Sabrina, poor star, after only a few seconds didn't know where to move her head anymore. The words Roberto had said to her in the afternoon had stayed with her and, from time to time, she couldn't help thinking about them. In fact, it could even be said that without their brief discussion she might not have been able to speak as she had just done.

Not that she had been lying. Honestly, from her point of view, if a girl as beautiful and fit as Camilla had so many problems with a single detail of her body then Sabrina might as well go and hang herself. It was a little too extreme a position, but I guess it's hard to ask for stable emotional balance from someone who had always barely interacted with others.

That being said, however, I also don't feel like I'm saying that she had completely told the truth about the matter. Those scars were ugly to look at and she would have hidden them herself at all costs had they been on her body. Calling them horrible may have been too much, but their presence certainly stood out all too well.

However, even though the first thing that came to her mind was quite different, she chose to voluntarily say something constructed in a way that would lift Camilla mood. Not that she was very confident in her abilities in this regard, but for the first time in many years she still did her best for someone other than herself, instead of ignoring the problem and not considering how the other might receive her words.

A pleasant but stifling feeling, she had to say, as her agitation grew as the seconds passed.

Surprisingly, however, she heard at that moment a faint sound, with an agitated and sometimes even broken rhythm. Shortly after, another noise caught her off guard, as if tiny objects had begun to fall onto the now calm water surface of the pool they were in. She had heard a depressing melody similarly rhythmic several times before during her life but never from so close up. Usually, as sad as it sounded, there was always a door, a wall, and an entire floor to absorb some of those ugly sounds.

Camilla was crying silently, stifling her own emotions so they wouldn't get the better of her. I should be ashamed... I shouldn't act like this, I shouldn't... I was the one who asked her to come here together. My scars have never... I can't... I can't... She repeated herself over and over again, unable to stop gritting her teeth and holding the wrists of her hands firmly.

Alex, first of all, was extremely surprised. Stuck where he was, he couldn't believe what his ears were painting for him. It was the first time. The first time he had ever heard her cry like that. Not a hysterical cry or an outburst made to relax his nerves, but a genuine plea for help without words.

I... I... What the hell am I doing here? He ended up asking himself, pissed off about not even being able to be around her at a time like this. He knew her too well by now. There had to be something going on, something he didn't know. From then on, he even began to question the reasons why Camilla had insisted so much that they go out together that fateful day at the mall. At the time, it had been enough for him to hear that she needed a new dress and a pair of shoes to reluctantly agree and keep her company.

Now that he thought better of it though... Hadn't his responses been odd when he'd told her he didn't have time and wasn't interested? He hadn't thought anything of it, but weren't five messages in a row from someone as technologically challenged as she was a little abnormal?

Riding then the blue horse born from his suppositions and fed by that whine that deprived him of oxygen, the imbecile even went so far as to think of entering the bathroom to reassure her. In what specific way do you wish to know? Oh, now you're asking too much from a single-celled organism like Alex. Be patient.

Fortunately, for him and for his survival I might add, Sabrina preceded his suicidal inspiration by a few seconds, leaning gently against Camilla's back and embracing her slowly. Both movements were slow and light, characteristics born in reality more from her hesitation than from a real delicate hand. Nevertheless, after a few moments in which the two had become one, the plan seemed to work and Camilla gradually stopped sobbing.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." She then began to repeat incessantly with her teeth still chattering, making her voice almost as sharp as a blade as it reached the vicinity of her listening ears. A type of sound that no one in their right mind would ever want to hear coming from anyone. "I don't want to lose you... I don't want to lose you Alex... Please don't leave me..." She concluded in bits and pieces in the same pained tone, bringing down a thunderclap on the spy boy's head.

The idiot felt a seething mixture of emotions and thoughts burning inside him. An impetus so violent that he ended up banging his back against the wall and falling face-first onto the tiles that covered the floor just in front of the curtain that separated his terrestrial world from a likely painful death. Luckily, no one noticed; or so he convinced himself almost immediately, given everything that was on his mind at the moment.

Leaving aside the pain and the slightly bloody nose, the boy managed to get to his feet. He staggered a bit and his vision had become a bit blurrier than before, but he was quite well. His brain didn't even realize it anyway, too busy building complex sand castles that he cyclically dropped and rebuilt.

