The Buggy roars as it finally crests the final stretch of the forest, passing through the tightly knit trees and back into more open roads. It had been an extra day of travel since their rest by the bonfire, chatter still wafting through the air like singing songbirds in the morning. The mood is light, an underlying joy that makes the time soar by faster than ever. It feels unfair to Liv how the good moments fly by so fast, but she’d rather that than have a slow, awkward trip.

  In the distance, the group can see the familiar signs of civilization. Asphalt roads are lad down, torn up like shredded paper, festooned about the surrounding grass. The road leads into an abandoned suburb, surrounded by spikes barriers hastily put together with surrounding logs and twine, sharpened to a wicked point. Liv looks to Donovan, his response being a simple shrug as he stops the car just shy of the barricades, the group sliding out to approach further.

  The suburb itself is small in stature, dilapidated homes lined in quaint rows, each renovated as well as can be given the state of the world. Despite the strange undead life in the small suburb, it leans toward a more deathly atmosphere, a quiet hanging over like a specter. Aside from the crunching of her group's feet against the ragged asphalt, no other sound seems to be present..

  Donovan whistles, his hands falling into his pockets as he observes, stopping just outside the town's boundaries, his eyes examining every detail like a stalking hawk. “Sheesh, talk about a ghost town.”

  “Are you positive this is the right place?” Charlotte questions, her own eyes scanning the city, a trace of concern coloring her voice. Her hand twitched to her blade, her fingers hovering just above.her hilt, her face knitted in concern.

  “Pretty sure…” Donovan mutters, pulling out a crumpled piece of yellowed paper. A small map of the wider United States with every major location one would need to know highlighted with red ink. After scanning it, he nods, shoving it back in his pocket. “Yup, positive.” His voice is sure, though undercut by the paranoia in his tone. “This is it.”

  Liv takes a single glance at it before looking at her nervous teammates, sparks of confusion firing through her neurons. What was wrong with it? It doesn’t look that bad. Sure, she didn’t have the greatest frame of reference for what a put together civilization looked like, but this wasn’t the worst she’s ever seen.

  "People usually send someone to greet us." Anthony starts, sweat beading down his face. Out of everyone, he looks the most most nervous, a middle ground between petrifaction and mental shutdown. His hand brushes against the camera on his neck, mentally preparing to snap a picture. "It might be..."

  Anthony stops, his mouth freezing as Liv passes by the barricades, her eyes scanning the houses.

  “What are you doing!?" Anthony shrieks, his hands bunching in his hair. "D-Don’t just walk into places w-when you aren’t sure w-whats in it!”

  Liv rolls her eyes, ignoring him the best she could. If he wanted to be scared, he could be scared. That was no skin off her back.

  Charlotte, with a nervous step, began to follow Liv, shattered asphalt crunching beneath her metal boots as she did. She resembled a puffed up cat ready to pounce at any moment.

  Donovan sighs as Anthony continues to stare on with wide, incredulous eyes, his hand coming to clap the larger man on the back. “Looks like we’re outvoted, big guy. Cmon, let's go.”

  Anthony turns his incredulous gaze to Donovan before relenting with a shaking sigh, following behind as Donovan jogs up to the rest of the group.

  The four walk through the winding streets, that specter of silence closing its grip around them further as the sun begins to wane to the horizon, its light growing dimmer and dimmer. A full hour of walking nets no progress, the empty streets not producing a single person to speak to– not a soul in sight. Conversation had completely died within their own group, Liv leading the way with an annoyed bravery spurned from a need to prove herself.

  The barricades seem to get thicker as they continue forward, the twine and wood newer seeming, each of a far worse quality. The twine hardly ties them together, more a loose collection of hardly sharpened twigs than an effective barrier. They seem to grow in numbers, every few steps producing more and more shottily crafted barricades. Easy enough to sidestep, not enough to stop any of them.

  At the heart of the town sits a crumbling mansion, windows hastily boarded up with poorly cut wood. It’s the most maintained out of them all, the yard's grass one of the only to be cut. It’s completely surrounded on all sides by the barricades, each held together with a small rope of twine. Liv simply kicks them aside, the wood skittering across the asphalt as she continues forward. So many, yet they’re all so… Worthless.

