George had always struck her as a shy and somewhat nearsighted boy. However, now that he didn't have his glasses on, it was obvious that he could see perfectly well. Emily was puzzled, wondering how that was possible. Some kind of miraculous healing? or did it have something to do with the change of world? Perhaps there had been an adjustment of his physical abilities in order to survive? After all, she knew that some adjustment had indeed taken place in her. Although she hadn't really understood what it was about, beyond being able to see the panels.
George walked over to her, snapping her out of her thoughts. Emily didn't like having George around at all. He always looked her up and down, finally focusing on her bust without hiding his always leering gaze.
George was nervous and breathless. Nervously, he asked her as he looked in all directions. He seemed to be looking for something he couldn't find. "I'm sure I saw Ian before. You were together. Where did he go?"
At Emily's suspicious silence, he looked down at his feet with a suffering face. "Because it got so tense earlier, I ran out and hurt my feet badly." Emily was horrified to see the bleeding soles of George's feet, but she didn't show it. George didn't arouse that feeling of pity that he always seemed to be demanding.
George looked into her eyes with a worried expression. "How did it end? I haven't seen much from here. Heh, heh. I'm without my glasses." Emily remembered George telling her once that he couldn't see without his glasses. In that moment she began to doubt if he really needed them as much as he had led her to believe.
George continued, lowering his voice. "I heard a lot of screaming earlier. Was it Ian? Did he kill them all?"
Distressed, Emily looked at the floor remembering those scenes. She closed her eyes sadly. She wished they had never come to her mind. She tried to describe part of what happened, but words stumbled out through her quivering lips. "S-several attacked him ... w-with spears... f-from outside the fort ... b-but he dodged them all."
George interrupted her, hallucinating. "Really? He dodged them all?" However, it wasn't the only thing Emily noticed. There was also disappointment in his words. "So he attack them afterwards?"
Emily shook her head. "He dodged them, but some spears wounded a soldier in the settlement and now they're ...." Emily abruptly stopped, her face was filled with terror.
George understood. "Wow! Are we enemies with those guys now?" Emily tried to hold back her tears and shook her head again. George came very close to Emily and touched her shoulder. "I thought Ian killed them! Are you okay?"
Emily felt disgust when he touched her. George didn't take his hand off her shoulder, he even seemed to be caressing her. Emily tried to hide it, as much as she could, until she couldn't take it anymore and moved back a bit, feeling harassed. She didn't want him to touch her, and that ended up showing in the worst way possible. George smiled annoyed. "Hey, come on! What do you take me for? I'm not going to do anything to you."
Emily watched him out of the corner of her eye doubting those words. Then, she surreptitiously looked in all directions, even upwards. There was only one question in her head. "Why the hell did Ian leave me here with this guy? He must have seen him and left."
A feeling of abandonment began to invade her. She felt deceived. "Maybe that's what he wanted to tell me. Maybe he didn't want me to follow him. Was he trying to get rid of me?" At that precise moment, she noticed George's spear. It was stained with blood.
George noticed Emily's find and reassured her by pointing back. "I've already run into one of those vermin and had to defend myself."
Emily felt a shiver run through her body. Very scared, she protected herself with her arms. "Here, so close to us?!"
George tried to reassure her again with a smile. "No!... Well... yes! But it's in that direction. Although it's not very far, I've hurt it badly."
Emily, terrified, lowered her voice. "OMG! Is it still alive?"
George looked for an immediate solution, trying to keep her from checking it out. "We'll go the other way to make sure we don't run into it.
Even so, Emily still tried to look over George's shoulder, hoping the creature was far away. "How big was it? It wasn't one of those apes they kept talking about, was it?"
At that moment Emily shuddered, being completely paralyzed. As if she saw that death itself was coming for her, furious. She watched as Ian approached George from behind at high speed, with a murderous look painted on his face. Even though she knew Ian wasn't after her, she couldn't help but get nervous at such killing intent. She could tell that Ian didn't particularly like George, and neither did she. However, she didn't hate him to the point of wishing him dead. Too many deaths for one morning. She didn't understand why, but she felt it was what was going to happen.
