Doug Blaine had been in more than his fair share of grim, hopeless places. He'd seen the inside of a holding cell in Manchester in the sixties, a place that smelled of stale piss and desperation. He'd stood in the sterile, fluorescent-lit waiting room of a cancer ward, watching the life drain from his Mabel, a memory that had scraped his soul raw and left a permanent scar. He'd even spent the last few years of his life in a retirement home that had all the warmth and charm of a morgue.

But this was something else. This was a new category of grim.

The air in the portal world supermarket was a physical presence, a humid weight comparable to a sauna without the heat. Every shuffle of their feet on the blood-slicked linoleum gave an obscene squelch. The constant, high-frequency hum from the overhead lights drilled into the base of his skull, a sound like a fly trapped in a jar, slowly going mad.

The place was a monument to creative sadism, and Doug found a familiar anger settling deep in his bones. It was the same anger he'd felt watching some smirking promoter fix a fight, or a landlord evict a family in the dead of winter. The anger of seeing a system that was rigged, cruel, and utterly without a shred of decency.

He watched the kids as they picked their way down the first aisle. They weren't kids, not really. All of them were young adults, but to a man his age, anyone under forty was a bloody kid.

They were his kids, now. A responsibility he hadn't asked for but couldn't shrug off. His younger self would have scoffed, would have seen them as either tools or liabilities. But younger Doug was a ghost, a hateful echo he was now forced to perform for points, and he'd already found himself growing weary of it, frequently failing to remember to bother.

The real Doug, the one Mabel had salvaged from the wreckage of his own youth, just felt the familiar, heavy weight of duty.

He felt a particular pang of guilt watching them. It was his fault they were in Watford, his fault they'd been ambushed, his fault they were now wading through this abattoir disguised as a Sainsbury's.

He'd known it was a risk. He'd known what kind of place this town had become. But he'd also known, with a certainty that went deeper than logic, that leaving those portals active, letting that human-versus-human death game fester, was a cancer that had to be cut out. It was the right thing to do, Mabel, he thought, the silent conversation with his late wife a constant presence beneath the surface of his thoughts. But doing the right thing often leaves a mess for others to clean up, doesn't it?

His gaze settled on John. The lad was at the point of their formation, moving with a coiled, predatory grace that was deeply unsettling in one so young. The kid was a walking contradiction. All that power, that casual, almost contemptuous competence, wrapped around a core of social anxiety so profound it was practically a physical force field.

Doug had seen it in the way John's shoulders tensed when someone spoke to him unexpectedly, the way his eyes never quite met anyone's unless he was making a point, the way he used those ridiculous sunglasses as a shield. The boy was putting on a performance, just like Doug was. A different play, a different stage, but the same desperate act.

That was why he'd pulled Lily aside, back at the community centre, while John was off ostensibly 'sleeping', but probably actually communing with his system.

They had been in that little dance studio. Lily had been staring out the window, her posture a study in coiled tension.

"He's a lonely lad," Doug had said, his voice softer than the gruff persona he usually wore.

Lily had turned, her green eyes wary under the rim of her helmet. "He's a powerhouse."

"That he is," Doug had agreed, his voice a low rumble. "But he's also building a wall around himself so high he'll need a bloody Sherpa to get over it. He's trying to be a one-man army, and that's a good way to end up as a one-man corpse." He sighed, feeling heavy with the weight of years. His body was fitter than it had been in decades, but Doug only felt older. "It's his System, isn't it? It's got him on a leash, same as the rest of us."

Lily's gaze sharpened. "I guess we're in agreement that 'saving people' was a load of bull. Not that I blame him for lying."

Doug had nodded. "You and I, we've seen the way he gets his points, I think. He says something arrogant, takes charge, goes off on his own."

Lily was quiet for a long moment, her eyes distant as she replayed moments in her head. "The lone wolf," she had murmured, finally. "The badass who doesn't need anyone."

"Exactly," Doug had confirmed. "The System wants me to be the man I spent fifty years trying to forget. A man my Mabel would have hated." The admission felt raw, like peeling a scab off an old wound. "I look at that boy, and I see the same trap. He's not a natural-born leader, lass. He's a scared kid with too much power, and his System is telling him the only way to survive is to be an island. To be hard. To be alone."

Lily's expression had softened with a dawning, somber understanding. "Every time I line up a shot, it's like my own hands aren't mine. There's this… cold certainty. It wants me to be a weapon. Just a tool that fires projectiles perfectly. It doesn't care if my hands are shaking."

"We're all puppets, and the Systems are pulling the strings," Doug had said, his voice gentle. "The trick is learning to dance our own way while the strings are still attached." He had met her gaze, his old eyes serious. "That's what we have to do for John. We have to show him he can come closer, that he can lean on us, without jeopardizing his points. We have to show him we see the puppet show for what it is, and we don't judge him for it."

