoat down to her side and put the knife in her hand.
She was unconscious, there was no way she could hold the weapon, let alone use it. So, Ethan would do it for her. Moving her hand over the stoat, he plunged the blade down into the animal’s body. It twitched, squealed and flailed around, but Ethan Held it in place with both his other hand, and his mental command. He then leaned forward, watching closely for the tell tail signs of the kill energy entering the woman’s body.
He didn’t know if this was going to work, but he was confident he didn’t have to worry about taking the kill energy away from her, since Luna had been abundantly clear that it didn’t work that way.
“Yes!” He said excitedly when he felt more than saw the mana transfer into the woman. There wasn’t a lot of it, but the stoat was one who’d taken several lives already and was considerably more filled with mana than the small ones back in the Luna.
Not waiting to see if it had any effect, Ethan commanded the second stoat out. It resisted, but he wasn’t going to let this little animal defy him in this. Snatching it up in his left hand he forced it down beside its dead brother. Using his right hand still wrapped around the woman’s, he once again stabbed down into the rodent’s body. The flow of mana this time was more noticeable to his eyes than before, and he wondered if continued exposure improved the effects. Reaching out with his mind, he called up the third and final stoat. It came at a run, moving as fast as it could to heed his call. At least, it did until it saw the remains of its cohorts.
Its struggle was brief however and before long it joined the others in death. With a grin, Ethan found the flow if mana was indeed greater than it had been the first two times. Removing the bodies from the medical pod, Ethan tossed them aside. Followed a second later by the knife. He didn’t know how Luna would feel about him using her stoats like this, but he decided not to bring back any evidence to implicate himself with. Then, he waited, and waited staring into the woman named Nine’s face, praying for a sign that what he’d done would bear fruit.
Almost a minute past. Where Ethan’s heart sank further and further into his chest. He was just about to call his experiment a failure… when the woman opened her eye and screamed.
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