Chapter 8: Trash

If there existed a known upper limit to the amount of confusion and pain an individual could feel simultaneously, Zach had surpassed it. As a steady chorus of sirens from various peacekeeper and emergency DEHVs grew louder by the second, Zach felt himself become so overwhelmed with pain and turmoil that it became a struggle for him just to keep his knees from giving out and falling forward onto the crushed, disfigured form of his dead father.

To think, only a few minutes ago, he had been sauntering leisurely down his block with Kalana, the two of them exhausted and practically bumping into one another as they laughed and trekked their weary legs on what was usually an obnoxiously loud city street, which for once, seemed eerily sleepy and quiet. Then Zach had heard the crash of broken glass from what sounded like his apartment building along with the scream of a man who, at that moment, had not sounded anything like his father. It wasn’t until he’d hurried over with Kalana to investigate that he’d seen the man who had fallen from the building. And for two, maybe even three seconds, either due to the darkness caused by the malfunctioning city streetlights or a simple sense of stunned disbelief, Zach did not even recognize him. Only when blood began to fill the cracks on both sides of the sidewalk did the connection finally register in his brain.

And even then…it had taken another few seconds for him to process what he’d seen. There had actually been an entire second where, upon realizing that this was his father, his immediate mental response was not to recognize that his father was dead, but rather, to assume that his father was playing some kind of joke, or that his dad was only pretending, or…there really was no explanation. It was pure and utter disbelief manifested within him.

Then came the dread. Then came the understanding. And with both, Zach began to shout questions at a man who was no longer alive.

“Why are you there like this?” he’d asked his father, not even realizing how nonsensical his words actually were. “Dad, what are you doing?”

Now, as his brain and emotions finally found themselves on the same page, he knew that if Kalana had not wrapped her arms around him from where she too knelt behind him, he would’ve lost it. “Did he kill himself?” he asked, crying. “I never told him once I loved him. Not in years. Did my dad kill himself? Is he really dead? Maybe he’s just hurt. Maybe he’s—”

“He’s gone,” she whispered into his ear. “Don’t look. Zach, let’s go. Come on. We need to…we need to speak to the peacekeepers.”

“Kalana, is this actually happening?” he shouted. He realized he was making a scene and that a rapidly growing crowd of people began to pour out of apartment lobbies from not only his building but both adjacent buildings and even a few from across the street. All seemed to have the same reaction: first, a flash of annoyance, then a quick shift to surprise, and then lastly, frowns of sympathy for Zach, with several women putting their hands over their hearts and asking if he needed help or if he had a place to stay.

“Is that your father?” a middle-aged woman in a nightgown asked. She had crossed the street with her husband, along with a number of other curious neighbors. “Oh, sweetheart, I am so sorry. You should step away. I know. I know.”

Zach felt Kalana pulling him up and away, and he was too weak to stop her. His legs felt as though he’d turned to gelatin, and he continued to point at his father’s hideously twisted corpse. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t have jumped.”

Even though his words were intended for Kalana, random people he either had never seen before or only barely recognized in passing decided to speak to him in her place. “I thought the same thing when my brother…”

“Young man, I am so, so sorry,” another woman said. She was on the older side, and she too stood next to her husband. Her hair was a mix of white and blond, and she wore a pink, knitted sweater that looked as though she’d thrown it on over her pajamas. “Why don’t you come to our apartment and wait inside until the peacekeepers…ah, do their work. Was that man your father?” she asked, speaking to the both of them.

“Mine, not hers,” Zach replied, not even sure why he was bothering to answer the woman. “He’s my dad, yeah.”

“I’m so sorry, honey. You should…you’re getting blood all over your clothing. You should step away now.”

Many of the neighbors approached slowly towards him as if intent on leading him away. Why were they involving themselves? He didn’t want to see or speak to them right now. He didn’t know what he wanted. No, wait. He did. He wanted answers. His father wouldn’t do this. Surely, he wouldn’t.

“Zach, let’s go to my place,” she said. “Now I definitely don’t want you to be alone tonight.”

He raised his hand to wipe his eyes, then waved it around aimlessly. “What even is all this? I’m so confused. I don’t know what happened.”

The peacekeepers and their emergency medical counterparts rushed onto the scene. The peacekeepers were dressed in their typical white and blue polyester uniforms with the badge of the peacekeepers’ guild emblazoned on the right breast pocket as well as on both upper sleeves. The emergency services dressed in dark blue with a bright orange vest over the top. Their DEHVs caused the entire front of the apartment building to light up.

