Sang growled and shoved the point of her sword against his throat hard. The rest of the guards were now backing up to avoid seeing their leader killed.
“He’s tensing up,” Van warned. He pressed his body down harder against Zac’s arms.
“I must say, at the end of the day, I really, truly admire you, Sang,” Zac chuckled. “You understand how it works. For all to live, a few must die. And if the only thing stopping my guards from murdering you is my life… how much more value would I have in death?” He took a deep breath and screamed, “For Draco!” as he thrust his neck upwards hard, pushing his own throat into the blade. The word Suicide appeared over his head as blood rushed from his throat.
“Holy crap!” Van screamed as the man’s body went entirely limp.
“The general’s dead!” shouted one of the guards. “Kill them!”
“Get the data stick!” Sang yelled as she leapt up to prepare to fight against the oncoming horde. Van fumbled around in the man’s pockets for a few seconds before he pulled it out.
“I’ve got it! Let’s get out of here!” Van shouted as he took off toward the trees. Sang followed after him. The soldiers were in hot pursuit, barely a few feet behind them as they ran through the lonely and dark forest.
“Come on, come on!” Sang wheezed as she looked at her stamina bar—it was draining rapidly. It was depleting a lot faster in this area than it had in the rest of the world.
“This way!” Van said as he pointed to a large thicket. The bushes were dense enough to conceal movement. Fortunately, they were both lightly armored, giving them a mobility advantage against their pursuers. Van pushed his way into the thicket and threw himself on the ground. Sang followed after him. The words Concealed 75% hovered above both of their heads.
“Crap, we lost them!” shouted one of the Kyrissians.
“Calm down, we’ll find them,” replied another. This one sounded more firm, and in charge. He was probably Zac’s second in command.
“These woods are huge,” another said. “What’s the plan?”
“Call in for reinforcements,” the second in command said. “Spread out and have forces guarding the exits. And go cut that Kenwar fellow down. He’s a tracker. Offer him his life in exchange for tracking those two. We can’t let them leave the forest alive.”
“Sir… when you say alive, what do you mean? Someone said that—”
The speaking guard was cut off by this new leader. “You are not here to ask questions! Fen, you are so close to going pro, do not make me report you to Draco for being a bad team player!”
“No, no, sir!” Fen replied. “I’ll go get the tracker right away—sorry, sir!”
Sang held her breath as she noticed a pair of boots walking right up to the thicket.
“Listen up!” the leader shouted. “I know you’re out here somewhere!” His voice carried across the forest, echoing throughout. “You’re in a predicament that you probably know won’t end well. We are combing this forest searching for you. I know you’re in hiding. If you surrender the data stick, throw it out from wherever you are, and we will not search for you. You will survive. If we catch you before you surrender, however, we will kill you both. We have eyes and ears all over this forest. We will find you.”
Sang glanced over at Van, whose face was white as a ghost. She could see the sheer terror in his eyes as he lay perfectly still. The man’s threats weren’t that scary, she thought. Why was Van so worried?
“Nothing?” the man shouted as he slowly walked away from the shrubbery. “Very well! When you are caught, we will torture you first, and then we will kill you!” A few minutes passed before his footsteps and empty threats vanished.
“Whew,” Sang gasped. “That was way too close for my comfort. Good thinking, Van.”
Van said nothing in return. He slowly shifted and crawled out of the thicket.
Sang climbed out after him and glanced at the ground. There were footprints of big, heavy looking boots everywhere. She counted out there were at least 12 guards who had passed through this area.
“Okay, we need to keep moving,” Sang said. “The longer we wait, the more guards we’re going to have to worry about.”
“I can’t believe you,” Van growled as they slowly walked through the thickets. “First, you order our friends to attack in an area where they could die for real… and then, then you attack an innocent player? That guard didn’t know what was going on! He thought he was just playing some kind of a game. You murdered someone, Sang.”
“Van, I’m not proud of what I did. I’m sorry. But there are things we have to consider here. We’re not just playing some kind of game, Van, and you know that. The world is at stake.”
“So? So what? Does that justify needlessly murdering the innocent?”
“Needlessly? Van, that man could have easily killed you. You’re a bard, remember?”
“Maybe I would rather have been killed than see some random kid who got this game for his birthday end up dead!” Van nearly shouted.
“Be quiet!” Sang hissed as she reached out to grab Van. He slapped her hand away from his shoulder.
“I can’t believe you. I really can’t,” he repeated. “I thought you were one of the good guys. I thought this whole operation was supposed to be… to be…”
“To be what, Van? Squeaky clean? Easy? Let me be really honest with you since this is the first time you’ve ever had to deal with an actual conflict like this. When there is war, people die. There is no getting around that. Good people, bad people, innocents, civilians—a lot of people die. Do the good guys deserve to die? No. Do the bad guys deserve to die? Well, they think they’re the good ones, so they would tell you no. Do the civilians deserve to die? Not at all. But guess what? In war, no one gets what they deserve. People die for no reason. I’m not trying to tell you that I did a good thing, Van, but… but I did the necessary thing.” Sang took a deep breath, trying to choke back tears. She felt a deep guilt gnawing away at her, but she couldn’t allow her emotions to take hold right now. She had to keep moving forward.
“The necessary thing? So, you mean you found a solution? Maybe a final solution?” Van shot back at her. “You’re no better than Draco if you think that you can just kill people because it’s part of the greater good.”
“We don’t have time to be fighting!” Sang said as she brushed past him and began walking toward a body of murky water. “We need to go.”
“I’m not over this,” Van growled as he followed after her. “And don’t think I’ll ever forget who you really are.”
“Do you want to know who I really am?” Sang asked as she looked for an alternate route around the water. It would take too long for them to make their way around the bog, and that would waste a lot of time. Still, she didn’t know what was in the water. She paused from her search to look back at Van. “I’m someone who got caught up in something way too big and way too terrifying to understand. Van, we’re not talking about winning for the USA, and we’re not talking about getting the CIA better funding for next year. The entire fate of mankind is resting on our backs! You can’t tell me you don’t feel that weight.”
“I feel it!” Van said as he stepped into the bog and began to wade through it. “I feel it so much that I feel like I’m going to pass out sometimes. But you know what’s kept me going? You. You had it together. You kept yourself focused on moving forward, and you didn’t let it crack you. I figured that, as long as you didn’t lose your mind, I wouldn’t either. Now... now I don’t know what I’m going to do. You cracked, Sang. You cracked and it cost someone innocent their life.”
Sang didn’t know what to say back to that. She had already felt awful enough for what she had done, and now she was having to deal with the additional stress of handling Van’s reaction. Was she too far gone at this point? Was what she’d done really unforgivable?