Aftermath

3 figures step out of an alley onto a street corner and rip off their balaclavas. "Hey Iota, I mean Josh, are you okay" Liz sheepishly asks me. I turn to look at her and with the most genuine smile I can muster I say "Yeah I'm all good, just a bit tired." I feel fine, but something inside me truly detests the fact that I have now killed 5 men with my own hands. "Liz, in truth. It hurts, I have killed 5 men with my own hands." "And I have just killed someone as well." My eyes widen as I have just realized that I was being incredibly selfish, I turn to my two friends.

"I-I'm sorry it must be hard for you guys." I stutter out. "look man, its fine none of our actions are worse than each other's" Nathan who is sitting with his back towards the wall of a building looks up at me and assures me. "Something I learned after thinking about it for a while is that the only thing, we can do is remember those who we've killed. Only then can we feel okay with what we did"

Liz looks me in the eyes and I can see her whole body go limp as I say this. I rush over to her to catch her before she hits the ground. She throws her arms around my neck and I can feel her begin to cry. "It's okay let it all out," I say while trying to comfort her. She must feel terrible, I can only imagine the emotions she must have suppressed as she begins to cry harder and harder.

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Still sitting on the empty street corner of a small back roads Liz snuggles into my arms and Nathan sits to my side. I look over to Nathan as if asking him what to do so he whispers "Let her sleep a bit longer, she cried her eyes out. Besides, I need a minute to gather my thoughts too." After a few minutes of this, I can feel the girl in my arms wake up and rub her eyes. She looks up and begins to flush red. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to fall asleep on you" She tries to explain while covering her face in embarrassment. "It's fine, I didn't mind at all. We need to get out of here. I need to get back home so I can take my meds." It's been plenty of time since I last took some oxycodone so I needed to get back home before I am unable to walk. We all begin to get up and head to my house. Looking at our clothes I realize that were covered in blood.

"Crap! Wait, guys. Stick to the darkness." I say while stepping into an alley "why?" they both question but follow my lead. "Take a look at your clothes" they both look down and realize the state they're in. They both seem flustered but I assured them that it would be fine as long as we stay away from the street lights. We quickly reached my house. It is early morning so as I neared, I looked for my mom's car. "She must have been called to the hospital for an emergency. Run to the house." After saying so I sprint over to the front door of my house, once inside I switch on the light before I begin to take my clothes off. Just as I was about to take off my pants, I realized there was a girl standing right there. "Go take a shower first. You can use some of my clothes." I gesture to Liz who was blushing profusely. She quickly runs up the stairs and into the bathroom.

"You can use the shower after her," I say to Nathan who by this point is laughing at what he just saw. After he stops laughing, he asks me "You sure?" I quickly assure him "yeah go ahead I need to throw your guys' clothes in the wash anyway. Before continuing to take off my clothes I check my skin for blood. Luckily only my face and forearms were hit so it wasn't as bad as my two friends who are covered in it. "My clothes bore the brunt of the blood but I'm still going to wait to take a shower."

After saying so I hear the shower turn on and go upstairs to grab a t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts that should fit Liz. After grabbing the clothes, I walk up to the door and knock, "I'm going to come in to leave you your clothes" I hear a sheepish voice coming from behind the door. "okay, it's unlocked." Stepping into the bathroom I get blasted by a cloud of steam before depositing the clothes and leaving.

After closing the door, I walk into my room and grab a couple of pills and head downstairs. I step into the kitchen to grab a water bottle and afterward, I walk over to where Nathan was browsing his phone and sit on the ground as to not get blood all over the couch. He notices me and sits down next to me. "I got a crap ton of money and some REP. I unlocked a section in the app called training, from what I was showed it's a shop similar to the gun store where you can buy muscle memory for certain things including certain complex exercises." Nathan says to me. I pull up my phone to check and sure enough, I see a new section unlocked. Without going any further into it I just check my rewards I got 6 [REP] and 4500 dollars. Alongside the rewards from the other mission I now have 9 rep and somewhere around 4800 dollars.

After seeing this I can't help but smile. After a bit of browsing through the shops and new unlocks I hear the bathroom door open, I look up the stairs and see a petite figure walking down the stairs. Nathan also sees this and stands up. He also enters the bathroom and a moment later I can hear the shower flip on. Liz walks over to me with a bunch of clothes in her hands, "Do you have a bag or something" she asks. I get up and grab a plastic bag from a cabinet in the kitchen and hand it to her, "Here, do you want me to wash those for you"

She shakes her head before turning and throwing herself onto the couch. I sit down next to her and flip through my phone for a while. After quite a long time I realize that there is silence in the room and she is staring off into the distance, "Are you okay you have been pretty spacy today" I look up from my phone and ask her. She slowly turns her head and locks eyes with me and with a quaint smile she says, "well I-I- "before she could finish what she was saying Nathan comes down the stairs with a towel wrapped around his waist. "Your clothes are in the dryer; they should be dry enough to wear." I say to Nathan, he nods and walks into the laundry room, I turn back to Liz, "Sorry, what were you saying" She shakes her head and says "It's nothing"

I decide not to probe any further, she will tell me if she wants too. In the meantime, I should get my shower. After walking up to the bathroom I step into the shower and switch it on. I let the warm water wash over my shoulders and think about all of the things that have happened to me in the past week.

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With a creak of the shower knob the water abruptly stops flowing from the nozzle and I step out and dry myself. After wrapping a towel around myself I look over to my dirty clothes and scoop them up. I step out of the shower and walk into my room, after putting on fresh clothes I take the bloody ones I was wearing and throw them into the washer. I step into the living room and see my friends asleep on opposite sides of the big couch I have in my living room.

After turning off the living room light I swiftly walk up the stairs.