I stared up at the walls of the Columbarium, their stone pillars cold and indifferent. It was quieter out here. I wasn’t being bombarded with the constant noise and chaos of the city below – the sirens, the screams, the sounds of violence. But it was like the silence had weight, like you could feel the grip of death around you. If there was one constant in this hellhole of a city, it was death.

Everyone was just a footnote waiting to be written. It didn’t matter how big you dreamed, how high you climbed. Whether you were some street rat nobody, had your name plastered in neon on every corner, or had a drink named after you at the Afterlife. Everyone ended up at the same place. The Columbarium. Night City’s final stop.

The place was technically in Tyger Claws territory. The whole of Westbrook was theirs, but the Columbarium was viewed as neutral ground. No gang fights, no corpo pissing matches. It was just a place for people to come and grieve. It didn’t matter what side of the city you came from or what colors you wore, if you had someone interred in these walls, you were left alone. That was the unspoken rule – the Columbarium is the one part of the city where turf and street cred don’t matter.

Deng was next to me, as quiet as the wind that was barely moving through the hills. We both just stood there, staring up at the Columbarium – massive, imposing, with its cold walls and endless columns. Each one was filled with names. Thousands of people who’d been burned and tucked away into neat little cubbyholes. Even in death, there wasn’t enough space for everyone in this city.

I hadn’t gone in yet. Mor had been here all day. I saw him earlier, standing near Fred’s niche. But I couldn’t bring myself to go inside. Couldn’t make myself step past the front gates. Instead, I just lingered outside, pacing near the edge of the Columbarium, feeling like a coward who was too afraid to face what was waiting for me.

There was a small crowd at the entrance. It wasn’t that many people, but there were enough to notice. Most of them were folks Fred had helped, people he’d known on the streets. Mostly homeless. A few others too – people who might have known him from his scavenging and odd jobs. Looking at their faces, I realized I didn’t know most of them. And that made me realize I hadn’t really known too much about Fred’s life from before I met him. I never thought to ask. It hadn’t even crossed my mind.

I couldn’t mingle with them. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want them seeing me like this, didn’t want them seeing my face and all the guilt plastered on it. I couldn’t hide it; it was carved into every part of me. Fred had asked me to come visit his camp in Arroyo more times than I could count. He’d wanted me to stop by and see what he was building, what he was trying to do for the people who needed help. But I was always too busy. I was always caught up in something that seemed so damn important at the time.

More important than Fred.

The only time I’d ever been out to Fred’s camp was right after we saved John and Cyndi from Jotaro Shobo. We needed somewhere to lay low that wasn’t in Watson, and Fred’s spot was the best option at the time. It wasn’t even a real camp back then – more a rough sketch than anything else. Fred had big plans for it, though. He wanted to build something more than just a hideout. He had a vision of creating a sanctuary, a place where the lost and broken – the people that Night City loved to chew up and spit out – could find safety.

And now Fred was gone. Gone because I hadn’t been there. Hadn’t helped. Hadn’t even visited. That guilt felt like a brick in my gut, weighing me down the longer I stood outside the Columbarium. I should have visited him when he asked. I should’ve shown up, but I didn’t. Now here I was, too much of a coward to step inside and face the truth. I couldn’t even look Mor in the eyes, let alone tell him the truth that gnawed at my insides: it was my fault Fred was dead.

The night Fred was killed, I hopped on my Kusanagi and rode out to Arroyo. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find – maybe some sign that the whole thing was a mistake. Maybe Fred wasn’t really gone. Maybe he’d be waiting there, alive and well, with that goofy smile of his, ready to crack some stupid joke about how this was all a big misunderstanding. Like, this was the only way he could get me to visit his camp, by making me think he was dead. But as I tore through the streets, the dread crawled up my spine, tighter with every mile.

By the time I reached the wreckage of his camp, all that hope had crumbled. The place was in shambles, burned-out husks of sleeping areas, smashed-up gear. My heart sank when I saw the wreckage, but something else hit me – a gut punch of recognition. I’d seen this place before.

This camp had been in the game. It was from a gig that Regina gives to V. A camp out in Arroyo, wrecked by a cyberpsycho attack. There was a young netrunner girl, fried from a deep dive into the NET. The homeless had rescued her and were trying to get her medical attention, and when she woke, she snapped. She hacked into the camp’s security system and turned their own turrets against them.

The same turrets that Fred had bought with money from my first heist.

