Doug led the way, his bare feet making surprisingly little sound on the grimy linoleum floor. He didn't look back, his broad, liver-spotted shoulders set with a purpose that brooked no argument. John followed a few paces behind, the squeak of his motorcycle boots seeming obscenely loud in the oppressive silence of the ruined community centre, especially compared to the hulking old man ahead of him.

This place must have been so mundane, once. John could picture it: peeling posters advertising Zumba classes and neighbourhood council meetings alongside terrible finger paint art pieces, the lingering smell of stale coffee and floor polish, the scuff marks of a hundred different shoes trailing across the floor. Now, it was a hollowed-out wreck, a skeletal carcass picked clean by scavengers. The monster waves had stripped away every feature that might have given the building a personality, leaving only a husk. Plaster was torn from the walls in great swathes, revealing the brickwork beneath like exposed bone. Ceiling tiles were intermittently missing, exposing a tangled mess of wires and pipes that hung down like viscera.

Every step John took felt heavier than the last. The silence, broken only by the crunch of debris underfoot, was a canvas onto which his anxious mind painted a thousand dreadful scenarios. Doug's excuse of needing help to 'sort through some stuff' felt increasingly flimsy. A pathetic pretext that John's overactive imagination was certain he'd seen through. This wasn't about supplies, and both of them knew it.

He's figured it out, a panicked voice whispered in his skull. They all have. They know you're a fraud. They found an old picture of you from school, or something. The irrational thought sent a jolt of pure, uncut terror through him, a chemical ice that flooded his veins and made his stomach clench into a tight, painful knot. He could feel the physical tells of his anxiety threatening to manifest: the tremor in his hands, the sweat beading on his forehead, the way his throat was tightening, preparing for a voice crack that would shatter his carefully constructed persona into a million uncool pieces.

He couldn't let that happen. Drawing on Biomancy, he issued a series of silent, frantic commands to his own body. He willed the sweat glands on his face to cease their function, forced his adrenal glands to slow their panicked production. He meticulously relaxed the muscles in his hands, finger by finger, then moved to the ones in his throat, smoothing them out, ensuring his voice would emerge as a level, unconcerned baritone if he was forced to speak.

The fine control he'd practiced was a godsend, a set of internal strings he could pull to keep his puppet-body from betraying the frantic stage manager inside. His face had to remain a mask of indifference. He had to be the man who flew on dragon wings, not the boy who was terrified of what came next. The pressure of it was a physical weight.

It was a draining process, a constant battle against his own treacherous biology, but it worked. To any outside observer, he was the picture of stoic composure, his face a mask of detached indifference, his posture relaxed. Inside, he was a screaming wreck, convinced that the entire edifice of badassery he had carefully constructed was about to come crashing down.

They'd seen his weakness. His hesitation. They knew he wasn't the unflappable gigachad he pretended to be. They were going to call him out, and the Aura system, that ever-present, ever-judging entity, would strip him of his points, leaving him weak, exposed, and worst of all, proven to be a loser. Everything he'd worked for, everything he'd endured, would be for nothing.

His doom spiral was interrupted when Doug came to a stop before a set of double doors hanging halfway off their hinges beneath a sign that read: 'SUPPLIES'. Though they were marked with deep gouges, they were in surprisingly good shape. Or at least he thought so, until Doug reached down and picked one up, revealing that it was, in fact, all the way off its hingest. He shuffled it off to one side.

Despite this, a flicker of hope ignited in the cold dread of John's gut. Maybe he'd misread the situation. Maybe Doug really did just need a hand with some gear. The thought was so relieving his knees almost buckled. He forcably steadied them with another application of Biomancy.

The supply closet was deceptively large, crammed with shelves laden with dusty sports equipment, stacks of faded board games, and boxes of arts and crafts supplies. He was more than a little surprised to see it so intact, but he supposed if it had no windows to or other exits for the monster horde to pass through, they would have flowed around it. All very interesting to speculate on, but it was the item draped over a stack of plastic chairs that seized John's attention.