As over ten of the peacekeepers flanked by two medical workers directly approached Zach, he decided to speak to them before they spoke to him. He pointed to where his father lay unmoving. “That’s my dad. Please, someone help him!”

“It’s okay, son,” one of the men said. He was the tallest of the bunch and the patch on his uniform said ‘captain.’ With a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, he said, “I know this must be really hard for you, but we’re gonna need you to step away.”

He allowed himself to be led away from the sidewalk and towards the growing column of flashing DEHVs, of which more continued to arrive by the second. Thankfully, their sirens were no longer on which at least made it easier to both speak and hear what they were saying. Kalana stayed by his side through all of it.

“What happened?” the tall peacekeeper asked him. Zach swallowed, and his voice briefly caught in his throat. “It’s okay, son. Take a deep breath, hold it, and then let it out. Just like that. Now, try again.”

“He…my dad…I was walking home with Kalana, and—”

“Who?” the man asked.

“Me,” Kalana said, her voice soft. “We were walking home together. I’m Kalana Vayra. He’s Zachys Calador.”

“And what happened?”

Zach opened his mouth to answer, but the peacekeeper held his up as if to indicate he stop. “I think we should let the young lady explain. You seem way too shaken up right now. Miss?”

Kalana nodded, and Zach only half listened as she recounted some tale of why the two of them were out so late and what they had seen when they’d arrived. Naturally, she didn’t say anything about leveling up or mobs, but even if she had, Zach was so rattled right now he doubted he’d be able to care. Curiously, he saw a team of peacekeepers disappearing into his apartment, and even as Kalana continued to speak, he could hear their voices coming through the radio that was clipped to the man’s utility belt next to his HC-9m service pistol.

“Patrol Unit 9, repeat that?” a woman’s voice asked.

“PU-9, I said we’re just doing our due diligence and going up there to make sure there was no foul play.”

Only then, amid all the shock and pain that had stunned his thought process, did it occur to Zach that their apartment faced the opposite side of the building and the street two blocks over. How had he jumped out of a window in their apartment and landed here? Glancing upwards at the building, it was impossible to see from this close which window was shattered even though he could see that the lights of almost every apartment on every floor were now on. Had his dad gone over to someone’s apartment just to avoid doing it in his own? It made no sense.

“It’s what?” came another voice. “Can someone please confirm?”

“Son,” the tall peacekeeper said to him, snapping Zach out of his thoughts.

“Yes?”

“What apartment do you and your father live in?”

“We’re in suite 803, sir,” Zach replied. Distantly, in the back of his mind, he was proud of himself for speaking calmly and bravely. He would hold himself together. He’d always known his dad would die young—even if not like this. He’d been drinking himself to death for years, overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his wife. Even still, this was the worst way it could’ve happened.

Zach watched as the peacekeeper lowered his head, mumbled some words into his radio, and then once more returned his eyes to Zach, who could see confusion reflected back at him. The peacekeeper tilted his head sideways and asked, “Don’t you mean 805?”

“What? Uh, no. That’s her apartment,” he said.

“Yeah,” Kalana agreed. “That’s mine. Why?”

A dark, worried expression crossed the peacekeeper’s face for just a moment, and then it was replaced by the calm, commanding, and confident look of a peacekeeper firmly in charge of a situation. But even still, Zach had seen it—and he knew that something weird was going on. Kalana must’ve sensed this as well, because he saw her shifting her position next to him as if suddenly becoming uneasy.

Did he jump out of Kalana’s window? Zach wondered, growing horrified just by the thought of it. Even amid all his sadness, the very idea actually angered him. He was surprised that he could even feel anger at a time like now. But if his dad had drunkenly wobbled into Kalana’s home and decided to do something like this to her, to have her have to live with the knowledge that he’d—

“Whatever happened isn’t your fault,” Kalana whispered to him as if reading his thoughts. “I just wanna say that ‘cause…well, it’s just that…”

“That he might’ve gone to your place to do this?” Zach asked her. “If he did, I swear, I am so, so sorry that—”

She hugged him, and his words cut off immediately. “Stop. This isn’t your fault. No matter what.”

He hugged her back, and once more, he began sobbing. “How did today end like this?”

“It’s hard. I know.”

Holding the embrace for nearly a minute, Zach eventually pulled away as, in the corner of his eyes, he could visibly see the peacekeeper growing more frustrated by something coming from his radio, which Zach had stopped paying attention to. Eavesdropping in on the conversation, he remained quiet and listened.

“PU-9, you’re going to have to say that again,” said the same woman’s voice Zach recalled hearing a few moments ago. “I need definitive confirmation.”