My first real gig in Night City – the RCS warehouse job. Fred had used his cut to buy those damn turrets, thinking they’d protect his people. I thought I was doing something good, helping him out, paying him back for everything he’d done for me. But standing there, staring at the ruins of the place he was trying to build, I realized the truth.

I’d given him the tools that ended up killing him.

If I’d just pulled my head out of my own ass for a few minutes and gone to Fred’s camp, I would’ve known. I would’ve seen it was the same place from the gig. I could’ve warned him, taken out the turrets before they ever had a chance to turn on him and his people. Hell, I could’ve helped him move the whole damn camp somewhere safer – anywhere but there. I could’ve done something.

But I didn’t.

And now, Fred was dead, and it felt like I’d ripped him away from everyone who needed him. Mor. John. All the people who’d depended on him, who’d counted on him to be their rock when the world was falling apart. And now they were out here, standing outside the Columbarium, grieving for him. Remembering him. And me? I was just standing there, staring at them like an idiot, not knowing what to say. What could I say? That I fucked up? That I was sorry?

That was too little.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned to Deng. “I’m ready,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I didn’t feel ready, but what else could I do?

Deng nodded, his expression heavy, and he led the way. We walked towards the small crowd gathered in front of the Columbarium. They were Fred’s people – the ones he’d helped, the ones he’d lifted up when no one else gave a damn. It felt like a wave, but somehow more alive than I’d expected. People were laughing, sharing stories, celebrating Fred in way that felt…right. He was always the guy who never stopped looking out for the lost. And now, all those people had come out to remember him.

Deng and I picked our way through the crowd, and every few steps, someone would stop him and pull him into a conversation. They’d share a memory or tell a story or just try to keep themselves from breaking down. I stood there awkwardly beside Deng, feeling like an outsider at my own friend’s memorial. They asked me if I was okay, how I was holding up. I gave them all weak smiles, nods, and the occasional “yea, I’m fine.”

I didn’t know what else to say to any of them. I couldn’t tell them the truth – that Fred was gone because I’d let him down.

I didn’t want to tell them that truth because I knew what would happen. A small part of me could already hear them trying to soothe my guilt, telling me I was being too hard on myself. They’d say it wasn’t my fault, that I couldn’t have known. But I didn’t want to hear it. I knew they were wrong.

And maybe worse, I didn’t want to see the other side of that coin – their anger and grief turning toward me, those same faces looking at me with blame in their eyes. I couldn’t bear the thought of them thinking, if only Dennis had finished the job when he mugged you on your first day in the city. Or worse, if only Fred hadn’t brought you back to Lizzie’s that night, he’d still be alive. I didn’t want to look into their eyes and know that they were right.

I didn’t want them to know because, deep down, a part of me was still whispering that maybe it wasn’t my fault at all. This was just Night City doing what it does best. It’s a place where people die for no reason, where danger is around every corner, and people get chewed up and spit out every day. But I knew if I started saying that out loud, the paper-thin layer of justification I’d been clinging to would unravel. I’d have to admit the truth, the real truth – I alone was responsible for this fuckup. It was my choices that led us here.

The crowd kept laughing and swapping stories about Fred, painting the picture of a person who always had a hand to offer when someone needed it. He was a quiet rock for so many of them. And with each story, the guilt twisted tighter in my chest, cutting deeper.

Deng and I finally made our way through the crowd and up the entrance of the Columbarium. The noise from outside faded into a hollow kind of silence that seemed to settle in every place like this – places where the dead were laid to rest. The walls were lined with small plaques and niches, memorials for the people who’d once lived and breathed in this city. Now, they were just names carved into stone, ashes hidden behind walls. At any other time, I might have geeked out. I’d probably be running between the columns, searching for names I knew from the game: Johnny Silverhand, Alt Cunningham, Andrew Weyland, all the legends that haunted Night City’s past.

But now? The only name that mattered was Fred’s.

Deng led the way, his steps slow and deliberate. We both knew where we were going. Part of me wanted to turn around and run, just disappear into the city and never look back.

We rounded a corner, and there they were – Mor and John. They stood in front of the niche where Fred’s ashes were kept. Mor looked…broken. More than anyone else, Fred’s death had crushed him. They’d known each other for years, worked side by side, building up the alcove near Lizzie’s that had become a sanctuary for the homeless. Together, they had given so much to so many. Now, Mor stood there, his shoulders slumped under the weight of his grief, lost in a world where Fred no longer existed.

