Chapter 83: The Metropolis (10)

We kept moving forward, clearing the perimeter and shooting the grapple gun to connect to the other building. We continued like this, hour after hour, getting closer and closer to our main objective.

However, as time passed by, night approached, and we had no choice but to camp on the building for the night.

The cityscape below, now cloaked in darkness, became a maze of shadows and uncertainties.

We were weary from the day's journey, and we began to unfold sleeping bags and arrange our meager supplies.

A soft glow emanated from battery-powered lanterns, casting a dim and flickering light across the makeshift camp. The distant moans of the undead echoed through the empty streets below, a haunting reminder of the world we inhabited.

As we settled in for the night, a subtle camaraderie emerged amidst the quiet tension. Eyes scanned the surroundings, hands gripped weapons, and a collective understanding pervaded the group — the night was a time of heightened vulnerability.

Above, the stars twinkled in the vast expanse, indifferent to the struggles below. The rooftop camp, a small island of humanity in a sea of darkness, remained vigilant against the encroaching threat that the night might bring. In the hushed silence, we found solace in the shared purpose of survival as we braced for whatever challenges the darkened city might hold.

In the dawn, I woke up earlier than expected. I got out of my sleeping bag and looked around. The others were really keeping an eye on the perimeter.

"Oh? You woke up too early. You should sleep more," one of them said.

"It's fine. It's not like I can sleep anyway," I replied.

He just nodded and continued his watch. It looked like the others were sleeping now. Unlike when we were traveling, they knew how to rest.

I walked around and scouted the area. It was dark and eerily quiet, with the distant moans from the ground. From here, we could see the hospital building, and to our luck, the helicopter was there.

We only needed to go there and get it, after we took the A.I. Souta was talking about. That building was the third building from here, and it was just about two buildings away from the hospital.

I hoped things would go smoothly, but then I saw something in the dark. There were lots of dark figures in the other building next to us. Who were they? I flashed my light at them and saw that they were people!

"Shit! Do it now!" One of them shouted, and then fired a grapple gun. "What?" They were planning to get here? Those bastards! I quickly aimed my rifle at them, but Roger and the others were already shooting at them.

They moved fast! Too damn fast! "Retreat! Retreat! They have guns!" It looked like the others didn't have any guns. That was good.

"Hey, are you really going to attack them?" I asked Roger, while seeing them prepare their zip line trolley. "They attacked us first. We need to kill them all before they gather more people. They might cause a scene and attract zombies. And besides, we're going to that building anyway," he said, trying to be logical.

I had no choice. He had a point. I could only follow his order. With that, we went to the other building, using the ropes those guys were about to use to come here.

We quickly got to their building, with good coordination. We managed to break through their door, but we didn't get in. Instead, Roger threw a sleeping gas inside.

"Put your mask on," he ordered, and we complied. All of the people in the building were panicking because of the gas. And in just three minutes, they all fell asleep. "Check every floor and room. Make sure to check it carefully," Roger ordered, and we went in.

We checked every room, and the others checked the other floors. With every room secured, we dragged the bodies to one place.

"You bastards!" It looked like there were people on the other floors. I could only pity them. It seemed that Roger didn't want to leave them alive.

With our team, we quickly captured them all. The sun rose, and we gathered all of them in one place. "Hey, look at these," one of them said. I took a look. It was inside one of the rooms on the lower floor.

The room was filled with women. They were all undressed, and they had bruises all over their bodies. They had been brutally sexually abused. All of them had their hands and feet hanged by ropes.

The atmosphere in the room turned somber as the scouts discovered the harrowing sight in the building. In one of the rooms on the lower floor, they found a haunting scene—women, undressed and covered in bruises, with brushes scattered across their bodies. All of them had their hands and feet hanged by ropes. The air hung heavy with the gravity of the situation as the realization of a horrific act unfolded before us.

Silent shock permeated our group. My expression was a mix of anger, disbelief, and profound sorrow. Roger, however, was still composed, as were the others.

The sun, rising on the horizon, cast a muted glow through the windows, juxtaposing the darkness within the room. I faced the grim aftermath of brutality and understood the gravity of my mission.

The captured assailants, now subdued, lay on the floor as a chilling reminder of the brutality that could happen in a world consumed by chaos.

Roger sighed, "Release them, and treat them. I'll handle these people myself." He said. I was curious about what he would do to them, but when I saw it, I wished I had never looked.

He covered their mouths with cloths, and started to stab their hands and feet with knives. Then he threw them one by one out of the broken window and watched them get devoured by zombies. They were begging and crying, but he didn't care at all.

He came back, and I quickly stopped peeking. "How are they?" He asked.

"Their bodies are stable now, but they have lost all hope. They all want to jump off the building, so we had no choice but to tie them down." One of the scouts said.

Their personalities were broken, so was their will to live. This was a hard choice to make. The helicopter couldn't fit us all, but I wanted to help them too.

"Kill them," Roger said coldly.

"What? You can't just kill them! They are still alive!" I protested. They all looked at me, as if I was a burden. But what I was saying was true. "We can still save them."

Roger walked up to one of the women and started to untie her. "But do they want to live? This is a moral decision about making a choice between keeping someone alive who has suffered too much in this world, or killing her to free her from her pain." He said, and handed her a knife.

The woman took the knife and slit her own throat. "No!" I exclaimed, but as soon as she cut her throat, Roger shot her in the head, making her die instantly. "Look around you. Did they flinch or show any fear when I killed her? They didn't, right? That's why ending their lives now is the only choice."

I couldn't accept it, but he was right. I could at least help them by freeing them from their suffering. "Now do the right thing. We'll be waiting on the rooftop." Roger said, and left me alone in the room with the them.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't. But they all wanted to die. I pointed my pistol at the girl nearby. She was still too young to experience something like this in the past year. It was horrible.

She smiled at me, like how Elsa smiled. I pulled the trigger while crying. I killed them all. And they were all thankful. I cried, and cried myself in the room with their bodies.

I looked at my hands. "Did I really help them?" I said. My hands had blood stains from them. I was sorry I came too late.

In my heart, there was an overwhelming mix of sorrow, guilt, and despair as I grappled with the profound tragedy that unfolded before me. The weight of witnessing such brutal suffering, compounded by the difficult decision to end the victims' lives, left me emotionally shattered. The woman's act of taking her own life added another layer of anguish, and the necessity to end her suffering clashed with my natural reluctance to be the one delivering that final blow.

Even though I understood Roger's reasoning, I couldn't help but feel the moral and emotional toll of taking lives, even if it was to free the victims from their agony. The act of hesitantly pulling the trigger, along with the haunting smiles and expressions of gratitude from the victims, made me question the complexities of morality and the harsh reality of survival in a world ravaged by apocalypse.

As I sat alone in the room, surrounded by the silence of death, my tears became a testament to the heavy burden I carried—the indelible scars of a world that demanded unthinkable choices and sacrifices.

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