Without realizing it, his forehead was covered in sweat. An anxiety that was impossible for him to diminish or ignore took possession of him, making him ask over and over again things like, "Did something happen to her?" or, "Why do you think I would leave you alone?"

Maybe if he had stayed still in that exact spot for a few more minutes he would have even found out. These were doubts that were making him feel small and useless, or better said, even more useless than usual. However, Alex remained Alex; and his strength of character was not enough to bear Camilla's possible answer to his questions. Whether it was some illness, regret, or anything else really, what could he do about it?

In the state he was in it would have been strange if he hadn't even made the problem worse rather than fixing it.

So, though ashamed of his choice, Alex turned away before Camilla had a chance to say anything more. Sabrina followed with her eyes the noise the imbecile was causing by crawling his feet on the ground, groping and struggling to stay on his feet.

The journey continued, with no specific destination. It's hard to say if he did it voluntarily or not, but he avoided going straight back in the direction of the base. Instead, he stretched his way stopping sometimes against the railing and other times inside random stores. All the while he felt a sharp pain in his chest, a grip that quickly took his breath away whenever he tried to advance further. Despite that pain though, he couldn't bring himself to cry even when he went to hide in a dark corner of a club.

His eyes didn't seem to want to let any tears escape. Probably the last bastion of defense he still possessed, supported at the foundations by the little pride and desire that remained to him. On the other hand, he vomited his soul on at least a couple of occasions, coming to reject only small streams of acidic juices already on the second time, filling his mouth with a taste that made it difficult for him to swallow without causing more convulsions.

Reduced like this, I don't even feel like calling him an idiot or a kid. What was moving from dark room to dark room was a derelict. Not that there was anything to be surprised about, considering that, in fact, before leaving he had unwittingly heard one more broken sentence from the girl that certainly wasn't helping him at all.

"I... I won't... I will never be able to make him happy…"

What she meant exactly, he couldn't know and that was already a great fortune. If he had been aware of the fact that the basis of the girl's fears were his stupid comments made without even thinking, it would have been even worse. Although, personally, I don't feel able to condemn him for that.

In any case, the night went on anyway. The couple's sufferings and moods were not important to the passage of time, making that an anonymous evening like so many others for Roberto and Mario, who stayed behind at the base.

"Are you really going to ask me to keep an eye on the others? Wasn't I already pretty clear about that?" The giant asked with a grim look, annoyed more than pissed off at the other boy's willingness to force him to do something he wasn't interested in.

"Eh... Not really keeping an eye on them, come on," Rebutted the smoker with n continued after a puff of smoke good for well-trained lungs, going on without much pause saying, "I care that they don't end up randomly killed. You can ignore them most of the time, but try to help them when they're about to kick the bucket. I already trust myself very little when it comes to thinking about others, if at least there was one person who wasn't completely useless to put in a few patches from time to time, my job would be a lot less complicated."

Mario disagreed, however, and replied practically instantly, "Put a patch on your sister. I'm not going to put my life on the line for people I don't know and don't give a shit about. I wouldn't do it for them and I certainly wouldn't do it for you. If I want to cooperate, it's only because then I have a better chance of finding... Shit. To find her." He concluded, wavering a little, almost as if the cat had bitten his tongue in mid-sentence.

"Let me guess," Roberto snapped at him, looking at him with a hint of pity. "You still can't say his name out loud? How fucked up in the head have you been by that girl? I don't even know her and I'd still like to shake her hand for her fine work," he went on between cigarette puffs, twisting and turning the knife in the wound.

Nevertheless, he finally stopped teasing the big man and changed expression, staring at him with extreme seriousness. "I'm okay with that," he then said referring to the giant's last exclamation, quickly going on to say, "I agree with you on that aspect. I have no desire to die randomly for random people either. However, this is a game. They didn't call it that directly, but I'm pretty sure about it. I'm no genius but that's my impression.”

Then bringing the butt with only a couple of shots still available to his lips and faintly illuminating a portion of the lower part of his face, he concluded his musing out loud by saying, "Do you really think we'll be able to get by if one or two of our people were to die? Do you really think there wouldn't be even more problems waiting for us right after that? No, this is not a matter of the goodness of heart. Here if we want to get our asses home, or to our demonic ex as in your case, we have to necessarily start with the assumption that we are not wasting any resources. Little do I care if we are talking about humans or weapons. As long as it's a useful resource we don't have the luxury of losing it."