“It’s the Royal Roses. Must be a war thing. I have no idea. Either way, it’s guild business and we can’t get involved.”

With a growl, the tall peacekeeper turned away from them and began muttering into his radio as if not wanting him or Kalana to overhear what he was saying. With a brief, nervous glance at Kalana, who returned one of the same his way, they both inched closer and listened in.

“Are you telling me that someone in my city was just thrown out of a gods-be-damned window in cold blood and the mayor is not going to do anything about it?”

“There’s nothing we can do. What, are we going to arrest him? He’ll kill every one of us. This is a war-thing. It has to be. Why else would the Royal Roses be here? We’ve already contacted the Guild of Gentlemen. They haven’t left us any defenders. They’re getting their ass kicked. Nothing we can do but keep our heads down.”

A terrible, unfathomable sickness crept into Zach’s belly and spread up to his chest and then into his throat. It was only by some miracle he did not vomit right there on the street in front of the peacekeeper’s DEHV cruiser. “S-sir,” Zach said, causing the man to once more face in his direction. “Did someone kill my dad?”

Is this because of the spawn point? Zach wondered, once more having to fight off the urge to empty his guts onto the pavement. Did one of the elites somehow find out we’d leveled up and this is our—my—fault? Did I make this happen to my dad?

He felt his eyes widen in terror at the thought. “Sir, please,” he said, speaking even more loudly. “Did someone kill my dad? Please, just answer me.”

The tall peacekeeper held up one of his fingers as if to ask Zach to be quiet a moment. Then, slowly, he removed his radio, held it up before the two of them, and then made a dramatic display of turning it off. “Kids,” he said to them. “Run. Get the hell out of here. Leave Whispery Woods and never come back.”

“Wh-what?” Zach shouted.

At the same time, Kalana gasped and also shouted, “Why?”

“I don’t know why. Some high-ranking member of the Royal Roses is in apartment 805 and has a man held hostage. My boys are already coming down here, thankfully unharmed, and then every one of us is leaving the scene.”

“Wait, a man in…” Kalana’s mouth fell open. “My dad! Do they have my dad? Tell me!”

The peacekeeper came closer to the two of them and then placed one hand on each of their shoulders. “You kids aren’t listening to me. So let me make myself clear. I do not know anything. I know only that there is a man—maybe your father, maybe not—tied to a chair in suite 805, and that the person or people who have him there are certainly not level-1 like the rest of us.”

“So save him!” Zach shouted. “They could be the reason my dad is dead. I heard what they said on your radio. Why aren’t you doing anything?”

“Son, what in the name of the Gods do you want me to do?”

Zach widened his arms in a gesture of outrage. “I don’t know. How about something?”

“Like what?” the peacekeeper snapped. Then he lowered his voice apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’m frustrated too. You think I am happy about this? There’s nothing I can do. I don’t know why your dad was thrown out of a window, and I don’t know why your father”—he now spoke to Kalana—“is tied to a chair in his own apartment. I only know that if I shoot a bullet, it’s not going to hurt the people who did this. It’s only going to get me and my men and maybe even my family killed. This probably has something to do with the war between the Royal Roses and the Gentlemen. If anyone should know what’s going on here, it’s you two.”

“I have no idea!” Zach said, only half convinced he was speaking the truth.

“Well, either way, now’s your chance to run.”

“I’m not running!” Kalana yelled at him. Zach had never heard her speak so loudly or angrily. “They’re not taking anyone else from me!” With that, she removed her dagger and dashed off towards the apartment building so fast that Zach could barely believe it. She moved at a speed faster than any human—even a trained athlete—could possibly achieve. It was only then that Zach recalled her previous level up, which had given her 4 points into speed.

“Who are you kids?” the peacekeeper asked, his voice dropping either out of caution, fear, or disbelief—or maybe all three. “I thought you said you don’t know anything about this. That girl…she’s no level-1.”

“Neither am I,” Zach said. “Thanks for all your damn help!” He did an about-face, then sprinted as fast as his legs could carry him after her. He, too, was fast enough to elicit murmurs of shock and amazement from the neighbors on the street, but even still, he was nowhere near as fast as she was.

The moment he’d bolted inside the lobby, he glanced around for any sign of Kalana. One of the couches had been knocked over, the receptionist was nowhere to be found, and the status on the front panel of the elevator indicated that it was still somewhere towards the top of the building. Hurrying off to his left in the direction of the emergency stairwell, Zach just had time to see the white door swinging closed.

That way!

