It was touch and go for a while, but Emma said she thinks the old man will wake up okay. His breathing and heart rate have both stabilized, and he's no longer lying there like a dead man. It was a bit of a shock walking in and seeing him lying there bleeding slowly from the head, but Emma took charge immediately and got him fixed right up. She looks tired now, but I also get the feeling this is the first time she felt in control since we were all dropped here, so it's probably good for her. I won't say this to her, but it was incredibly cute watching her take charge and get to work.

I get to wondering about what kind of holier than thou people would claim that someone's species is too violent, and then proceed to put them in a blood sport for their entertainment. Hypocrites, the lot of them. I shake my head in disgust as I walk to the window to keep an eye out for Noah coming back. He had run off, rather stupidly in my opinion, to try and get another of the parts alone. I thought it was better to see if Greg or Dave came back first, but we are running low on time, so I can see his side of the argument. I try to avoid thinking about what it means if neither of them comes back, but the possibility that one of them was willing to stab his brother in the back continues to nip at the back of my mind.

Based on my watch, we had about another 10ish hours before the storm that's incoming hits. If Noah comes back with his two parts, we can quickly hit up the other two locations and be back in plenty of time to fix the other site and get out of here.

I wonder where Luna went? We had left her behind with both the old man as well as the big guy. Could they have both been the traitors? I suppose so, but that would be extremely unlikely, right? Wouldn't the traitors want to be involved in groups? That way they could separate people and take them out without anyone finding out.

I turn around as the man starts to stir. His eyes flutter open and a soft groan escapes as he slowly raises a hand to his head. Emma immediately moves over to him, checking to make sure he's okay and trying to figure out what happened. I figured she had it well in hand with her background and left her to it. A good leader knows when she can help, and when she should delegate. Not that I really want to be the leader, but everyone else seems to be looking to me for direction. I'm doing the best I can, but it's hard to take control, normally with most of the people I'm planning a wedding for, it's about making their ideas a reality, not making my ideas theirs. Wow, that sounded so corny in my head.

I walked outside to continue to try and figure out how to access the deeper functions of my UI. I want to try and access this point shop that android had talked about, but nothing so far has worked. At first, I thought it would be voice-activated in some way, but that line of thinking petered out once I got to use words like open sesame to try and pull it up. Next, I tried mentally pulling it up, like in some of the litrpg books my brother had always talked about. I managed to find a command to open my inventory, which was predictably empty, as well as another that pulled up the map of the area. More convenient than actually looking at the map I suppose. It seemed I was unable to access it right now, maybe once we escaped other parts of the UI would unlock. I guess it doesn't really matter. It's hard to spend points you don't actually have.

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"Hey Emma, do you need any help in there?" I turned to head back into the cabin. There was no response.

"Emma?" I called out again, starting to get worried. She would have answered me if she was okay. I slowly pushed open the door to find her still kneeling by the fireplace. That's a relief. Maybe she just hadn't heard me. I quickly walked over to her, putting my hand on her shoulder. Under the light pressure of my hand, the delicately balanced body collapsed, revealing her throat had been slit. I may have screamed a bit, but you would have too in my situation. There was no sign of the old guy, but he couldn't have gotten far. I still had the flare gun, although I was skeptical on how much in the way of actual defense it would provide. I heard the sound of running behind me as I whipped around and brought the flare gun to bear. The door to the cabin slammed before I could get a shot off. That monster was nimble for such an old guy. It was concerning if he was that nimble, what else could I expect out of him?

"I didn't want to do it you know, but the devils wouldn't stop until I did. I needed to stop their voices else I might go mad." The sound of cackling came from the door to the outside, my only real escape without breaking a window. "They wished for me to kill, and only then would they be silent. I just wanted them to be silent. You can't understand, it feels so damn crowded inside your own head with them around. And of course, each one that dies makes the tick-tock clock even more likely to reach its end. And you won't like it when it ends, that's when the storm starts. Did you know I get to leave if that happens? I'd give anything to be able to leave."

"You're insane. You need help, killing people won't silence the voices, if you helped us we could have all escaped together" I looked around the room, hoping against hope to find something that would get me out of my predicament. I needed to leverage my advantage, I had a ranged advantage, and if I was careful, firing the flare at him would likely blind him, allowing me to get away. Keeping him talking was the best way to know where he was.

"You just don't understand. How could you, you haven't been put into this situation yet. There is no escape for the traitors, we either go go go until you die die die, or we get to leave as everything freezes. And besides your friend will be fine, the devils said so. 3 lives remember? Like a cat, but not a good. And it's the same for you. You need to die, for me to live. That's just the way the world works child. Now come to me and I'll help you move on to your next life." The cackling again came from behind the door.

Yep, that was enough of that for me. I threw a random nicknack at the window in an attempt to break it. The heavy wooden duck bounced off the glass and fell to the floor. Unbreakable windows, just my luck. It seemed my only option was to fight.

I threw myself at the door to get the jump on him. Slamming my shoulder into the door, it burst outwards as I turned to find him staring in surprise. I fired, turning away as he screeched in pain at the bright light and burning as the flare hit him directly in the chest. He collapsed to the ground, writhing as he died. I felt sick to my stomach. I had just killed another human.

I returned inside in a haze, only stopping for a second to look at Emma's body as a message popped up on my UI.

Violence in a safe zone prohibited. Damage reversal in progress.

I was confused, and looking closer brought me relief. Emma's wound was very slowly healing before my very eyes. It was a miracle and it seemed if my UI was accurate that she would recover. But it brought other concerns. I had to make sure the old man had actually died. Running outside I looked down at his body as well. No UI prompt appeared. It seemed I had indeed killed someone today.

"Allison, Emma, are you okay?" Noah shouted as he appeared out of the trees with Luna and the comatose man from earlier in tow.