[ T: 7 Days 4 Hours]

Voices are yelling. “Kill it. Stab it.” The voices stammer as they yell. “Keep it’s attention.” They are uncertain. “We know that they are dumb. We know they can only focus on one thing”. There are three voices yelling at each other. “They’re dumb and slow. Just keep it’s attention so that Zack can kill it”. There is a pause. “Zack, stab it now! While David still has its attention.”

Beyond the trees in the forest there are three men. They have surrounded a giant yellow rat standing on its hind legs. Zack, the “Sand-kicking Man” is behind it. He is sweating and breathing a little heavily. He carries a stick; a spear, sharpened to have a pointed edge. His face is a combination of a person who is close to pissing their pants and ready to run towards something they are afraid of at the same time. David, the “Arms crossed Man”, is in front of the creature. He is also sweating and breathing heavily. He too carries a wooden spear. He jabs at the creature, not being able to stab it. The stabs keep the creature’s attention occupied while giving David a sense of distance, giving him more information in gauging his current dilemma.

The tip of Zack’s spear is already covered in blood and there is a trail of blood on the floor. As, the creature continues slowly making its way to David, blood leaks from the wound inflicted to it by Zack, continuing to add to the trail of blood trailing behind the creature.

The Hands in the Pocket Man is watching at the side, closeby, leaning on a spear of his own. “Zach I think we can make a more deeper wound on it. Try making that stab deeper”, he yells. Zach is breathing heavily. He is shaking a bit. He breathes heavily a few more times. His eyes wide and his face stricken in fear rushes forward, with a yell he stabs his spear deeply into the back of creatures side. Time stops a bit for everyone. They are trying to gauge the results.

Then Zack tries to pull out his spear. He can’t. He grunts, leaning his weight and pulling, trying to get the spear out. It doesn’t come out. The creature stops going towards David and turns. Zach is still trying to get the spear out as the creature turns, but when the creature is almost about to complete the rotation face Zach, he pulls away, letting go of the spear. The back of the creature is now facing David, the spear sticking out of its back. “Shit”, Hands in Pocket Man curses. He moves forward to stab the creature and David moves to do the same. David’s spear buries itself into the creature first and a moment later Hands in Pocket Man’s spear enters through the side of the creature’s neck. Hands in Pocket Man let’s go of his spear and takes a step back. David still holds onto his spear.

The creature turns once more, gurgling, trying to turn towards Hands in Pocket Man. The man takes another step back. David lets go of his spear, unable to hold onto it as the creature turns. The creature continues gurgling, blood leaking like a fountain in some wounds, other wounds trickling little trails down its body. It makes its way to the Hands in Pocket Man, continuing to gurgle, blood going everywhere. A few steps forward, it slumps forward a bit, then falls over. It is dead.

Zach is bending down, leaning his hands on his knees. David is standing, one leg forward and one leg backward, leaning on his back leg. Hands in Pocket man is just standing, he and David still staring at the dead creature, while Zach is staring at the ground. They recover slowly, regaining their stamina. A pool of blood wells from beneath the creature, slowly.

The panic of all three men shimmer down as they realize they just killed a monster for the first time. Yet they don’t celebrate, all three knowing that they would have to continue to kill more of these monsters, and how difficult it is to kill one.

Zach, tired, goes to a nearby tree. He sits with a small crash, sighs, leans his head back against the wood and closes his eyes. David chooses the tree next to him and sits down as well. Hands in Pocket Man, too, sits down.

Zach: We have to kill that again?

Hands in Pocket Man: If we want to be independent of those gangsters as well as keeping everyone safe, then yes.

David: I don’t think we have a choice.

Zach: F-u-uck.

Hands in Pocket Man: Listen, it’ll be hard now. But as long as we don’t die we’ll get better at this. Then soon we’ll be able to kill just as well as “them”. We gotta do this.

Zach: I know. But Mark. I need a fucken break.

David nods and raises his hand, “same here”, he says.

Mark: (nods) Killing one today is enough. We should make it our goal to kill one a day. The three of us should be able to do that.

David nods again. Zach sighs.

Zach: Yeah. One a day. Got it. (pause) So what do we do now? We killed one.

Mark: We hide the spears near the edge of the forest, when we get back. Easy to pick up when we come back, easy to leave behind when we go back to camp. I don’t want to let the others, especially the gangsters, know about what we’re doing.

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Zach: Yeah. Ok. Got it.

David nods, his mouth twisted towards one side, his eyes unfocused, thinking while he listens.

Mark: So, guys. You think we got enough wood for the camp?

Zach gets up and walks towards two backpacks and opens one of them. There are a bunch of small logs, each one the size of an arm. The backpack is filled. Zach opens the second backpack. He comes back and shows it to the others.

Mark: Not enough, I guess…

Zach: Cut some more?

Mark: Yeah, we might need more.

David gets up.