Ignoring confused cries from some of his neighbors, who had peeked back into the apartment as if out of sheer curiosity or genuine concern for him, he dashed forward, threw out his arms, and slammed the stairwell door open with so much force that he almost would’ve been impressed if it didn’t feel like the entire world were ending right now. The door swung open with such speed that it actually detached from the hinges and made a gunshot-like crack as it collided with the drywall to the right of the stairwell, leaving behind several holes that leaked plaster and dust.

“Kalana!” he called. “Kalana!”

He could hear the sound of multiple sets of footsteps—or maybe just one set moving so fast it sounded like more than one person. Zach took off in a mad, all-out dash up the stairs after her. His father dying was a tragedy: Kalana getting herself killed would be the end of him. He wouldn’t be able to cope. Not after only first admitting to himself how he truly felt. The regret would be more than he could live with.

Zach moved with such urgency and disregard for his surroundings that, rather than come to a halt and turn around at the top of each flight of stairs, he actually threw out his hand, palm open, and pushed himself off the wall, leaving a hole in the shape of his handprint. He didn’t care. Why would he care? The only thing that mattered was making sure Kalana was not harmed or killed by whoever—or whatever—had just murdered his father.

She’s acting like me, Zach thought. This is the kind of impulsive thing I’d do.

Even as he dashed with all the desperation, urgency, and panic of an airline pilot whose engines had just failed, he couldn’t help but chide and correct himself, because no, actually, this wasn’t the kind of impulsive thing he would do. It was the kind of impulsive thing he was doing. Yet even knowing this didn’t bother him. Right now, the only person he was putting at risk was himself, and he was more than willing to accept that risk for Kalana’s sake.

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Panting for air, he pushed himself onwards, pumping his arms as he ran. Finally, he reached the exit to the 8th floor, and with the same indifference as he’d displayed on the way up here, he destroyed the door, literally punching it off its hinges to save himself every second he could.

The sound of his feet as he sprinted at full speed down the apartment hallway made muted thuds against the dark brown and gold rug that was littered with dust, litter, crumbs, and in some disgusting cases, old cockroach carcasses.

At the end of the hall, Zach sharply turned left and then proceeded down the next. Sweating with effort and exhaustion, he could actually hear the sound of drops of sweat flying off his face and onto the wall to his right as his body made the sudden maneuver. He could also hear the sound of a few doorknobs being turned as more people woke up and noticed the commotion. Zach didn’t care. He only cared about saving the girl he now realized he’d willingly die for.

Please be okay, Kalana. Please be okay!

Up ahead and to his right was a door that led to the apartment where he’d lived most of his life: the place he’d moved into with his father after his mother’s death. The door to his apartment was closed. The door to the apartment across, however, was wide open. That was where Kalana lived, and that was where he was going. Shouting her name, he dashed inside.

“Kalana!” he yelled.

So many sights greeted him at once that it took a second or two for him to take it all in. Right now, Zach stood just ahead of the entrance to a place he’d been many times these past two years. Only, the apartment did not look as it had when he came over to hang out or to help with homework. Now, it was a mess: it looked like it’d been ransacked. Couches had been flipped over, a vase had been knocked onto the floor, and there was glass on the carpet near the window, which was shattered. A few shards had bloodstains.

Dad’s blood, Zach thought furiously.

There were four people in the room with him. One was a young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty years of age. She was attractive, well proportioned, and she had short, green undercut hair with the sides faded. She was wearing a shiny pair of black leather trousers and a skimpy bra that left little to the imagination. She was the first person to notice Zach’s arrival, and when he met her gaze, she smiled sadistically and then caressed her side, where it looked like the hilt of a weapon was resting in its scabbard.

“Who’s this now?” she asked.

To the right of the green-haired woman with the sports bra was a man of average height who, while not quite middle-aged, did not seem all that far from it based on the wrinkles above and below his two deeply intimidating eyes. He had long, thick black hair, the sides of which reached down to both his shoulder blades and likely the middle of his back as well, though Zach could not see from this angle. The man wore a black cloth robe that was devoid of any color except on the right breast, where an image of a rose woven into the fabric actually glowed and gave off a dim red light. The man was slightly turned to his left, and he craned his head in Zach’s direction while keeping his body firmly in place with his arm extended out in front of him and his hand wrapped around the throat of Kalana.

That was when he noticed her there. The man had lifted her several feet off the floor and she kicked out urgently with her legs as she clawed at the hand wrapped around her throat. All while another man, who Zach immediately recognized as her father, screamed and moaned into a gag while he sat bound to a chair.