Mario could not reject the reasons that held Roberto up; however, he seemed to remain of the same opinion. Life at the end of the day was only one and not even he would have given it away for a simple supposition. However, not finding anything to hold on to, he went on the offensive commenting with a sarcastic tone: "Are you sure you are not actually a teddy bear with a heart of gold?" in an attempt to deflect the conversation so that he wouldn't have to accept his proposal or reject it.

"Huh?" The most interesting part, however, was that it worked; and much better than expected, too. Instead of laughing and getting back to the main subject, Roberto took it personally. Visibly much more pissed off than before, the boy looked up to look into the eyes of the big man next to him, not showing the slightest delay as he widened his eyelids and slowly said, " Would you like us to get into a fight?"

Taken by surprise, but absolutely opposed to taking a step back, Mario continued to stare at him from above without breaking eye contact, telling him without smiles or smirks, "Are you sure you can afford it?" in a display of physical presence that only a closet of more than one hundred kilos and two meters in height could afford. Roberto, however, did not blink in the face of that undoubtedly disadvantageous situation.

He didn't even try to create a space between him and Mario, clearly remaining in full reach of the big man, risking that he would get a punch in the face at any time. He clenched and relaxed his right hand two or three times making his bones snap and his arm tremble as he resumed saying, "I'm confident," showing more foolishness than courage on my own.

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The tension between the two had become more than palpable by this point. They had clearly crossed the fine line that separated civil discussions between men and had gone down the road that, more often than not, caused a fight to break out. All of this, oddly enough, without even the moral support of alcohol.

Thanks to a little twist of fate though, neither of them ended up spitting out any teeth. Their fight would also have been interesting to watch, however, almost as if drawn by the electricity in the air, a wild Alex made his appearance from the dark veil beyond the spot illuminated by the flashlight.

"Am I interrupting something?" He said next, slurring the words a little and trying to swallow the little saliva that was left in his mouth. The two of the ave Maria came to a silent agreement, turning almost at the same time to the newcomer and greeting him with a, "There's nothing to interrupt," said with the same grace someone might have used after losing the national lottery to a single unlucky number.

Among the two, the first one to notice Alex's ugly appearance was Roberto who, quickly abandoning his angry expression for a more docile one, asked: "Did you shit hard?" as soon as the other one got close enough. Obviously this was not the case, but the pallor that colored his face could also suggest a problem of belly not to be underestimated. Even if Roberto had suggested it only to avoid making him say what had actually happened.

Perhaps, it would have been useful to know for the future, but at the moment he was already feeling rather tired and would have preferred to rest his brain rather than use it further.

Alex, however, didn't seem to have that intention and, instead, watched the couple about to burst out occasionally gasping for air but not looking back. Mario, in particular, was impressed. He had no idea what had happened and, up to a point, he certainly didn't care; but the last thing he was looking forward to was being able to see the faggot with such determined and atypical eyes for his standards.

"I would have... I would have..." Alex then stuttered, losing some of the fortitude that had driven him to stop the fight between Mario and Roberto that he had heard start even before he showed himself to them. However, and only in that instant, he managed to push himself further. He would have succeeded if the circumstances had been different... Eh, hardly I would say. But even he had a pair of balls dangling in front of him and a desire in his heart. So, once in a blue moon, something could be done.

"I have a request for you two." He exclaimed shortly after, getting Mario's attention who, accepting the new challenge and not hiding behind a clown mask, reciprocated by saying, "A request?" barely chuckling. Despite appearances, he was taking him seriously, speaking to Alex man to man with enough respect to not screw the whole thing up, but not enough to not try to bury him with words.

"With the look on your face there's only one I can think of," Roberto resumed then, crossing his arms and standing up straight. "You're going to ask us to keep an eye out for your beauty, huh? Were you listening, or did you just pop in at the right minute? Well, it hardly matters. Rather," he paused, making a break to give more emphasis to his next words. "Rather, what makes you think I should do you such a favor? Do I owe you anything at all? Do I owe you enough to put my life on the line for your bullshit?" He concluded in a tone even harsher and more unyielding than the previous one.

Roberto listened to him in silence, all the while watching Alex's face. Something inside him, however, seemed to suggest something different to the giant's argument. Or, at least, the former pussy had not yet lowered his head despite the very clear stance.