Doug lifted it wordlessly. It was armour, or at least some futuristic, leather-like approximation of it. A chest piece, legs, boots, and arm guards. No sign of a helmet. The design was sleek, segmented, evoking the image of a cyberpunk ninja from some grim, rain-slicked version of feudal Japan. The material was a deep, matte black that seemed to drink the dim light of the corridor.

But it was heavily damaged. The chest piece looked like it had been partially melted, the material warped and bubbled as if splashed with a powerful acid. A dark stain, almost invisible against the black fabric, spread across the abdomen. As Doug held it out, a scent reached John's nostrils, iron-sharp and tangy, a smell he had become intimately, horribly familiar with. Blood.

His stomach did a sickening flip. The pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity. This armour hadn't been found. It had been looted. From a body. A body of someone the group had fought when he wasn't there. The melted chest plate… Unless someone else had picked up a strange new ability—and this didn't seem to fit with the themes they'd had going so far—it had to be Jade. Her Caustic Hand fit best, though it was possible she'd gotten something new that applied a similar effect. That ghostly red projection that burned whatever it touched like acid.

Doug didn't speak. He simply turned and gestured to a small wooden crate on one of the shelves right next to the stack of chairs the armour had been perched on. John stepped closer. Inside, nestled on a bed of yellowed foam, were more tools of a shadow warrior's trade. Shuriken, their star-points wickedly sharp. Kunai, their leaf-shaped blades gleaming like diamonds. A grappling hook with a tightly coiled rope.

John reached for them, his movements stiff, robotic. One by one, he gave them a light touch and drew them into his Inventory. As they registered in his system, their names flashed in his mind's eye. Shadowfang Shuriken. Nightpiercer Kunai. Widow's Kiss Grapple. This wasn't mundane gear forged on Earth. It was magical. He felt confident in that assessment, because his Inventory generally tended to give mundane items generic names, like Knife, or Golf Club, or whatever. Magical monster loot got more unique, often edgy, names. Like Beastblood Bandages. Or the Reaper's Scythe.

As he was processing the final item, Doug's voice, low and gravelly, broke the silence.

"First time I ever saw a man die, I was just a boy. Single digits." He wasn't looking at John, his gaze distant, fixed on the ruined corridor beyond the closet door, but he wasn't seeing it. He was seeing something else entirely. A different kind of ruin. "Manchester slums. Back when the air tasted of coal smoke and the rain was always grey. I was playing in the ginnel behind our terrace, kicking a scuffed-up football against a brick wall. Heard shouting from the street out front."

His voice was a low rumble, the words coming slow, each one excavated from deep in his memory. "It wasn't the usual kind of shouting. Not a domestic or a drunken row. This was different. More desperate--and let me tell you, lad, desperation wasn't in short supply in those times. I peeked around the corner. It was one of the local bosses, a nasty piece of work named Tommy Shelby—no relation to the telly show, this one was real and twice as mean. He had two of his lads with him, big blokes in cheap suits who looked like they'd each ate a bull each for breakfast that morning. And they had this fella pinned against the wall. A scrawny lad named Billy. Desperate type. Stole a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk from one of Tommy's protected shops. Not the worst crime in a world. Still a stupid thing to do."

Doug fell silent for a moment, his eyes unfocused. "Tommy just nodded. Didn't even say a word. And his lads went to work. They didn't use knives or guns. Just their boots and fists. I remember the sound of it. Not loud, not like in the films. Just this series of dull, wet thuds. Like someone dropping a side of beef onto a butcher's block. Over and over. A few people stopped to watch. Nobody said a thing. You didn't, in those days. You just kept your head down."