Sensing the attack, George reflexively move closer to Emily, trying to grab her and use her as a shield against Ian. But that didn't go as expected, Ian prevented him from reaching her. He had grabbed George by the neck from behind with one hand and with the other he had placed the tip of the spear in his neck.
Emily watched this without understanding what Ian had against George. Was it all just because of his lascivious looks? George had never harassed her to the point of making her cry. To her, he was just a lascivious and pathetic worm.
Ian brought his face close to George's, letting out a threat. Imbuing every word with terrible anger. "If you ever touch her again in the remainder of your pathetic existence, I'll make you suffer so much you'll beg me to kill you."
Emily froze. The "the remainder of your pathetic existence" part kept going around in her head. "Does he really intend to kill him?" She didn't know what to do, but standing in Ian's way, wasn't one of her options. She understood that there was something she didn't know. There was too much hate in every action.
George trembling tried to speak but only grunts came out. His throat was being strangled by Ian's strong hand. Too strong for him. Ian looked at Emily stunned trembling and explained. "You wouldn't wonder what I'm doing if you knew who he was and what he'd been doing."
George frowned, avoiding Emily's gaze, and tried to do something with the spear he was still holding. But Ian pressed the tip of his spear into George's throat hard enough to make him desist. Emily let out a scream as a trickle of blood begin to ooze out from where the tip had sunk in. George looked defeated and despondent, looking pleadingly at Emily.
With a look that gave real terror, Ian whispered to George. "When we were little and you watched as we played without wanting to join in, I thought you were just shy, like me. I thought you were a misunderstood, justice-loving soul. Eventually, I even thought about being your friend. But I soon realized I was very, very wrong. Something smelled fishy about you and I started following you everywhere. I even broke into your house."
George instantly dropped the spear. It looked like he was trying to tell Ian that he wasn't going to resist. Emily even suspected that George didn't want Ian to keep talking. She was witnessing a situation that a day earlier would have seemed totally surreal. She watched as George slowly raised his hands in surrender. But she soon realized that it was just a distraction.
Trying to escape, George delivered a succession of elbows into Ian's side. They were frantic and tremendously violent. Emily even took a step back while screaming. But that didn't go so well for George. Ian had barely flinched from those blows. George was not as strong as he thought. In fact, he didn't look that way at all. Strong was Ian's beaten side. Strong were Ian's hands and fingers that began to mercilessly grip George's throat.
Emily stopped screaming, terror had already taken over her, leaving her completely breathless. Her heart was so tight that she thought it would stop.
Ian kept talking with a sadistic look on his face. "Quite a collection of photos of Emily I found in your room, huh George? Some from when she was only thirteen. Did you like her back then?" Emily remembered that at that age she had returned home after two years of being in that horrible place that she wanted to erase from her mind.
Ian proceeded to reveal information that seemed to be burning inside his mouth. "In some of those pictures she was in her underwear, and in several naked. I kept wondering how a stupid jerk like you could have gotten his hands on them. But, the answer was obvious. Either you took them or you had cameras installed in Emily's house." She felt dozens of shivers all over her body or maybe she was shaking so much she didn't realize it. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
George looked like he was going to cry. He was completely defeated and exposed. It was obvious that he didn't want Emily to hear that. Perhaps, in his perverted mind, he still believed that she would someday feel something for him other than disgust.
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Ian looked at Emily with a less aggressive expression in his eyes. She could tell he was trying to apologize for what he was about to say. "I'm sorry. I had to break into your house and uninstall four cameras he had put in your room." Emily was horrified. She felt herself cracking like glass. It all seemed so surreal to her.