"You don't owe me anything and I'm not going to ask you to do that," Alex unexpectedly replied with a hint of tears on his face and both hands tightly clenched into fists. "I'll take care of protecting her. I'll take care of that. That's my job and I won't leave it to anyone else," he then continued to say with an enthusiasm worthy of being observed, causing, among other things, the birth of a slight smile on the face of the kind Roberto.

"So what would you like to ask us?" He then said, stepping up from his comfortable position against the railing. Continuing only after turning in his direction with a, "You got here all confident. You must want something?" said in a tone that caressed the sarcastic without crossing the line.

"I want... I want a man's agreement. I want you to give me a full force punch right in the face in case I-" the poor soul said Alex could not finish his speech, however, interrupted in the middle by a punch thrown by Mario that made him rotate his neck suddenly. By divine grace, however, it had not been a full force punch.

Roberto blinked several times, astonished at the sudden move. Wondering which neuron had been activated so suddenly, he ended up asking the giant: "Ah? Seriously?" stuck in a complex logical error for the first time.

"Didn't Alex just ask for that?" Mario asked him back with an amused grin, showing no remorse for having just knocked down his teammate. It had to be said though, Alex had indeed asked for it, even if the sentence hadn't come to an end, and a few seconds later Mario seemed to regain a little common sense and offer a hand to the injured man so that he could get back on his feet.

"Are you a complete asshole? What the fuck are you thinking?" Declared Alex though, rightfully so, as soon as he was back on his feet on his legs. Mario didn't seem to hear the insults though and, continuing to hold a face with amused features, resumed saying, "Whatever you wanted to ask us could have waited a moment. Or did you want to be seen by the girls with that face of a corpse that you found yourself? At least now you can say you got out of a fight without having to explain the details," showing more understanding, all things considered, than expected.

"What a moron," Roberto addressed him, shaking his head. "If you were worried about that then it would have been enough to give him a quick wash and a couple of slaps. Risking breaking his jaw or nose isn't all that great of a plan if you want to avoid creating more problems."

Alex, paradoxically though, felt better after receiving the hit. He felt pain let's be clear, but in some strange way he also felt lighter. Maybe, just maybe considering how bad he was starting to feel now that time had started to pass, a good old-fashioned lesson had served him better than he could have imagined.

"You have to make a promise with me," the boy then said once he was back up and running, keeping his gaze steady and determined like a good little man. "If I should endanger Camilla or fail to protect her properly, you must beat me as hard as you can. Whatever happens, I don't want to run away from her anymore. Can you promise me that?" he then asked with the full intention of putting his own safety at risk lest that pledge of his should never be paid.

"You're optimistic I see," Mario commented back with a hint of interest about that strange bet. There was no upside anywhere and only costs to be paid in case he wasn't able to keep his word. "Well, anyway I appreciate the idea. It works for me, but remember we haven't found any hospitals or doctors yet. A punch of mine done properly I assure you makes it hurt, eh!" He concluded shortly after, softening both the tone of his voice and the way he spoke.

Actually... Roberto thought, smiling in response. There is really nothing to gain from such a promise. However, I understand what you want to achieve. It's not so much a question of pledges or rewards, but just putting your face on the table is a way of reinforcing your decisions. Having reached that point in his reflection, the smile that had formed slowly widened and a short but sincere laugh disturbed the momentary silence that had been created.

Mario and Alex both shifted their gaze in his direction, but Roberto ignored them and continued to say as if nothing had happened: "Although I always have a tingling in my hands that would surely improve with a good beating; this time I would like to avoid using my hands. Give us a good show, but avoid dropping dead too soon. How else do you expect us to keep your mistress at bay? Considering how she is, surely she would become hysterical and annoying as a stomach ache."

Bullshit aside, the three of them created in that stupid way their first agreement as equals. Sure, Alex would be the only one to pay in case it went bad and no one would gain anything either way. However, if I may say so, observing with one's own eyes the firmness of another helped improve morale. Especially when the general stress for the next day was not exactly negligible.

After that moment of half-crisis and half-understanding, Alex went to wash his face in the small bathroom of the base. He didn't have to wash too much, as the blood that had come out of his nose had just dried up along with the blood that had peeped out of a small cut on the inside of his lip. There was a small black shadow that could be seen at the side of his chin that he initially thought was dirty but, after rubbing and feeling a rush of pain, realized was a bruise.