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He took a slow breath, the air whistling faintly in his nostrils. "I couldn't look away. I was just a little kid, frozen solid. Billy, he didn't even scream much after the first few kicks. Just made these little grunting noises. Then nothing. But it was his eyes what stuck with me. I can remember it so clearly, it's like I can summon a photograph in my mind. Bet I could count how many hairs he had on his head, if you gave me enough time. Those eyes, though. They found mine, just for a second, across the street. He wasn't begging, not anymore. He was just… surprised. Then the light just went out. Like someone snuffing a candle. One second, he was a person, a terrified lad who'd made a stupid mistake because poverty pushes people to rash decisions. The next… just meat. A sack of broken bones leaking onto the cobblestones. Seeing that, it changes you. It puts a little chip of ice in your soul that never melts. No matter how old you are, or what form it takes."

He finally turned, his gaze meeting John's. The playful twinkle was gone, replaced by a deep, solemn sympathy that seemed to bore right through John's carefully constructed defences. "But just seeing it, that's one thing. Being the one to do it… killing a man… that's worse. That little chip of ice grows. It becomes a weight. One you carry forever."

John's initial thought was of Jade. He assumed Doug was talking about her, about the kill she'd made to acquire this gear. It was a heavy thing, taking a human life, even in this new world, and he got the impression doing so would hurt Jade more than most.

But then he truly met the old man's eyes, and he understood. The sympathy wasn't for Jade. Or at least it wasn't only for her. He wasn't making an abstract observation, it was an invitation. He was building a bridge, reaching across the gulf of their unshared experiences, trying to give John a safe place to put down his own terrible weight.

He was talking about Curtis and Claire, even if he didn't know it. How the old man had been able to tell something along those lines had happened, John couldn't even begin to guess. He'd thought… Well, he hadn't been under the impression that he was hiding things perfectly well, but he didn't think he was an open book. He was even magically concealing his emotional tells, for fuck's sake.

John swallowed, a dry click in his throat. His heart began to pound a heavy rhythm against his ribs, not quite frantic, but with an odd weight to it that hurt. His eyes suddenly stung, a hot, sharp pressure building behind them, and it wasn't just fear of Aura loss that immediately pushed him to dive into his Biomancy and put a stop to that shit right now, feeling mortified at the idea of crying in front of another man, especially not Doug of all people.

Even so, he had to admit a part of him yearned to let it all out. To tell Doug what had happened. To describe the impossible weight of Claire's final request to let her go, the sickening lightness of her body when her last breath sighed out, the look of peace on her face that haunted his every waking moment since he'd seen it, saddling him with the indignant truth that the world was an unfair place.

And above all, he wanted to confess the horrible truth: he'd beaten a woman to death with his bare hands without even realising it until it was already long done. Surely Doug would know how to make whatever he was feeling go away.

But a much larger, more pragmatic part of him screamed in protest. The Aura system was always watching. A breakdown, a moment of weakness, a tearful confession… it would be uncool. Utterly, catastrophically uncool. He would lose points. He would lose the respect of his comrades. He would lose the persona he had bled and fought and killed to maintain.

So, he chose another path.

"Yeah," he said, and the Biomancy he was using to keep his voice level had to work overtime to keep the tremor out of that single word. He cleared his throat. "Sounds like a skill issue. Got three corpses in my Inventory right now, actually. Human ones."

He tried to make it sound like a brag, a casually mention of his growing collection. He watched Doug's face for a reaction, but the old man's expression didn't change. He just watched, waited.

"This guy, Curtis," John began, forcing a boastful tone into his voice. "Had wings, a big fuck-off katana, a black robe. Thought he was a real badass. We saw him on the way into town, actually. Remember? Our first look at the enemy." He gave a dismissive shrug, as if the memory were a minor annoyance. "He ambushed me at the hospital. Had his daughter with him, can you believe that? And she was sick, too! Didn't even have a system anymore, because she'd already died once. Total liability. Guy brought his own weakness to a knife fight. Some people are just asking for it."