The carpet near his feet was almost entirely coated in what appeared to be dried blood, and every muscle in Zach’s body tightened as he realized why: Kalana’s father was now missing two fingers and a toe, all of which were still on the carpet. Whoever these people were, they had wrapped his wounds in gauze and tape, but somehow Zach doubted they’d given him anything for the pain.

“Who are you people?” Zach asked. “Put her down! Why are you doing this to us?”

“Us?” the woman asked. She removed something from the pocket of her leather trousers: gum, of all things. She began to chew. After blowing a bubble, she said, “Who’s this ‘us’?”

“That man you killed was my dad, you bitch!” he shouted at her. “Why did you do that? What do you want with me?”

Two sounds entered his senses at the same time; the first was a gasp from Kalana as the man released her throat and she fell to the floor, choking. The impact somehow caused one of her father’s missing fingers—his right thumb—to roll several feet before coming to a stop near the kitchen table across from the living room where he was sitting tied in the chair.

The man who’d been choking Kalana fixed his harsh, burning gaze on Zach, and Zach had to fight the urge to flee just at the sight of it. The look in his eyes was a combination of outrage and disgust. It almost seemed as though Zach had done something personally egregious to the man—had wronged him somehow.

“What do I…want with you?” he whispered, repeating the words. There was a deep anger in the way he spoke them: a revulsion that carried his anger far better than a shout could possibly have. “You actually have the audacity to think that I would want something from you, animal?”

The dismissive, dehumanizing way he spoke to Zach was enough to cause anger to replace his fear. “What did you want with my father, then?”

“What did I want with…?” He looked across the apartment at the broken window and then back at Zach. Then he rubbed his eyes. “That was your father?”

“Yes!” Zach shouted at him. “Why did you kill him? Tell me, Gods-damned you! Why did you do that to him?”

Zach felt his heated temper become an inferno as this man laughed at him: right in his face. It was a laugh filled with not even hate, but something closer to disgust. “You think I killed your father because I wanted anything from either of you?” He laughed again, even more loudly. “I had Seraphina here throw him out of the window because he disturbed me. He was trash…like his son. The very idea anyone could want anything from either of you. Oh, what a riot!”

“I’ll kill you both!” Zach yelled. He had heard more than enough. Now, he wanted payback. He exploded forward into a sprint, his feet dashing across the carpet, and then he lunged, extended both of his arms, and attempted to grab the man’s throat just as he had been doing to Kalana, who was on all fours gasping and choking as if still trying to regain her breath.

Laughing at him yet again, the man stepped off to the side a moment before Zach was able to grab him by the throat and squeeze the life out of him; instead, Zach ended up tackling the only couch in the apartment that was still in an upright position. Both he and the green couch toppled over, and Zach found himself rolling a few times along the floor before coming to a stop on his stomach near the back wall. Not wasting even a moment, he hurriedly scrambled back up to his feet.

“Varsh, can I kill this one?” the woman asked.

“No, let me handle him,” the man said. “This filthy, noisy, son of trash actually thinks he has the right to yell at me. This…this literal piece of toe lint.”

“How could you do what you did?” Zach yelled, his eyes dampening with tears.

“I already told you. He was trash and he interrupted me.” Zach pressed his palms against his cheeks as the implications of what he’d just been told finally dawned on him, and as if noticing this, the man—whom the woman had called “Varsh”—began nodding his head. “Yes, that’s right. I meant what I said literally. I came here for the girl and her father. I don’t know who you are or who your father was, and I don’t care, either. You’re not even insects to me. At least bugs form a part of the ecosystem. I don’t even really consider scum like you ‘life’ if you want to know the truth. That’s why I killed your father. Do…do you have a problem with that?”

Zach howled in rage and threw himself at this man, this…this “Varsh,” who had not only murdered his only living parent but was now openly taunting him about it. He crossed the distance between the two of them in less than a second and prepared to attack. Having leveled up twice, he had no idea how strong he was. He had no idea how much damage he could do. But if he killed the man, then good. He hoped he did. Oh, Gods above, he hoped he did. He wanted to mutilate the man who’d turned his father into a squished clump of meat on the sidewalk. Zach would do the same to him!

He drew back his left fist and sent it hurtling towards the man’s face, aiming to bludgeon him on the side of his chin with all of his might. Unfortunately, the moment he connected, he knew that something wasn’t right. The exact moment his clenched fist made contact with Varsh’s chin, it came to a complete, unexpected halt, and then an intense searing, burning, and squeezing pain erupted into left fist as though he’d just tried to bunch a brick wall. Pulling back his arm, Zach screamed in anguish and stumbled backwards.