Mark: We still have that big branch we cut off. Saw some more of that and then let’s go.

David heads to get the saw on the ground. Zach follows. Mark, the Hands in Pockets Man, looks back at the yellow creature. The creature is lying still on the floor, the puddle of blood no longer increasing in size. Mark taps the creature with his foot. It gives no response. Mark grabs one of the spears, puts his foot on the creature's body and pushes with his leg. It doesn’t budge for a short while and Mark intensifies his efforts until the spear slowly tugs out, before it explosively disconnects. Mark almost loses his balance from the sudden release of the spear. He examines the spear a bit, blood dripping from it. He tosses it to the side and grabs another spear, putting his foot once more to the creature's body.

[ T: 7 Days 6 Hours]

The three men; Mark, David and Zach arrive back to camp, two of them wearing the backpacks for the logs. They dump the wood in a pile. The camping enthusiast comes by and examines the pile. “It’s not enough”, he says. He turns to the four or five stacks of wood not yet finished in the distance, set up so that the main camp could have vision over the field during the night.

Mark shrugs slightly, “We’ve been working the whole day. This is the second pile we got you today.”

The camping enthusiast is not happy, but he doesn’t seem to blame Mark. He breathes out a heavy breath, “Yeah I know. You guys are doing your best and there’s a limit to what three men and one saw can do.”

Mark: We could take maybe a few more men, with more backpacks. Us three can work the saw and the rest picks up sticks littering the ground, maybe? Maybe we need all the backpacks.

Camping Enthusiast: Yeah, okay, okay. I don’t see a problem with you taking as many backpacks as you need, as well as getting people to go along with you guys to pick up the smaller fuel.

The camping enthusiast notices specks of blood on Mark’s clothes.

Camping Enthusiast: Hey, what happened? Is that blood?

Mark looks down. “What this?”, he asks, pointing at small specks of blood on his clothes. The camping Enthusiast nods. Mark just looks at the man, expressionless. “I’ve had this blood on me since the beginning, where the Beam of Light is at.”

Camping Enthusiast: Really? Looks kinda fresh.

Mark shrugs. The camping enthusiast has a doubtful look on his face. “I’ll ask some of the gangsters to go with you guys. They’ll understand. We need that fuel”, he walks away.

Mark turns to the two other men. “Shit”, he says. David points to the lake, “Let's go and check for blood spots on ourselves and try and rinse it with water”. The three men hurry to the lake and try to check each other for blood spots and rinse their clothes with water. Zach takes his shirt off and just starts rinsing the whole thing into the lake. David and Mark soon follow suit. They are still rinsing their shirts when the camping enthusiast comes back.

The three men look up as the Camping Enthusiast approaches. Their eyes are attentive and they are cautious, not knowing if they are in trouble or not.

Camping Enthusiast: Yeah, I don’t think any of them wants to go with you guys. Chicken Man is in agreement, but his guys and the Latinos don’t want to go. Chicken Man is kinda disappointed right now, saying that we gotta get “productive”. They’re telling him to chill. They’re saying that the useless fodders got to learn that only they can protect them. A few of us dying will do the trick they said, keep us in line.

Mark looks up, his wet shirt in a bundle in one hand. “ I understand”, he says. “I’ll get some of the faster and stronger guys to come with us. Don’t tell the gangsters this but we got some sticks and made them into a spear.”

Camping Enthusiast makes a concerned face, “You think that’s good enough? Even the gangsters needed to make some kind of effort to fight them. And they have proper knives and everything. And even if it’s enough the gangsters might see you guys having weapons as a threat. They want us to stay “in line”.

Mark: It’s better than nothing, and there’s nothing we can do about that.

The Camping Enthusiast looks with searching eyes, at Mark then at Zach and David behind him.

Camping Enthusiast: Okay. I won’t tell the gangsters. Just.. be careful. And don’t get found out like what happened right now. You guys killed one didn’t you? That blood was too fresh to have happened a couple of days ago. And you guys are trying to wash the blood away aren’t you?

Mark doesn’t reply right away, “Yeah”, he says slowly and carefully.

Camping Enthusiast: Okay. I got it. Do what you gotta do. I’ll do what I gotta do. I won’t help you guys if you get in a fight with the gangsters. But I won’t stop you guys either from being able to defend yourselves.

Mark: That’s all we want.

Camping Enthusiast turns, looking one last time before he leaves. Mark turns back to the two men. “Well, that turned out better than expected. And we’re not in trouble.” He adds, “And we don’t have a bunch of gangsters watching over us. I’d say we’re in a good spot right now”.

David walks up to Mark, wringing his wet shirt, the water emptying from it, falling to the floor. “All that’s left is to get good”, he says.

Zach now walks up, putting his wrung yet wet shirt over his body, “Get good? We gotta become killing machines”, he declares.

Mark looks at the two men, “Yes. We do. If we want to be free and provide freedom for everyone? We do indeed”.