1 Tragedy

It was a cold, rainy night. A perfect time for my lovely wife, Yarah and our newborn child to go to bed.

As the local town's peacekeeper, I am responsible for reviewing the townhall's reports and citizen-requested commissions. I went to my table and placed the records one by one as my love carried our newborn upstairs.

While doing my work, I drank a sip of freshly brewed coffee.

It was just like any other night until I heard a loud crash outside.

I peered through the window and at first thought it was nothing more than thunder, but I was mistaken. On the other side of our gate, I noticed a silhouette of a group of men in large trench coats. I didn't want to put my family in danger, so I paused my work, went upstairs, grabbed my coat and gun, told my wife what was going on, and went out in the rain to talk to the bizarre-looking men.

As I walked out the door, the five men stared at me blankly. At this point, I sensed that something bad was about to happen, so I quietly prepared my weapon under my coat and politely asked, "Good evening, how can I assist you?"

They then inquired as to whether I was related to the mayor of the town.

"In fact, the person you're talking to right now is the peacekeeper," I replied.

They exchanged nods as a sign of agreement.

One of them began to draw their gun, and shots were fired; fortunately, I was able to react quickly and sent a gunshot after them. I hit the two of them and rushed back into the house.

I haven't told my wife yet what happened. I wore my cloak over my coat and tucked my rifle behind my back. I then put my young one in a thick cloth for protection, grabbed my wife by the arm, and dashed out the back door.

Because of the heavy rain, the neighbors didn't seem to notice the gunshots and mistook them for thunder, so I couldn't get any help from them that night. One of the men noticed us running down the road and alerted the other group of men dressed similarly.

My horse, Lenard, is still a few meters away in the stable. I needed to get my family to safety as soon as possible. As we were desperately running away, shots were fired at us, one of which struck my right leg. I almost fell to my knees, but luckily, Yarah grabbed me by the shoulders. We arrived at the stable safe.

While I was preparing the carriage for my family to ride to the nearest town, the men did not appear for a moment. I also loaded my weapon before leaving.

We then proceeded to the main road, where the true tragedy began.

Vehicles were parked, according to my knowledge, each of them has a capacity of five people, and there were approximately six of those vehicles parked, some of which were lit with men observing us from a distance. I ignored them and continued on our journey.

We're out of town in a matter of minutes. I left without informing my neighbors or the mayor. I couldn't see where we were going because it was dark and I was trembling. My wife was crying as she hugged our child. I bit my lower lip and concentrated on the pitch-black road.

As we approached a new location, the rain stopped. We arrived at the desert that separates our town from the neighboring town. It's a vast desert that gets extremely hot at noon.

I felt a glimmer of hope that we were now safe, and I smiled back at my wife, assuring her that everything would be fine.

But then Lenard collapsed to the ground.

I know he's dead because of the way he collapsed.

I questioned myself; "Something hit him... in the middle of the desert?"

My wife and I were stunned and unable to speak.

We exchanged glances between the only two lamps that were turned on.

I jumped down to check on Lenard's injuries. I discovered one hole that appeared to be caused by a rifle bullet. But where did it come from exactly? I can't see anything far away. I grabbed my rifle and desperately tried to use the rusted iron sights. I didn't see anything, but I did hear footsteps in the sand. It was around the same time that my wife screamed, so I turned around to check on her, but instead saw a man wearing the same clothing I had seen earlier smacked me with the rifle's stock, and my vision slowly faded away.