“Hmm,” Varsh said, scratching his chin in the spot Zach had just struck. “That almost tickled. Are you level-1?”

Zach didn’t answer him. He was too busy holding his left wrist with his right as his mind erupted in confusion and pain. What the hell had just happened? How powerful was this man that he had either broken—or almost broken—his wrist trying to hit him? Just who were these people? Did they really kill his father for no other reason than he happened to cross their path on a bad day? All of these questions combined with the ache in his hand to make him shed even more tears of frustration.

At the same time, the man, Varsh, took two steps forward to the match the two Zach had backed away, and then made a quick motion with his hand that Zach almost didn’t see, as it appeared as something of a blur. Immediately, the world darkened, and a loud, constant ringing appeared in his ears. There was pain—and so much of it that it made the earlier agony in his wrist seem like a minor headache. Zach was stunned, confused, emotionally distraught, and now, he suddenly realized he couldn’t breathe. Worse, he wasn’t even sure where he was.

It actually took him several seconds to realize he wasn’t even on his feet anymore. He was on his back, and Varsh was standing over him. What had just happened? Zach struggled to replay the events in his head that had only taken place mere seconds ago. Varsh had stepped forward to meet him, and then…right. Right. He’d dismissively, almost casually back-handed Zach in the face, striking him in his nose.

Now, Zach panicked as he realized that he could no longer take oxygen into his lungs. In fact, even trying hurt. He began to gasp. His panic increased. He writhed on the floor, choking and confused. It only caused Varsh to laugh at him yet again.

“This idiot doesn’t even realize his nose is broken. He’s still trying to breathe through it.”

Zach opened his mouth and inhaled, sucking air into his lungs. Then, trembling and racing with fear, he brushed his face with his right hand, then moved it far enough away so that he could focus his eyes on it. Almost his entire palm was covered in dark red. And even as he held it there, he could see more splotches of red appearing like drops of water. And he could feel more running over his mouth and dropping onto his pants.

“I think you hit him so hard you knocked his brain out,” Seraphina said with a laugh.

“No,” Varsh said with a guffaw. “The kid’s just a wuss. Never had his nose broken. I wonder how he’s going to feel when I set him on fire and burn him to death.”

Zach tried to get up, but the world felt dizzy and he was disoriented. How was he this weak? Not just in terms of his level, but as a person. As he sat there whimpering, his nose bleeding, and his body shaking, he wondered who he hated more: Varsh or himself. He had never felt so powerless. Not even when his mother died had he felt this useless, this…this much like garbage. Like trash.

“Get away from him, you son of a bitch,” Kalana growled. She was back on her feet now.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Seraphina told her, grinning. “Now I have to kill him in front of you just to make a point.”

Kalana screamed at the two of them. Zach watched helplessly as the green-haired woman, Seraphina, drew what appeared to be a rapier from her scabbard and then shifted her grip on the weapon as if intent on striking. Was Zach going to die here? Was this really how it ended for him? Were all his hopes and dreams about to come to an end as he sat here on a filthy carpet soaked in his combination of his and his dead father’s blood? And to make it all so much worse, he didn’t even fight back, either.

The revulsion that Varsh had shown to him he now felt towards his own self as, whimpering, he backed away on his butt, sliding to the wall behind him as this leather-wearing psychopath strutted menacingly in his direction. As his back collided with the wall, and with nowhere else to run, it was in this moment that he made a promise to himself: he made a vow so strong that he knew he would take his own life should he break it.

With his shirt, pants, and face covered in blood from his still-leaking nose, and with so much fear in him that he literally couldn’t move, he made a promise with such intensity that he could actually feel it bind to his very soul: if he, through some miracle, managed to somehow live through this, then he would dedicate his life to never being this pathetic or weak again. He swore it to himself. Even as he sensed the end. Even as he whimpered. Even as he knew that the only reason he wasn’t begging for his life was because he was too afraid to speak.

The woman, Seraphina, raised her blade, clearly intent on stabbing him through the heart. But then, abruptly, she stopped, and oddly, it was Varsh who halted her, holding out his arm and barring her from taking another step.

“Wait a minute, Sera,” he said. “I think we have a bit of an opportunity here.”

“The hell?”

Turning his head away from her, he cast his gaze on Kalana, who despite backing up a step as if in terror was still somehow far braver than Zach. “Girl,” he said, smiling viciously at her. “It speaks ill of your character, but for some reason, you seem to care about this…this thing. I don’t even want to call it human. Either way, how would you like to bargain for his life?”

“How?” she asked, clearly interested, her eyes as defiant as her father’s.