Doug remained silent, his expression unreadable, which only spurred John on. He had to sell this. He hadn't lost any Aura yet, but hadn't gained any either. Didn't know how to interpret that. "Anyway, he comes at me, all flashy moves and yelling. Amateur hour. I let him tire himself out for a bit, then I just… took him apart. Knocked him out and wrapped him up in a stone prison. He was still trying to talk shit, even then. Pathetic." He made a vague, cutting gesture with his hand. "I didn't want to kill such a loser, it would've been beneath me. But it turns out he was even more of a dick than I thought, killed loads of other weaklings, and that pissed their friends off. They came looking for him. And his daughter, more importantly. They wanted to hurt her to make him suffer."

Still, Doug said nothing. His eyes didn't even waver.

"I wasn't going to let them kill a kid, no matter how much of a dickhead her dad was. And, well, at least he was only killing people so he could bring her back. At least partially. Did I mention we can bring people back, if we have enough Souls? Pretty cool, right?" John swallowed. "Anyway, I fought them, roughed them up a bit. But one of them had a cheap trick. Snuck past me. While I was dismantling her comrades one versus four without even breaking a sweat, she got close and managed to hurt Curtis and Claire pretty bad. I might have lost it a bit…"

John trailed off. Doug remained silent, staring without a hint of judgement in his old, old eyes.

"Can you blame me? Hurting a kid like that… Of course I lost my temper. And I guess I didn't know my own strength. It was just… She… I was so mad. Wanted to make sure she stayed down so I could help the girl. So I kept kicking her until I was sure she wasn't moving. I didn't realise until later I'd killed her." His fists clenched so tightly his knuckles cracked. "I killed her, Doug. Fucking kicked her head in, didn't I? And she deserved it! She tortured a little girl to the brink of death for the sins of her father. Any reasonable court would sentence her to life in prison for that, but I'm assuming we don't exactly have a robust judicial system right now, so it's fine if I played judge, jury, and executioner. It was the right thing to do. She deserved it. Of course she deserved it. Anyone would say she deserved it."

+100 Aura

John had to pause to get his breathing under control. Felt like there wasn't enough oxygen in this small room. He was sure the walls were closer than they had been when he and Doug entered. It took him a moment to realise he could calm himself with Biomancy, though the actual process was a little tricky, lasting several seconds until he'd managed to command his lungs to stop this ridiculous reaction. That just left his heart pounding, his mouth dry, his eyes stinging. Fuck.

"The girl," he continued. His voice sounded hollow even to his own ears. Was there a way he could fix that? Before he could come up with a solution though, he found his lips still moving, words spilling out. "Her name was Claire. Her dad died first. From his wounds. Curtis, was his name. I said that already didn't I? Whatever. The girl. Claire. Couldn't have been older than ten or so. Sick. Cancer of some kind, can't remember what type. You lose your system if you die and get revived, by the way. So she was just a normal kid. Well, not normal. Illness had made her frail. Had to have an IV drip for medicine of some kind. She—"

He didn't so much trail off this time as run head first into a wall, stopping dead even though there'd been no actual interruption.

"She asked me… she asked me to let her go." The boastful tone faltered, a crack in the facade. His voice choked on the memory. He saw her face, the way her eyes had fluttered shut. The small, relieved smile on her lips. He finished in a voice barely louder than a whisper, "She said that it was better this way. That she'd see her parents again soon."

Doug's hand landed on his shoulder, a solid, grounding weight. The old man's eyes were full of a sympathy so profound it was almost painful to look at. He said nothing. He didn't need to.

John found he couldn't speak anymore. The words were trapped in his throat, choked by the memory of that final, peaceful sigh. His eyes still stung, hot and sharp, but he refused to let the tears fall. With a surge of will, he commanded his Biomancy to constrict his tear ducts, to cool the burning pressure behind his eyes until it was nothing but a dull ache. A hundred other different physiological reactions kept knawing away at his psyche, but he left them, for now. As long as no tears fell, he could hold it together. He had to.

They stood there for a long time in the silence of the ruined community centre, the old man's hand on the young man's shoulder. Two unwilling warriors holding a private, unspoken funeral in the wreckage of a dying world.

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