David looked around at the large table that his family was gathered around, near his Aunt was his nieces, they were both crying and had dead looks on their faces. Dane’s spot was empty as he was sitting on the window sill smoking a cigarette, an angry look was still in his eye. Next to that space was his father with a blank look on his face as he looked at the wall in disbelief. 

 

His mother sat next to his father, her face was cold and stern as if it was carved from ice. Next to his mother was Lena who seemed to have an identical expression, this made David wonder if he was more like his father than he had ever wanted to admit. Turning and looking at the man with a waxed head and long flowing beard made him shiver, especially when he could see the tanlines that were left behind by his giant goggles on his head.

 

I have spent my whole life trying to avoid becoming anything like you!

 

Then David paused, as all of his cobbled-together weapons went through his head, then he looked over and saw the blonde woman who was taking the liberty to hold his hand. He could see his mother nodding in approval and his father also smiling at him gently. This made David lower his head and begin carefully thinking about every single choice he had made that had led him up to this point.

 

I just wanted to be a nice guy and save the princess!

 

“We still haven’t decided what we are going to do with Jeff, all we have done is convert that camper trailer into a prison cell. Are we going to kill him and set an example, or are we going to banish him?” His father said.

 

“We can’t banish him, that would be a mistake. He would go straight to Denver and tell Marco about what we are doing here.” David said, he then grit his teeth as he looked at his nieces. “I think we need to kill him, he is just too much of a threat if he is left alive. I am sorry Sarah, Bella, but I can’t risk the rest of the family or the people who are staying here now.”

 

“But we can jus-” Sarah retorted, but David grit his teeth and finished.

 

“Marco isn’t human anymore! He found something at the ruins in Castle Rock when he escaped from the hospital I was in using the tunnels!” David sighed as he began to explain. “He found the remains of a demi-human, someone who committed a ritual to mix his blood with something. Marco was somehow able to take on that thing's power through its remains. You have seen the monsters that have been attacking the farm right? He is now just like one of those monsters, but in human form.”

 

David also had no idea what he had found, the Tullens had sealed people and stored them in the same place for hundreds if not thousands of years. Not even the Machine lord had any idea just what had been sealed there over the years, they had started long before he was even born. What made David fear though, was what other parts of Edea could make their way to Earth. 

 

Edea had so many different areas that were filled with beings in the supreme tier that no human army or faction could ever dream of subjugating. Edea had gone through so many catastrophes over the years that created entire zones that no human had stepped foot into for thousands of years. The more terrifying part was that China and Russia were the only ones that the United States was able to contact after the power was cut worldwide for an entire month.

 

“I don’t think that is necessary, we can build a prison and lock him away. Right now he should not be able to escape that camper until we can build a more permanent prison for him.” His aunt tried pleading for her little brother.

 

“You already know that we are having issues getting enough water for the crops. Right now we don’t even have enough food to last us all more than a month.” Dane interjected. “Are we supposed to tell those people that we can’t feed them but we can feed a rapist?”

 

Sarah and Bella had no idea what their father had been up to, they both looked broken inside. The only thing that changed was the looks of anger that they showed David every time he was forced to explain why they couldn’t let Jeff live. Marco had completely changed the capital of the state of Colorado almost overnight.

 

He is an infector type, probably a vampire. If it is the type that the Machine Lord created, then the planet is doomed. I don’t think he would leave such terrible creatures in his backyard though… well he might… 

 

“Let me try talking to him! I am sure I can convince him to willingly let himself be imprisoned!” Sarah dried out, there was anger and sadness etched into her face. “He must have had some kind of reason for doing this! I know that before Mom died he was not like this! Please, let me try to get through to him!”

 

David paused as he watched his niece kneel on the table, and suddenly he could see his aunt and father all look towards him. Looking over he could also see Lena staring at him with her usual flat expression, her hand was still inside of his. This had all started because of her, yet she was giving him no indication of just what she was expecting to get from this.