"But I'm not sure he'll interpret it the right way if it comes from me," Doug had continued. "He sees me as a rival, some pissing contest his system has cooked up. Another alpha male to butt heads with. Not that I helped that impression." A faint, mirthless smile had touched his lips. "But you don't have that baggage."

"What are you asking me to do, Doug?" she had asked, her voice losing its brief flippancy.

"Be his anchor, lass. Find a crack in the armour. Talk to him when the fighting's done. Remind him he's part of a team, not just its bloody vanguard. If he thinks we understand the game he's being forced to play, maybe he'll stop trying so damn hard to play it alone. Or he's going to drift right off into a place none of us can reach."

Looking at them now, it seemed his little plan was working so far, at least partially. John still kept his distance, but he was no longer standing completely apart. He was listening, contributing. A small victory, but in this world, Doug would take what he could get.

The bloody drag marks they'd been following came to an end in the middle of aisle six, which the flickering sign above declared was for 'Internal Organs & Offal'. Here, the two parallel smears diverged, blooming into a Rorschach test of dried gore. In the centre of the mess, almost like a deliberate art installation, were a set of bloody footprints. Bare feet. A child's feet, by the size of them, leading away from the chaotic stain and heading deeper into the aisle.

"What the fuck is that?" Chester's choked whisper came from the back of the group.

The lights above them chose that moment to flicker violently, plunging them into a strobing, disorienting twilight. For a split second, the footprints seemed to glow with a faint, malevolent light of their own. The tannoy crackled, and a child's laughter, distorted and demonic, echoed through the cavernous space above before being cut off by a burst of static.

Doug grimaced. This place was different from the blues. The blue portals were a straightforward slaughter, for the most part. The bus depot, the school, the graveyard, and the warehouse had all been brutal, yes, but relatively simple, all things considered. This one added a psychological aspect to the gauntlet.

"This place," Jade muttered, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. She was staring at the footprints, her knuckles white on the hilt of her machete. "It's meant to scare us. To put us on edge."

"Well, it's fucking working," Chester whimpered.

Doug moved forward, placing himself between the group and the unsettling sight. "Stay sharp," he rumbled, forcing the old Thug's confidence into his voice. "It's just another one of their stupid games. We play along, we kill what's at the end of it, and we move on." He glanced back at John. "Lead the way, kid."

John gave a curt nod, his eyes unreadable behind his sunglasses, and started forward, following the bloody trail. The footprints led them around a corner, past a display of shrink-wrapped hearts arranged in a pyramid, and into the path of another one of the portal's grotesque employees.

It stood side on to them, just like the first one, methodically stocking a shelf with what looked like severed hands. It wore the same stained orange uniform, the same parody of a human form. For a moment, it was a perfect replica of their first encounter.

Then Jade moved.

She didn't wait for John's signal. She didn't wait for a plan, simply surged forward without a word. John, who had been tensing to move, actually took a half-step back in surprise. Doug just watched, a chilly sense of dread creeping up his spine.

"Leave the next one for me," Jade had said. And now, she was claiming her due.

She didn't go for a quick kill. She circled the creature, her movements silent and fluid, a predator stalking its prey. The monster, oblivious, continued its gruesome work, slapping another hand onto the shelf with a wet smack. Jade's first strike was a low, sweeping cut with her machete. The golden projection of her blade sliced through the monster's ankles, severing tendons.

The creature let out a gurgling shriek as its legs gave out, collapsing to the floor in a heap. The human disguise tore at the joints, revealing the writhing carapace of what he could only describe as a giant green aphid with too many body segments. It tried to drag itself away, its many thin legs scrabbling for purchase on the bloody floor, but it was too slow.

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Jade stood over it, her face shadowed within her helmet. The haunted, broken look was gone, replaced by something far more concerning. There was a darkness in her eyes that Doug recognised, a darkness he'd seen in the mirror a long, long time ago. It was the look of someone who had decided that the only answer to pain was to inflict more of it.

She didn't use her blade again. She reached out with her left hand, and the ghostly red projection of her Caustic Hand flickered into existence. It clamped down on the monster's main thorax, and the creature writhed, hateful insectoid eyes widening. The smell of burning chitin and cooked flesh filled the air, acrid and sickening. The monster thrashed, its limbs flailing wildly, but the ghostly hand held it fast.

Doug watched, his own hands clenched into fists, his old heart a heavy, aching drum in his chest. This isn't right, Mabel, he thought. This isn't her. He saw his younger self in her actions. The needless cruelty. The drawing out of suffering for the sheer, ugly satisfaction of it, tactical advantages be damned. The System was rewarding her for this, he had no doubt. It was feeding the monster inside her, and she was letting it feast because that was easier than letting herself hurt.

