novelraw Chapter 77: Instinct
Chapter 77: Instinct
Stanley saw the corpse of the young man in front of him and immediately felt like throwing up. He had seen corpses before. He had seen one just minutes ago.
Even so, he had never felt like vomiting at the sight of any of them like he was right there.
The sight of the young man with the side of his head crushed in and unnatural fluids flowing out of that hole caused Stanley to feel incredibly queasy.
He closed his eyes, moving the man he was helping to the side so he didn’t see it as well. He took a moment to gather himself and took a deep breath before turning back around.
He looked carefully at who it was that had died, and Stanley recognized the person.
Marcus.
Marcus was from Stanley’s own batch. He was one of the people that never held back against Stanley during their fight, due to the fact that he considered Stanley a Dull.
That was months ago, and while his stance might have changed, Stanley hadn’t had much contact with him since the last time he fought him where he had lost handily.
To Stanley, he was one of the people he hated due to how he acted toward him. Even then, he did not deserve this.
He did not deserve to die in a fight between people where they had no enmity, to begin with. He did not deserve to have his head blown out, to die a meaningless death.
Stanley wanted to help his corpse but no, now was not the time. He pulled away from him, taking the quivering man who seemed to have noticed the corpse as well and had started freaking out.
He dragged him away from there, ignoring his constant murmurs while many thoughts played through his head.
Two men had died on either side and they were just the ones Stanley had seen. Why did they die? What was the purpose of their death?
Nothing.
They had died for nothing.
Stanley’s mind returned to the man he had captured earlier tonight, the man who had told him that they wanted to change the system.
’It’s because the mayor sent us that this is happening,’ Stanley thought. ’No, it’s because of the mayor and the boss of their group. Without either being problematic, these people would have never had the reason to be here today, to fight each other, to kill each other.’
The more he thought about it, it was those other two people’s fault rather than anyone else.
Stanley didn’t have to worry about the Mayor as he would be changed in the next 10 days. The boss, however, wasn’t sure if there would be any change there.
The people waiting for the people to be brought back looked confused when they saw Stanley bring back a Defender.
"Are you two hurt?" the old man Sam asked.
Stanley shook his head and looked around to make sure none of the people were listening in. "He accidentally killed someone and is in shock. I don’t think he can fight anymore," he whispered.
The old man took the sword Stanley handed over to him and looked at it. The sword had a layer of blood on the end, and the old man immediately hid it.
"Put him down. I will—"
The old man’s words stopped mid-sentence as an orange glow brightened the night. Stanley saw the sudden orange light and turned around to see a building burning in the distance.
"Oh no!" the old man said. "Quick, go save who you can. Someone, go make an announcement through the loudspeaker to bring anyone who can create water. We need to handle the fire before it propagates everywhere.
One man nodded and ran back toward the Defender’s headquarters to make the announcement. In the meantime, Stanley had already run back towards where the conflict was taking place.
Due to the fire, the conflict seemed to have halted a bit, with people running away instead of staying and fighting.
As he made his way back to the warehouse, a feeling emerged within him. Surprisingly, no panic came with it. It was almost like the feeling was trying to communicate to him something that wasn’t about danger. At least, no immediate danger.
He stopped just moments before he reached the warehouse, and instead turned his attention toward the fire that was on the other side of the warehouse.
He did not understand what was happening, but he decided to follow his instincts anyway. He ran past a few houses, arriving on the other side where the fire had spread to a few houses on the other side of the street.
’That house,’ Stanley thought, looking at the house where the fire was just starting to spread to.
There were people gathered outside, some screaming, some crying, as they had to watch their house get burned down.
A few Defenders had arrived, but they couldn’t do anything now that they had rescued the people. Some were helping but the fire was too large for them to do anything. They had to wait for those that could help with taking out the fire.
The loudspeaker was turned on and soon someone made an urgent request asking for people to come help with the fire. At any moment, people from all over the town would gather here to help.
Stanley thought of stopping too, but his instinct had told him to go to that one building that was starting to set on fire.
He moved, even when a Defender told him there were already Defenders that had gone inside. He did not listen to the man.
He walked in and saw the orange glow of the fire that saw starting to catch onto the roof.
He ran up the stairs and arrived in front of a door beyond which he saw someone.
It was George.
He was about to call out to him when he saw something else, something in front of George.
Beyond a barrier, next to the burning wall was his brother, Bradley.