To Zach’s utter, mind-destroying shame, he actually hoped Kalana would save him. He prayed she would come to his rescue somehow. And boy, he hated himself for it. But it wasn’t just his survival mechanism at play. It was the knowledge that, if he somehow crawled his way out of here, he would either toughen himself up or throw himself out of a window like Varsh had thrown his father.

Now that Zach, with his own two eyes, saw the evil that existed in this world, there was no going back: there was no looking away. If overpowering men like Varsh was what it would take to save Kalana and escape the confines of his mediocre life at the bottom rung of the societal ladder, then Zach would throw his own face into the fire if the flames gave him the strength to rip people like Varsh apart.

“What would it take for you to let him go?” Kalana asked. “Please. Tell me.”

“I just want you to cooperate,” he said with a sigh. “I intend to sell you and your father, for what it’s worth. This isn’t even personal for me. It’s going to be a pain in the ass if you’re trying to escape or fight me every inch of the way. So here’s what I’ll offer you. I know where this kid lives, and I have ways of finding him anywhere he goes. As long as you and your washed-up, so-called ‘prince’ of a father make things easy for me, I’ll let him live.”

“Really?” Kalana asked.

He nodded. “I don’t think you realize just how little I value this…thing. His life is of such small consequence to me that if he had run away a little earlier I wouldn’t have even chased after him. He’s nothing but a piece of dirt. If not cleaning him is what it takes for you to make my life easier, then so be it.”

“Then I’ll cooperate,” Kalana said immediately. She got up and ran over to her father, hugging him. “Just don’t hurt my dad anymore and let Zach go.”

“Hear that, kid?” Varsh asked. “It’s your lucky day.” He pointed at the door. “You’ve got 10 seconds to get your pathetic, gutter-dwelling ass out of here before I let Seraphina carve out your entrails. And as for you,” he continued, addressing Kalana and her father. “I’m tired and need to rest for a few hours. I don’t trust you while I’m not awake. I’m going to tie you up next to your dad but then I’ll undo the restraints in the morning. Understood?”

“You’re…you’re going to sleep here?” Kalana asked. Zach was also surprised.

Varsh barked out a harsh, mocking laugh. “What, are the peacekeepers going to come and arrest me?” Then, briefly shifting his eyes, his voice turned low and deadly. “I told you to get out of here. You’d better go right now. You’d really better go.”

With tears in his eyes and his nose still dripping blood, Zach laid his palms flat on the wall behind him and somehow used it to push himself up to his feet. He glared at Varsh, openly scowling at him, and then he turned around and fled into the hallway. He ran as if his life depended on it, which it very well might. Yet even as he fled, he began to think of his next move. He refused to let this be the end of things. He simply could not allow him to take her away.

I need to save Kalana. There has to be something I can do!

Zach continued to run and did not stop until he burst out of the apartment building and onto the sidewalk, which he now saw was devoid of any peacekeepers or medical personnel. Even with his adrenaline pumping through his veins, he moaned and began to weep openly as he saw that his father was still there on the sidewalk. They hadn’t...those bastards hadn’t even taken his body. They fled just like he’d fled, only he was a seventeen-year-old kid and they were adults. At least he’d taken a few hits trying to do something. The peacekeepers had rushed out so fast they hadn’t even bothered to treat his father with the basic human dignity even pets were shown.

“Dad, I’m sorry,” he said, weeping. “I’m sorry this happened to you.” He looked down at his lifeless body, and all the years of loathing his father were instantly converted into pity and guilt. If he had gotten rich or become successful, he could’ve changed the both of their lives. He might’ve been a terrible dad, but this was still his father, and it hurt so much to see him here.

“You couldn’t even take his body!” Zach shouted at the empty air. “You’re all shit!”

Even the nosy neighbors had vanished. They likely got into their DEHVs and fled. Once rumor spread that a member of a guild at war with the Gentlemen was here, only one of two things would happen: one, a high-leveled defender would show up to dole out justice. Or, more likely, two: Varsh, true to his word, would take Kalana in a few hours and Zach would never see her again.

Turning his head away, he began to walk away from the place he’d called home, which after today, could obviously never feel like one to him again. Since luck clearly wasn’t on his side tonight, it didn’t surprise him that the sound of thunder erupted from the sky. Then a trickle of rain quickly turned into a massive downpour, soaking Zach from head to toe while doing absolutely nothing to wash the blood off his body or ease the ache in his still-bleeding nose.

What do I even do now?