John was quiet too, but his pain was…different. He’d been close to Fred, maybe even closer than I’d been. Fred had taken him under his wing, just like he’d done for me when I first stumbled into the city. But for John, it went deeper. After everything Jotaro had done to him, when John had shut down and completely closed himself off from the world, it was Fred who’d been able to break through that wall. Fred had found a way to reach him when no one else could. He got John talking again, took him out to the camp in Arroyo, gave him something to cling to when everything else had fallen apart. In a way, Fred had saved John from the nightmare of Jotaro in ways I never could.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I stopped a few steps behind Mor and John, my eyes fixed on Fred’s resting place. It wasn’t anything grand – no flashy tribute or larger-than-life holograms. Just a small plaque marking the spot. Fred Reid: Angel to the Discarded. Simple. Fitting. It was who he’d been to all of us.

John noticed us and quietly drifted off to the side, joining Deng. They started talking in hushed tones, their words barely audible. That left me and Mor just sanding there, the two of us, alone in front of Fred’s niche. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. My throat felt tight, like the words were there but refused to come out.

Mor didn’t look at me. He just stared at Fred’s plaque; his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket. He knew. He knew what I was feeling, knew the guilt that was eating me alive. We didn’t need to talk about it. He didn’t need to ask me how I felt because he already knew.

I shifted on my feel, feeling like I should say something, but every time I tried, the words slipped away. I was stuck in an awful silence that felt like it would stretch on forever.

Finally, Mor broke the quiet, his voice rougher than usual, like he was struggling to get the words out. “I ever tell you I was a nomad?”

I blinked, caught completely off guard. “Really?” I couldn’t picture it. Mor had always seemed so…grounded in Night City. He blended in with the grit and the grime of the streets so well that I just assumed he’d always been here. I realized then that I’d never thought to ask him where he’d come from. “Figured you grew up here or something.”

He let out a small, dry laugh. “Nah. I used to ride with Snake Nation.” He glanced at me, a quick smile flashing across his face. I only knew bits and pieces about the nomad lore in the world, mostly stuff I’d heard from nomad V – how he used to ride with the Bakkers, how Snake Nation had swallowed them up, forcing him to go solo. But beyond that, I didn’t know much about nomad life.

“They’re the biggest nomad nation around,” Mor continued, eyes back on Fred’s plaque. “Bigger than the Aldecaldos, bigger than the Jodes…but different. Snake Nation’s more a collection of smaller clans that stick together, mostly for survival. We weren’t tight knit like the other nations. It was more a political thing than family. A way for the smaller clans to still have a voice in nomad politics.”

He paused, his voice quieter now. “My people, we were a small group. Just twelve of us. Not much, but we had each other and that was enough. We’d split up when we had to – take jobs, scrape by, then come back together. It worked, for a while.”

I didn’t say anything, just let him talk. It wasn’t often that Mor opened up like this and I could tell he wasn’t just talking for the sake of it.

“We came to the city during the time of the RED,” Mor stated. “After Silverhand blew Arasaka Tower to hell, this whole city was a disaster zone. Rubble everywhere. Corpses buried under the ruins. The whole city felt like one giant graveyard.” He paused for a beat, his face tightening as the memory seemed to pull him back. “There were jobs for nomads back then – cleanup crews, scavengers, rebuilders. It looked like a good opportunity.”

He hesitated, just for a second. “I got them all killed.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut.

“It was a deal gone bad. Real bad. I screwed up, and my whole family got wiped. Twelve of us came into the city, and I’m the only one who crawled out.” I could tell he was struggling to keep himself from breaking. “I remember standing there afterward, surrounded by bodies, rubble, trashed gear. My ride was in pieces, no eddies, no hope, and no clue how to start again. I thought…maybe I wouldn’t.”

I glanced over at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were distant, locked onto something only he could see.

“I wandered the city after that,” he continued. “Just walked. No plan. No destination. Just kept moving because it seemed like the only thing I could do. Just picked a direction and…went. That’s how I met Fred. It was in Pacifica, middle of the night, and I was…lost. Distant. Everything was crashing down on me, I was freaking out, and then Fred just…appeared. Didn’t say a word at first. Just started walking next to me, like he knew I needed someone there.”

Mor’s voice softened as he spoke, almost like he was reliving that moment. “It was a cool night. I remember the wind picking up the salt from the ocean. That was the only sound, the wind and the waves. Fred didn’t try to fix anything, didn’t ask any questions. He was just…there. Quiet. Like he knew I needed the silence.”

For a moment, he fell quiet again, lost in the memory. I let him be.