Emily began to feel so bad that her ears began to ring and she felt like the air in her lungs wasn't enough. Sick of seeing George suffer like that and with tears streamed down her face, she turned around. She couldn't see either of them in the face. She couldn't believe what she had heard. She couldn't believe what they had done.
But Ian had a lot more to add and made sure to let her know. "There were used clothes in this bastard's house too. Your clothes, Emily. Mostly underwear." Emily didn't want to hear any more. She was shaking so badly that she thought her legs would give out. But she didn't know the worst was yet to come.
Ian realized that George was gasping for air, but he wasn't going to let him have it. "This bastard suspected that Richard liked you and it was obvious you liked him too. I guess he read your diary many times."
Emily felt the world collapsing at her feet, as if it were rapidly disappearing. She turned around again with a single thought in her mind. "Did you read it too? Answer me! Did you read my diary too?"
Ian was really taken aback and offended by that question. He didn't hesitate much and answered honestly. "No!" Ian narrowed his eyes. "Who do you take me for?"
Emily looked relieved. "Did you really not read it?"
For an instant, as Emily stared into Ian's eyes, she felt Ian regret for not having read her diary. George interrupted them again. He was beginning to convulse. He was punching Ian in the legs and elbowing him desperately. But it was in vain. Emily turned around again and began to feel dizzy from the dantesque spectacle.
Ian kept talking. It seemed that it was still not enough and that he had to deliver the final blow. "The blood on George's spear is not from any vermin. It's Richard's blood. He's killed him in cold blood as soon as he got the chance. He speared him so many times I can only recognize him by his hair and one of his eyes."
That was more than Emily could bear. Emily began to see everything blurry. Her ears were ringing so much that she couldn't hear George's groans for air. Her stomach had started to churn and she thought she was going to throw up. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was punching her from the inside.
Suddenly, her body felt light. She felt like fainting as an immense anger washed over her. She felt a slight jolt. She attributed it to the fall. "Fainting is really like that?" She couldn't remember ever fainting, so she let herself go. Her last thoughts before fainting were for Richard. She hadn't realized how much she liked him.
Richard was so handsome that no high school girl had ever excluded him from her sexual fantasies. He was tall, blond, and had light blue eyes that were captivating. He didn't look overly strong and athletic, but he was very attractive and friendly. He always made everyone laugh. Emily realized that he made everyone laugh except George. She felt guilty remembering the old woman's sentence. "Several boys at that high school you attend really like you." It was obvious that George was one of them. It was also obvious that he considered Richard an obstacle to getting to her. Even if that was never going to happen.
After a few seconds, she stopped feeling or hearing anything. Her heart stopped beating so violently and everything calmed down. When she realized that she could open her eyes, she saw them. There, floating in the middle of the darkness, were the three panels that she had previously seen with the strange being. Startled, she hesitated for a long time what to do. "What the hell is going on?"
On the center panel she could see several pop-up messages warning her that she had bruises on her hands and feet. "I understand about the feet because I'm barefoot, but why do I have bruises on my hands?" She tried to look at her hands, but surprisingly, she couldn't. She had no hands. She wasn't alarmed or flustered about it. She just thought it was even funny. There was also the warning exclamation that the strange being had seen. It was still there, blinking. Trying to remind her that she had something pending with herself. She decided to ignore it. She wasn't prepared to endure again that strange struggle between different and imaginary versions of herself.
Within the central panel she saw several submenus pop-up for different muscles of the hands, arms and torso. The submenus included the name of the muscle plus a different number with a sign in front of it. An insignificant number that never exceeded 0,25. Next, a general menu with the computation of her body resources. The list was endless and included macros. Proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and all the minerals and vitamins consumed by her body.
After a considerable amount of time, in which she wonder if anything really expected her to read that immense list. "Why doesn't it vanish? Isn't there a summary of statistics?" Suddenly, the expected statistics table emerged, but not as she expected.