Nothing to worry about. A couple of wounds always made a man's face more fierce and masculine; or at least that was what he told himself in front of the mirror lit by the barely functional light of a flashlight the size of a lighter.

Then, once the work was done and he had left the bathroom, the boy who seemed to have just come out of a brief visit to Fight Club found Camilla and Sabrina waiting for him inside the shop, already beautifully washed and dried. Here happened something quite simple, but interesting, of which Alex himself could not fully realize.

Perhaps thanks to the experience, well alive in his psyche, of physical pain and the subsequent ability to get up again, he was able to search Camilla's face for the remaining signs of the state of mind in which he had felt her fall during the shower. Held up by those impulses contrary to his normal nature, he did not look away, but, rather, searched insistently until she, a little embarrassed, asked him, "What are you doing?" making the boy conclude his search as soon as he realized what he was doing.

For his part, however, he breathed a sigh of relief, although perhaps he shouldn't have. Because, apart from a slight redness in her eyes, Camilla didn't look any different than usual. In fact, when she was the one who noticed the remnants of blood and the bump on the boy's face... Well, let's just say she quickly became anything but fragile.

"What the fuck did you guys do while we were gone?" She screamed at the top of her lungs in the direction of Roberto and Mario, who were sitting relatively close across the room and intent on minding their own fucking business. Then, not content with the fact that neither of them had responded to her, Camilla marched in their direction with fury in her heart and the first sharp object she could find lying around, undoubtedly filled with a desire for peace and love towards them.

"Ah, I didn't do it," Roberto said as he saw the incoming threat, first raising his hands well up in the air, but then switching his palms wide open with inquisitive index fingers pointing at Mario; alternating shapes quickly as if it were some sort of dumb game.

The giant, in his defense, tried to set up a story about the life, aspirations and labors of men. A short but fascinating thesis that compared, in the space of a few words, the strong character derived from the exhausting training of Roman gladiators, to the need for the average contemporary man for physical conflict and heated arguments.

It seems useless to say, but the speech was not well received by the girl who now had two blunt objects in her hands instead of just one.

Alex, on the other hand, managed to stop her advance, hurriedly placing himself between the vertices of the war triangle and explaining to his beauty, "No! Stop right there! I was the one who asked him to punch me! Put the knife down! Ow! Ow! Do you want to defend me or kill me!? Ow! Ow!!!" learning at the same time, and at his own expense, that getting between a pissed off woman and her target was generally not a good idea, even if it was the person she wanted to protect.

"What do you mean you asked him to punch you? Have you become a moron!? What if you'd gotten hurt a lot more than that? What the fuck would you have done then? Are you fucking nuts!?" The girl attacked as soon as her mind got the better of her, going from 'murderer mode' to 'mama bear mode with her puppies being watched for too long' in less than an instant.

Oh, Roberto and Mario may be two half-psychopaths with trouble adjusting to common society, but even 'normal' women as a group are fucking scary when you touch the wrong buttons. Buttons that, by the way, are not even as well defined as those of a piano, for example, but change from person to person, quickly becoming the equivalent of walking on a minefield.

Regardless, Alex somehow managed to come out on top. Lucky for him, he knew pretty well what to say and what not to say to get things to calm things down. His efforts, and the two or more stab wounds to the backs of his hands, were enough to restore peace inside the room.

"All right, all right..." She even went so far as to say, somehow accepting that absurd idea where sometimes a punch helps more than a pat, and resuming shortly afterwards by saying, "Now you go take a shower too, okay? If you don't hurry up the boiler fire will go out," hiding her face slightly so Alex couldn't see her well.

But he refused the offer, telling her that it was too late and he preferred to sleep an extra hour rather than wash his body and chase away the smell of sweat. Here too, she had something to say about it, but she let herself be convinced by the strangely determined look of her husband.

Roberto nodded at her stance, finding it personally smarter to stay tense and ready in moments of crisis rather than relax. The smell of sweat on his clothes was bothering him, but you can't have everything in life.

That said, the evening finally came to an end for the group. Those who were to be first on watch stayed awake while the others went to wrap themselves in improvised blankets in the half-light of a small fire kept low.

Nothing important happened during the night hours, at least until the sun began to rise on another grayish morning typical of the cold months. In fact, sometime between seven and eight in the morning, even those who were still resting were awakened by the metallic voice of the System that, as if it were mocking them, entered the scene saying: [Congratulations Players for having passed the most innocuous part of our Game!]