 

David could see a scale in front of him, it was modeled after The Angel of Death statue, it had a ribbon wrapped around its eyes. The risk that was Marco was gigantic, until David could scout out just what he was, his weight would be a variable. Any mixed blood that consumed humans as their food source was not something that could be reasoned with, you just killed them with extreme prejudice.

 

“I can agree, but only under some circumstances,” David said flatly.

 

“And that would be?” Sarah asked him sternly.

 

“An exploding collar around his leg. No matter what he cannot be allowed to escape under any circumstance.” David told her.

 

Sarah exhaled in shock when she heard what her cousin had to say.

 

“You want to put explosives around his leg?” She said, “Is this your sick version of an ankle bracelet!”

 

“Sarah, Marco tossed the nurse who was helping him run his porn business the entire time he was doing it, down some stairs that he collapsed because she didn’t get Lena and bring her to Marco.” He told her stoically. “I don’t trust that kind of threat being out there, he managed to take quite a few of them with him too, if Lena had been in her room and not on the laundry crew when the walking corpses breached the building then she might have joined those women.”

 

David kept wondering if the Butcher Ghoul he had killed in the hospital had been the woman who was locked out of the door to the second floor and left with only a pair of scissors to defend herself.  From what David could gather the staircase hadn’t collapsed yet, and the hallway to the outside had been wide open, and this is how the corpses stormed the building. This meant that another team had made its way inside the building and done something on the second floor that David might have missed, they also didn’t have any camera footage of it.

 

“There are too many variables in this world, I will maintain my stance that we need to be safer than sorry. I will not change my opinion that he should be allowed to live without some insurance in place that he won’t escape, it is less than two hours to drive from here to Denver! He can walk that distance in a day if he is determined enough!” David was firm on this point.

 

David reached up and began rubbing the sweat from his forehead that was caused by all the stress this was causing him using a washcloth in his free hand. They had to keep the house dark to conserve power at night when the solar cells could not provide energy. It was currently deep into the night, and it would soon be morning.

 

“Fine, I will let him know that he will need to accept an explosive ankle bracelet from his dear nephew!” Sarah said with some vitriol.

 

David could also see his younger cousin Bella was also uncomfortable with him, he could feel his relationship with the two women snapping away like strings. In his mind rage was building towards the man who he felt was responsible for this all, the former head of night security, Marco. He also had a feeling that Marco would be the only one who would be able to provide him what he needed to figure out his past.

 

He took the server hard drives that were on the second floor before he left! He wasn’t able to access them though since he didn’t have the password.

 

When he left he took them only because it was military hardware, and now David was going to be forced to hunt him down for what was on them. That or he had to go into the Denver hospital and track down his file and follow it from the other end. When he and Lena had gone through his file from the laptop she borrowed from his mother, they found that he was healthy and only in a coma when he arrived. 

 

They said that my leg wasn’t broken and I had no damage from a car accident…

 

David had scars from his escape from the hospital, the most striking ones were the ones on his face. They made him look fierce when he had a straight face like he currently did, he also had a burned arm. His leg though was completely clean of any damage, and it had only been sore when he woke up.

 

The way he was moved and transferred and the blank that was his previous record was both a question mark and a source of confusion to him. If he was left in Denver or had been moved to Fort Carson because of his family then he could understand it. They had instead moved him somewhere in between, then redacted all records associated with it.

 

The only place he could get any kind of solid lead was if he was able to access that information from one of the two ends, either in the Denver hospital, or the server hard drives that Marco stole. Either way, he would need to go to Denver and that meant that he needed to make sure this place could withstand anything that happened as a result of that. Until then he needed to focus on what was around him.

 

“For now he will need to be guarded,” Dane said, as he chucked the cigarette butt out the window. “Mother fucker ruined one of my last pairs of pants and now he is ruining my sleep!”