The monster's chittering faded to a wet gurgle as its insides boiled. Jade just watched, her expression unchanging. When the chittering finally stopped, she released her grip. The red hand dissipated, leaving behind a smoking, melted ruin of a creature. But it wasn't dead. A few of its legs still twitched feebly.

She raised her machete. The golden blade flared to life. She brought it down in a series of short, brutal chops. She hacked and hacked, dismembering the twitching corpse with a methodical, dispassionate fury until there was nothing left but a pile of twitching, severed insect parts.

Finally, she stopped. She stood there, breathing heavily. The golden blade faded. The monster's remains began to shimmer, then dissolve as they always did. The process was slower this time, as if the portal itself was reluctant to erase the evidence of such brutality.

Jade didn't move. She just stared at the spot where the monster had been, watching the black ichor and sizzling parts fade away until only a fresh, dark stain on the linoleum remained. Eventually, only a tiny green pellet remained. She watched that too, her entire body trembling.

Doug knew what he had to do. He stepped forward, his own movements feeling slow, heavy, weighed with every year his body had been subjected too. The others stayed back, their faces a mixture of shock. He reached out, his hand moving to rest on her shoulder, a simple, grounding touch.

The moment his fingers made contact with the cold metal of her pauldron, she flinched away as if she'd been burned. Her head snapped around, and for a split second, the void in her eyes was fixed on him. It was like looking into the eyes of a cornered, wounded animal, one that no longer knew the difference between a threat and a helping hand.

Then, the moment passed. The void receded, replaced by the familiar, haunted look. She said nothing. She didn't even seem to register his presence anymore. She just turned, her back to all of them, and started walking deeper into the aisle, following the bloody footprints of the child, alone.

He got the feeling, somehow, that the kill hadn't been as cathartic as Jade had been hoping. He couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing.

Doug let his hand fall to his side, a heavy feeling settling in his stomach. He'd seen men break before. He'd broken a few himself, back in the day. But this was different. The system was reforging her in a crucible of pain and violence, and he was terrified of what was going to emerge from the flames.

The silence that followed was burdened with words no one wanted to say, broken only by the incessant hum of the lights and the distant, wet dripping of some unknown fluid. Jade was already ten yards ahead, a solitary figure disappearing into the flickering gloom. Behind him, he could feel Chester's anxiety radiating in waves, and Lily's tense, worried stillness. And John… John was tensing up, preparing to move. Doug knew the lad's pattern. He'd take this fragmentation as his cue to scout ahead, to put distance between himself and the group's uncomfortable emotional turmoil. A one-man army again.

Not this time.

"Hold up," Doug's voice was a low growl that cut through the tension. It was the Thug's voice, the one that had broken up bar fights and started just as many.

John, who had just begun to step forward, froze. He half-turned, his posture radiating impatience. "We need to keep moving."

"We move together," Doug stated, his gaze hard. He jabbed a thick finger towards Jade's retreating back. "And that includes her. We're a team, not five people walking in the same direction. We got sloppy back at the school. Complacent. And we almost paid dearly for it. Not happening again."

He started walking, his pace deliberate, closing the distance to Jade. He didn't try to talk to her, not yet. He just fell into step a few feet behind and to her side, a silent, implacable presence. He was a sheepdog, and his flock was scattering. He had to herd them. The others followed, then rearranged themselves without a word.

They found the next batch of monsters in the 'FRESH KILLS' aisle, though the only produce on display were things that looked suspiciously like human spines propped up like they were meant to be bunches of bananas. The bloody footprints they had been following came to an end here, splitting off into four distinct trails.

At the end of each bloody path stood another supermarket employee surrounding a large, rattling trolley with a jerky, unnatural gait. The trolley wasn't filled with groceries, of course. Instead, it was heaped high with a glistening, steaming assortment of organs and severed limbs. All of them notably small.

As the group watched, one of the figures turned its head with a sharp crack of vertebrae. Its dead, vacant eyes fixed on them, and a low, chittering hiss escaped its too-wide mouth as the human disguise began to tear, revealing the sickly, gangrenous green chitin beneath.

John moved to engage, a black blade appearing in one hand and a reaper's scythe in the other. He didn't shout a plan or wait for backup; he just launched himself forward, the lone wolf falling back into his old, destructive habits.

But this time was different. They weren't going to let him do this alone.

Doug moved, calling over his shoulder, "As we discussed before!"

The orders were barked out with the authority of a man used to being obeyed in moments of violence. There was no time to argue. The green monsters were on them, their mandibles clicking, letting out a chorus of furious, scraping hisses.

As one, they moved with him. John shot forward towards the monster on the far right, and the rest of them filled the gaps around him, a wave of support cresting behind his initial charge. John's blade lashed out with impossible speed, lopping his target's head off its shoulders before it could even think about reacting.