“We didn’t talk until hours later, when the sun was coming up,” said Mor. “That’s when I started telling him stories. I told him about my family, life on the road, the runs we made across the NUSA – driving contraband, dodging Militech patrols, sneaking across borders. Every crazy thing we’d been through. And Fred…he just listened. Didn’t judge. Didn’t try to fix me. He just listened. That was the day we met.”

He finally looked at me, locking eyes for the first time since he started talking. “Fred saved me that night. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he hadn’t been there.”

I could hear his voice crack, the pain he’d been holding back finally starting to bleed through. He turned back to the plaque and tried to collect himself. My own guilt felt unbearable now, like a heavy stone sitting in my chest.

“I know you’re beating yourself up about it,” Mor added quietly. “But it wasn’t—”

“GET DOWN!” Deng’s voice cut through the air like a blade.

A split second later, the sharp crack of gunfire erupted, ripping through the stillness like thunder.

I barely had time to register the sound before Mor slumped forward, heavy in my arms. My body moved on instinct, adrenaline rushing through me. I grabbed him, twisted, and swung us both behind one of the pillar walls. The gunfire kept coming, each crack splitting the air, bits of stone and dust flew off the pillars as bullets pockmarked everything around us.

But everything felt…wrong. Like it wasn’t happening to me, like I was watching it from somewhere outside my body. Detached. Distant.

I looked down and saw blood.

It was spreading fast, staining Mor’s shirt in dark, ugly patches. My heart stopped. For a moment, my brain short-circuited, refusing to believe what my eyes were screaming at me. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. This can’t be happening. I shook Mor, hard, but his eyes – the panic and the terror – told me everything I didn’t want to hear.

“Mor! Shit…Mor, stay with me!” I yelled, my voice raw and desperate. He didn’t answer. His breath was shallow, like it was trying to claw its way out of his throat. And then…nothing.

Nothing.

I started at him, trembling, hands slick with his blood. My chest tightened, squeezing so hard I thought my ribs would crack. Panic. But not panic. It was deeper. Darker. Something feral gnawing at me from the inside, shredding me up.

Mor was gone. I’d fucked up. Again. He’d been standing there, alive, talking to me seconds ago, and now he was dead.

I couldn’t process it. Couldn’t believe it.

And then, like a switch flipping in my head, a voice started screaming at me. I was under attack. We’d been attacked. Someone shot Mor. Someone killed him. And they were coming for me.

But that last part didn’t feel as important.

I’ve heard people talk about seeing red when they’re angry. That hot, blinding fury. But that’s not what happened to me. No, my vision didn’t turn red. It just…glitched. Like a corrupted braindance – broken, jagged, bits of reality flickering in and out.

Everything else disappeared except for them. Three figures. Moving in the distance.

They weren’t people.

Anymore.

Sacks of meat.

I needed to destroy them. That’s all I

Wanted.

The rage boiled up inside me, spilling over, swallowing me whole, overwhelming everything else. I could feel it in my fists, clenching, unclenching, aching to tear and rip and shred. I wanted to feel their bones snap under my fists. I wanted to pull out my Kenshin and pump every last round into their skulls until they were nothing but pulp. I wanted to drive my fingers into their eye sockets, dig deep, and feel their flesh give way.

I wanted to bite. To rip. To flay them alive.

I wanted to carve them up with my monowire, slice them into ribbons, and watch them bleed out in front of me. I wanted to stomp their faces into the pavement until there was nothing left but wet, red splotches.

I didn’t care how I did it. I just wanted to kill them. To end them.

They killed Mor. They killed Fred. They kidnapped Tomas. They tortured John and Cyndi. They mugged me – twice. They abandoned me in a Raffen camp. They shot me, ran me over with a car. They dragged me into a war I never wanted. They ripped me from my home, made me kill. They made me.

Every part of me was swallowed up by the need for violence.

These three assholes were everything wrong in my life. The cause of all the pain and suffering and anger and guilt and horror that had been tearing me apart. I didn’t care how I did it. I didn’t care about anything but killing them. Ending them. Like they’d ended Mor. Like they’d killed Fred.

I don’t know when the screaming started, or if it had always been there. The world around me was muffled, like everything was underwater, drowned out by a low hum that vibrated through my skull. I couldn’t hear the gunfire, or Deng’s frantic shouts, or even Mor’s last breath. There was on the buzzing in my head and the three targets in front of me.

My monowire slipped from my had without a thought, like it had a mind of its own. I rushed forward, my body knowing what I wanted without needing any input. The first guy didn’t have time to flinch before I flung my monowire at him and then – whip. His head came clean off. Rolled to the side like it was nothing.