Statistics
Math 10 (+0,01)100% (+0,00)100% 10
Poth 5 (+0,02)100% (+0,00)100% 5
Sawh 18 (+0,18)100% (+0,00)100% 18
Enth 2 (+0,02)100% (+0,00)100% 2
Agth 3 (+0,01)100% (+0,00)100% 3
Dewh 2 (+0,01)100% (+0,00)100% 2
Vrok 5 (+0,01)100% (+0,00)100% 5
Peth 8 (+0,00)100% (+0,00)100% 8
Sats 11 (+0,08)100% (+0,00)100% 11
Inwt 12 (+0,00)100% (+0,00)100% 12
Voth 3 (+0,25)100% (+0,00)100% 3
Coth 1 (+0,00)100% (+0,00)100% 1
The table showed only symbols and very low numbers with positive and negative signs next to them. For some reason, the stats had no names, but symbols that she couldn't decipher. They certainly didn't seem intuitive to her.
A second summary of acquired knowledge and skills began to emerge, but Emily didn't have time to see anything else. The panels began to fade as Emily began to wake up.
When Emily woke up, she was lying in a somewhat hidden place. There was a rotten log from which poisonous-looking mushrooms were growing. There was a lot of brush everywhere, so no one could see her. She thought it was Ian the one who had placed her there after she fell unconscious to the ground.
As soon as she remembered the last moments before she lost consciousness, she began to cry. She really liked Richard. "He was a good boy. He didn't deserve to end up like that." She unnecessarily imagined how much he had suffered at George's hands. She imagined George's sadism and how much violence Richard's body had endured before collapsing and finally dying.
Now he was gone. He would never be among them again. She would never see him smile or speak again. She would have liked to say so many things to him. She could never even kiss him. She was surprised how little she had realized how much she truly liked him.
The old woman's words echoed in her head again as she began to wonder, feeling miserable. "So... have I lost my soul mate forever? What a capricious and petty fate. What difference does it make now? I don't think I'm going to live long enough to regret it." She sat there for a long time. Crying.
Her hands and head hurt a lot, but she didn't know why. She just felt let down by life. More than she already felt in her own world. Crying but not making a sound, tears were just fell. She was disappointed that Ian had also entered her room. "How could two people have done that without anyone knowing?". She shivered at the thought that they had entered while she slept. While taking a shower or even while masturbating. She thought they had spied on her and stored those images on her retinas or worse. In photos. She felt a terrible shame imagining that possibility. Then, she thought about what Ian wanted to say to her earlier. "Maybe it was that. Or... maybe it was something worse."
Suddenly, in the distance, she heard footsteps approaching. She held her breath as her heart skipped a beat. She didn't know what or who it was. She desperately prayed to her mother's God that it wouldn't be George. A few seconds later, when they were much closer, someone whispered.
"It's me. Ian. Are you awake?"
Emily breathed a sigh of relief and whispered. Although nothing could be heard because due to the distress. So she repeated it again louder. "Yes, I'm awake. Where's George?" Ian didn't answer that question, he remained silent for a long time. Emily drew her own conclusions from that silence.
When Ian finally came into view, Emily noticed that his feet were wrapped in sackcloth. It was improvised, but seemed very efficient. Emily looked into Ian's face, wondering from where he had gotten those extra sackcloth, but suddenly, she didn't want to know. Most likely they were George's. "So... he is really dead" She felt both guilt and relief at the thought.
In addition to those rudimentary foot protections, Ian also had some kind of shoulder strap that hung from his right shoulder and ran down his left side. Emily noticed that it was stained with blood. Then, she looked him up and down again, discovering that the sackcloth on one of his feet also had blood on it.
Ian explained. "I figured you didn't want me to make you some of George's or Richard's clothes."
Emily began to cry with remorse upon hearing Richard's name. "How can you make something out of those clothes and wear them? For God's sake! They're dead! Don't you have feelings?" Emily continued to cry silently for quite a while.