On the left, Lily's eyes glowed. Hefting her crossbow, she fired what had to be a dozen bolts in a single burst, and somehow each one struck different pressure points on the monster even though to Doug's eye it didn't look like she'd adjusted her arm at all. With how fast they moved and the way they glowed, they appeared more like tracer rounds from a rifle than crossbow bolts. The monster crumpled.

In the centre, Jade met her target head-on. Her machete was a blur. At least this time she was throwing out a series of practiced, controlled strikes, not the wild, hacking rage from before. She was still brutal, each blow aimed to cripple, to maim, but there was a focus to it now, a tactical edge.

Doug stepped forward, bringing his own power to bear. He brought his fists up, the ghostly image of his old knuckle-dusters forming over his hands. The fourth monster moved forward to back up its comrade against Jade, and Doug met it, his blow landing squarely on its thorax. The impact sent a shudder up his arm, a reminder of his own aged bones, but the creature reeled back, its chitinous plating cracking under the force.

Chester, from behind the relative safety of Doug's back, yelped, "Got it!" before a flash of pink light burst out. The monster's mess of eyes bulged like inflating balloons. The creature chittered and clicked as it began clawing at its own face, blinded. Doug took advantage of the distraction, racing forward and throwing all his weight into a haymaker that turned the monster's head and much of its upper body into a fine mist. The rest of it collapsed to the ground.

Working together, it was almost laughably easy.

The fight was over in less than five seconds. Four tougher enemies, dispatched with an efficiency that bordered on contemptuous.

"See?" Doug said, his voice a low rumble in the sudden quiet. He looked around at his comrades, his gaze lingering on each one. "That's how it's done."

No one argued. The proof was in the four rapidly dissolving corpses staining the floor, which John moved to investigate, picking up a bunch of small items which promptly vanished, presumably into his Inventory.

As they moved on, Doug fell back into his thoughts, the adrenaline of the fight fading and leaving behind the familiar, weary ache. He'd done the right thing, forcing them to work together, bringing John into their teamwork. But it was a temporary fix, a bandage on a series of deep, festering wounds.

I have to make it right, Mabel, he thought. I have to do right by them. Not for points. Not for the System. For them.

He looked at each of them in turn, really looked at them.

John, with his forced bravado and his sunglasses worn indoors like a second-rate movie star. The kid was terrified. All the trash-talk and the lone-wolf act was a wall built of pure, unadulterated fear. Helping him wasn't about teaching him to fight. It was about teaching him he didn't have to fight everyone, all the time. He needed to be trusted with something other than violence. He needed to see that his worth wasn't measured in whatever points his system was really assigning him. And perhaps he needed some friends.

And Jade. Sweet Christ, Jade. Her pain was a raw, open thing. The accidental kill she'd committed had hollowed her out, and the System was gleefully pouring poison into the void. She was turning her grief into rage because rage was an easier burden to carry. It was active, it was hot, it gave her something to do. But it was burning her up from the inside.

Doug had walked that path. He knew where it led: to a cold, empty room with nothing but ghosts for company. He couldn't talk her out of it. You couldn't reason a person out of a position they hadn't reasoned themselves into.

No, he had to show her. He had to be a different kind of strength. A quiet, steady presence that didn't demand anything of her, that just… was. A rock in the storm. Maybe, eventually, she'd see it was better to anchor to a rock than to become the storm yourself.

Then there was Chester. The lad's anxiety was so thick you could cut it with a knife. He lived in a state of perpetual, gut-wrenching terror. Yet here he was. He hadn't run. He hadn't broken. He'd even managed to contribute in that last fight. The kid had a spine buried under all that panic, he just needed a chance to see it for himself. He didn't need coddling. He needed confidence.

Doug made a mental note to put Chester in charge of something small, something manageable. Keeping watch, maybe, like he had with Jade. Something to give him a sense of purpose, of control. Small victories, that's what the lad needed. A foundation to build on.

Finally, Lily. She was the strong one, relatively speaking. The responsible one. And that was its own kind of prison.

But Doug saw the strain in the set of her shoulders, the exhaustion in her eyes when she thought no one was looking. He'd heard her talking in her sleep once, back at the community centre. He didn't recognise most of the names, but "mom" and "pops" gave enough context, especially considering the agony with which they were spoken.

The weight of a continent, of an ocean, pressed down on her. She was fighting a war here, while her heart was thousands of miles away.

What could he do for her? He couldn't get her home. But he could listen. He could remind her that she wasn't alone, that she didn't have to carry the entire world on her shoulders. He could be a father figure, or a grandfather figure, in a world where everyone had lost theirs.

It was a hell of a job for an old man who was just trying to atone for a lifetime of mistakes.

But as he looked at the four young, broken people walking ahead of him through a nightmare supermarket, Doug felt a flicker of something he hadn't felt in a long, long time. Not purpose, exactly. That was too grand a word. It was simpler than that.

It was the feeling of being needed. And for now, that was enough.

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