He tried to consider his options carefully. He knew he couldn’t fight those two. Not yet. If he showed up there again, all he’d end up doing was get himself killed. Put simply, he wasn’t strong enough. So what, then. What could he do?

He could get stronger, sure. He even knew where he could go to do exactly that. But by the time he got to level 4, let alone a level high enough to actually engage those two in combat, Kalana could be on the other side of the continent.

So, leveling was not the answer here. What about equipment? He could try to kill those things every thirty minutes and pray they dropped something super powerful. In fact, he still had enough supplies to do it, too—his submersible bag was actually right here on the sidewalk where he’d dropped it a little while ago. Maybe he could roll the dice and try to find something that could save Kalana.

No, that’s never going to work. They’re level-1. Even if I get something amazing like her dagger, it’s not going to make enough of a difference.

Grabbing his bag and walking away from the apartment, Zach became focused and determined to solve this issue. While he often made terrible and impulsive snap decisions, he was also a very analytical person who, at least in his own estimation, was pretty smart when it came to actually using his brain. With each step he took, his back straightened just a little more and his resolve hardened. Right now, there was no more time for crying, and so he sucked up his misery until the only liquid that poured down his eyes was from the heavy shower of rain.

The answer I’m looking for is not in that cavern, he thought. What other options do I have?

Logically, if he couldn’t fight his way out of this, and he couldn’t “cavern” his way out of this, then what did that even leave? Sneaking? That was possible but unlikely. If he tried to creep back in while her captors were sleeping, it might work. Or, for all he knew, it might backfire and get them both killed.

So, fighting, sneaking, and grinding in the cavern were all a no-go. Were there any other options left? Only one: calling for help. But that was also a dead-end, wasn’t it? Because who could he even turn to? The peacekeepers? Certainly not. Varsh and that Seraphina woman were basically being treated like Gods among men.

The more Zach thought on it, the more he realized how bad things really were. It was to such an extent that he almost aimlessly walked into a busy intersection—even this early in the morning—and found himself flattened by a massive DEHV that actually caused the ground to tremble as it zipped by. Usually, the barriers were supposed to prevent someone from mindlessly walking out into traffic, but since this was Whispery Woods, it wasn’t much of a surprise that the one here on this intersection didn’t work.

Waiting patiently for his chance to cross the street, Zach half-ran to the sidewalk on the other side and then continued to walk randomly into the night while he ruminated on his current situation. There were very few other pedestrians on the street with him. The only reason traffic was still so busy was because this was the time of the day when delivery DEHVs had the easiest time getting in and out of the city before the morning rush made the commute an hours-long affair.

Is there anyone in this city who can help me? Literally anyone?

Zach doubted it. If there had been, then the peacekeepers would’ve called them in rather than run away like cowards and leave his father’s corpse to rot. Come to think of it, was he now going to have to carry away his own dead father? Zach shook his head to clear his mind of the thought. That wasn’t helpful right now. He needed a plan. That was what he needed.

But I can’t think of anything!

Every possibility he ran through he had to discard. There was almost certainly no one in this city who could help him take down those sons of bitches who killed his dad and kidnapped Kalana in her own apartment. Yet even still, he had to do something. He just would not accept the fact that she was as good as gone. He refused. He absolutely refused! But even still, he could not come up with a decent gods-damned plan.

Continuing to walk and think, Zach noticed that, through sheer coincidence, he had walked himself almost all the way to school. Maybe it was muscle memory in his feet. As he looked at the large complex, he coughed out a dark, completely humorless chuckle. Zach realized that, at this point, with no one around for miles who could actually help him with his potential plan, he wondered if there was someone in this whole gods-damned city who was even useful enough to help make a plan, let alone execute one.

Maybe I should ask someone at school, he thought sarcastically with another angry chuckle. Maybe one of the teachers would—

Then his thought cut off abruptly, he stopped walking, and for a moment, he stood there in the soaking rain as something that almost resembled a glimmer of hope rose up within him. It was…not an idea, but an idea of how to get an idea.

Could that actually work? he wondered.

He was so desperate to try anything at this point that even the least good option was still better than no option at all—as long as it was viable. He was, put simply, in an absolute garbage situation where the city’s law enforcement wouldn’t help him and he needed to find some kind of solution. This was a problem that would take a genius to solve. And he actually did sort of know someone who was a literal genius. And he also knew that that someone was rumored to spend weekends in the school’s lab doing his goofy experiments at all hours of the night.

But would he even be able to help? Zach doubted it. But what else was left? Even trying something stupid at this point was preferable to just sitting back and accepting Kalana’s fate. With that thought in mind, he took off at a mad dash to his school, running for all he was worth.