 

His uncle cursed out as he lit up another cigarette then looked over at his niece in pity.

 

“I am sorry Sarah, but I think this is fucked up. I had woodworking classes with Mack and I played baseball with Jeff in high school.” Dane told her. “When he married your mother, he wasn’t like this. I understand he is your dad, but that doesn't excuse what he has done.”

 

“I know, I will talk to him!” Sarah said with her head down.

 

David reached up and began to pick at his hair angrily as he could feel her glare continually turn in his direction, he could also feel the heartache and disappointment that he had caused his younger cousin. The mood in the room was tense, the only one who seemed to agree with him was Dane, even his father thought that David was being extreme. David hadn’t had much time to explain anything to his family, he had only briefly covered the concepts when he was repairing the wall with his father and Dane.

 

“Alright, we have come to a decision, for now, I think we should all get some sleep, we can decide this tomorrow, we have a lot to discuss.” His father said with a sigh. “Can I also say that I don’t want to see my brother die either, I hope to lock him away forever.”

 

David sighed as he realized he was now outvoted, but at least he could choose to make a countermeasure to deal with the man. He had to reason it away with the idea that it was all okay and they just didn’t understand. What Earth once was would never be possible again from the moment that mana had come to their world; this was the conclusion that he had drawn.

 

“Let’s go, Lena, I am tired,” David muttered as he began to lead her through the house to the attic they were staying in.

 

David could see that it was just now the darkest time of night, this was right before it would start to brighten up. Leading her by the hand that was still firmly attached to his own, he only paused when he got to the split in the hallway that divided their rooms. The floor had been cleaned by his aunt of the vomit that Jeff had left for him.

 

“Alright, Princess. Have a good night.” David told her.

 

Letting the pressure on her hand go, he turned to walk into his room but was forced to stop.

 

“Princess, what are you doing?” He asked her.

 

“I am scared.” She told him.

 

David turned around and looked at her face closely, her eyes were like glass marbles that displayed no emotion in them. Her face was calm with her usual flat expression. Nowhere did he see anything that resembled fear, this made him suddenly feel a chill crawl down his spine.

 

No way, right?

 

“Lena, are you saying you want to sleep in my room?” David had just started when she suddenly started walking past him, she went right over to his bed and climbed under the covers.

 

Taking one of the pillows on his queen-sized bed she very soon got comfortable, she then began to pat the bed next to her with a flat expression. This caused David to suddenly feel like his world was shifting as many questions bored into his head. He suddenly realized just how close the two had been since they left the hospital.

 

If she had wanted to kill him, then she could have done it at so many different points and times. Early on everything had been so chaotic and dangerous he was happy if he could just survive for a few more moments. Now that he was here he suddenly realized just how abnormal everything had been so far.

 

David decided to not worry about it as he walked over to the bed, they had been moving non-stop since he had woken up a couple of weeks ago in the house that the family had abandoned. Crawling onto the far side of his bed, he realized that this would be a problem for ‘Future David’ to worry about.

 

“This can only happen tonight, otherwise I will never hear the end of it from my parents.” He told her groggily. 

 

He suddenly felt a weight press into his back, and he could also feel two recovering swells pressing into his spine. Her arms wrapped around him, and he could feel her head rest on the pillow next to him. The room was dark, and the light was off, he could also smell her soap from the bath she was able to take.

 

Just as he expected he didn’t get an answer from her, all he could do was close his eyes as they became too heavy to keep open. He felt more tired than he had in a long time like everything he had endured over the last few weeks was finally catching up to him. Lena’s breathing as she gently seemed to lull him deeper and deeper into sleep was relaxing and calming.

 

“Don’t worry, you can just rest. I will take care of everything.” She told him.

 

These words caused him some shock for a moment before he heard her start humming. It was something he had never heard before, it made him think of something you would hum if you were at sea. This caused him to fall into a deep sleep as she held onto him tightly.