  She arrives at the door, Charlotte scooting next to her, giving three quick raps against the door.

  Silence.

  “Odd,” Charlotte mutters, her hand closing around her hilt, “perhaps it's truly abandoned.”

  “They probably got wiped out. Just another Phenomenon town.” Anthony pipes up just behind them, his eyes darting around the place like a hawk. “Hellfire m-must’ve pushed it back. My first mission was like that too.”

  “Jesus,” Donovan proclaims, his voice filled with an underlying revulsion, “what about the priority list? Don’t they have one of those things?”

  “W-well they do,” He says, his voice adopting a more worried cadence, “b-but it doesn’t really work like that. P-people with more money just p-pay to get higher on the list so they, uhm… Don’t have to… Wait?” He says, pausing as his eyes flit around, gauging their reactions. Donovan looks disgusted, his mouth hung open in abject horror. Charlotte looks unsurprised, her arms crossing as she leans against the wall, her frown growing further on her face. Liv looks on blankly, blinking slowly, a thought brewing in her head.

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  Did she have to wait like that?

  The question bubbles in the deepest reaches of her mind, a burning numbness circling in her body. Pieces began to click into place, a sickening churning in her stomach. Her legs began to jelly, her hands quivering like unstable poles in a thrashing sea. Did her ma die because whoever escaped didn't have enough money to cough up?

  Anthony gulps, regret already gnawing into his stomach. "W-Why are you all looking at me like that? I didn't make the system-!"

  WHAM

  Anthony stumbles back as Liv’s foot slams into the mansion's door, the hinges snapping off with the crack of her kick. The door skids across the dusty floors, stopping just shy of the farthest wall. Liv lets out a ragged breath she didn’t know she was holding, wiping her mouth as she steps in, trying to ignore the shaking of her unsteady body. It was in the past, it didn’t matter.

  It didn’t matter…

  So why did she feel this way?

  Charlotte can only give a sad shake of her head, a small hint of disgust creeping up on her face as she follows. Donovan shoots a glance to Anthony, his expression softening as he looks at the grief on the large man's expression. He slowly reaches a hand out, gripping his distraught teammate's shoulder. He gives no more comfort, continuing in, Anthony following just behind.

  To say the interior was unkempt would be an insult to the word unkempt. Photos lay shattered on the floor, glass scattered around like confetti on a child's birthday. The drywall is chipped, holes dotting every surface, darkness looming behind every single one. The wooden floors are covered in dust, most of the boards ripped up, the nails used to hold them down bent and forgotten. A strange smell wafts across, a smell like waste and old rot. Before them sits a large entry to the living room and a staircase. Liv takes one look at it before entering the living room. She seldom trusts herself to climb at the moment, her hands shoved in her pockets in a vain attempt to conceal the shaking.

  The living room is snapshot frozen in time. A shattered TV lies before its long stand, cabinets ransacked for everything they’re worth. The couches are ripped up, stained with liquids Liv doesn’t care to know. However, none of these are the things Liv notices. The first thing she sees is something in the corner, a rocking chair with a humanoid figure perched in its seat. In the barely lit room, she can make out some of the contours in his face. He looks haggard, somewhere in his forties to fifties with an unkempt beard on his face. She can tell that the smell of waste comes from him, his eyes glazed over, an empty look on his face. If not for the rise and fall of his chest, she would’ve thought him a corpse, especially given his missing left arm.

  Liv rushes over, trying to look him in the eye, concern bubbling up in her chest. She brushes his shoulders off, trying to get him to some semblance of consciousness.

  Slowly, he turns his head to her, his mouth hung open in a perpetual emptiness.

  Charlotte and Donovan are next to her in an instant, Anthony just a step away. Donovan swears, looking the man up and down.

  “You look like hell man,” he starts, walking to the other side of the chair, “but we’re here, sir. We’re gonna get you some help.”

  The man doesn’t turn his head to look, his eyes still locked on Liv. Liv looked down at him, a healthy dose of worry knitted in her expression. His mouth moves in empty words, trying to speak, to say something.