His body collapsed in a heap and I was onto the next one, not stopping to think, not stopping to feel, not taking any satisfaction or relief in my actions, just feeling rage and violence that was begging to be unleashed and wanted to kill everything and everyone around me, and then find more targets who could feel all the pain that had been heaped on me by this godforsaken city.

The second guy went down too, but it wasn’t me that killed him. Something brought him down. I barely registered his collapse. All I knew was that he was dead, and I wasn’t the one who had killed him. Someone had stolen the outlet for my fury. Something had pitted itself against my retribution and that only made the burning inside me worse.

One left.

My monowire lashed out again, but this time it didn’t take his head. It took his hand. The one holding the gun. He screamed. I think.

I didn’t hear it.

He staggered back, clutching the bleeding stump where his hand used to be.

Fear rushed into his face.

I tackled him, slamming him to the ground. He thrashed beneath me, tried to fight back, slamming his remaining fist into my side again and again and again. I didn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything except the pounding in my head and the roar of fury in my veins and the overwhelming desire to break him apart piece by piece. I punched him. Over. And over. And over again. My fists collided with his face, his ribs, his chest. Bones cracked, but I couldn’t tell if they were his or mine. Didn’t matter.

Blood splattered across my hands, my clothes, the ground. Wet and sticky. I couldn’t tell if it was his or mine.

Didn’t matter.

His face was a swollen, bloody mess, but I kept going My fists slammed into him again and again and again and again and again. It was a relentless violence that I wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop.

There were screams. Somewhere. Someone was screaming.

Anger, panic, fury, white-hot rage.

It might have been me. Might have been him. Might have been the universe itself, ripping apart under the weight of my fury.

Didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

Something mattered: my fists connecting with his body, the bones splintering and the flesh giving way. That’s what mattered.

I was lost and drowning in the violence. Every hit, every crunch of bone, every splash of blood felt like it was barely scratching the surface of what I wanted to do. I wanted to obliterate this…thing. I wanted to erase him from existence. I wanted to make him feel the same emptiness, the same loss that was tearing me apart inside.

The thing beneath me went still. Completely still. My fists hung in the air, poised to strike again, but there was nothing left to hit.

Dead.

It was dead.

The words felt hollow in my head. How could it be dead when all the anger inside me was still alive? Still raging? I stared down at the mangled face, my chest heaving, my breath coming in sharp, ragged bursts, but he couldn’t feel any of it.

I stood up, my hands trembling, blood still dripping from my knuckles. My eyes darted around, searching for something – anything – to hit. There had to be more. There had to be something else to kill. Something else to tear apart. Something else that could take the brunt of this fury boiling under my skin.

Something.

Someone.

Anyone.

And then I saw Deng.

He was standing in front of me, arms out, palms raised like he was trying to calm down a wild animal. His lips were moving, but the sound was muffled, barely breaking through the static in my ears. His face was tight, worried, eyes locked onto mine.

I took a step toward him, my monowire twitching in my hands, still coiled, still ready to strike. But Deng didn’t flinch. His lips moved faster, his voice finally cutting through the haze.

“Noah. Noah, kid, look at me.”

I blinked, my vision narrowing, the rage still clawing at my insides, but Deng’s voice was breaking through.

“We need to help John,” he said, his voice firm but calm. “John’s been hit. We need to get him to a ripper. Now.”

John?

My head snapped around, scanning the chaos. Mor’s body lay crumpled nearby, lifeless, blood still pooling under him. The sight hit me like a punch to the gun, the anger twisting into something unbearable.

But there were other bodies too. Three of them, scattered, broken, dead. My doing? I looked down at my hands – slick with blood, fists still clenched. My breath caught in my throat, the world tilting, spinning around me.

Deng’s voice was still there, steady, pulling me back. “John’s hurt, Noah. We need to get him out of here. We need you with us.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force back the bile rising in my throat, trying to shove down the screaming thoughts clawing at the back of my skull. I forced myself to focus. John. John needed help. Mor was already…gone, but John was still alive. He needed me.

I swallowed hard, the rage still bubbling, still threatening to swallow me whole. But I forced myself to listen to Deng. I forced myself to move. I took one last look around me. Mor was lying slumped over and dead and my heart clenched. And then I looked over at the three bodies, the three Animal corpses that were broken and mutilated.

And then I went to go and pick up John. He was still breathing. He needed a ripper. I couldn’t fuck this up.