  “What in the hell happened to ‘em?” Liv says, looking at her team. Charlotte shrugs, and Donovan seems just as clueless.

  “U-Uhm,” Anthony pipes up, his eyes locked on the older man, “I-It’s probably a slew of things. PTSD and a few illnesses. Cholera and Typhoid w-would be my first guesses.”

  Liv whips her head to him. She had no clue what any of those words meant, but he seemed sure. “Can ya cure em?” She asks, a look of hope in her eyes.

  Anthony stares at her for a long second, a tapestry of emotion playing across his face. In the end, he shakes his head slowly, his hand coming to grip his caduceus, his knuckles whitening. “N-no, I can’t.”

  Liv curses under her breath, frustration mixing with the bubbling nerves in her heart. She wouldn’t accept this, couldn’t accept this, not when she could stand to do something.

  “Boss.” She calls out mentally, feeling the response from the mental link, “can ya do somethin’? Anythin’?”

  “It’s enough of an energy sink attempting to knit you together, and I have no connection with this man. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. He's just a human.” They state resolutely, sending Liv deeper into her pit of frustration. She just had to think. This problem wasn’t the end, it was just another hurdle. She’s gone over hurdles before, she had to. Just another hurdle, she can learn to fix this. If she just had a second to think.

  “I wasn’t…” The man rasps out, snapping Liv out of her racing mind. His voice was weak, as brittle as a dry bush. After a few breaths, he continues, his eyes looking elsewhere, somewhere that wasn’t material. “I wasn’t strong enough to save them…”

  “Who are you speaking of?” Charlotte questions, her hand coming to grasp his. “What has happened here?”

  The man still stares into nothing, his mouth moving with empty words. Eventually, he manages to speak once more, his voice breaking throughout the sentence. “It’s in… The forest… It’s evil… It took them all… Please, save them…”

  Liv looks to the man, then to her team, then back. A demon most likely, so a Strata must be nearby. She grits her teeth before nodding her head, cold determination blazing in her eyes. “We’re gon’ take care of it,” she says, giving his hand a squeeze, “and we’re gon’ bring some of ‘em back. I promise ya that.”

  The man looks at her, his eyes refocusing for a moment as a tear streaks down his cheek, responding with a nod of his own. She can swear she sees him mouth a “thank you” before he returns to his unresponsiveness. Liv takes a step back, a shaking breath escaping her mouth.

  “Aight… Guess we’re goin’ to the forest.” She says, looking out one of the boarded windows. She can see the trees on the horizon, the setting sun peeking through the densely packed woods. It wasn’t too far, but it wasn’t a comfortable walk away either. Luckily, they had a Buggy to use.

  The three follow Liv out of the house, Donovan letting out a long breath as they exit.

  “That promise is going to bite us in the ass.” He says simply, his hands falling to his pockets.

  “No it ain’t.” Liv says, her legs pumping hard with every speedy step. “We’re gon’ bring 'em all back.”

  “If a demon drags someone in the woods, they are dead.” He states. “No if, no but, no nothing. They are doomed.”

  “Then I reckon we better catch up.” She growls, bursting into a full blown sprint. Donovan prepares to call for her, but stops as Charlotte lays a hand on his shoulder, shaking her head to the negative.

  “Let her have this. Please.” She says, looking off to Liv’s escaping figure. “And if she is right and there is one person to save, we have an obligation to rush to their aid.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that the promise was cruel to him.” He says, jutting his thumb toward the mansion.

  “It doesn’t,” she starts, jumping from foot to foot as she, in a single motion, hefts Donovan and Anthony onto her shoulders, “but nobody can change the past now. We simply have to move forward.”

  With that, she bursts forward, quickly coming to run in stride with Liv. They barrel down the streets, asphalt crunching beneath them as the wind parts around them, their steps bringing them closer and closer to the buggy. It’s a single minded run with a single minded focus. They don’t notice it in the forest, shifting as it looks upon them, drool pooling in it’s maw, hungry for another meal. They were going to its territory too. Fresher was always better.