Spere pulled her sword out of him. Mayhem first fell on his knees, then onto his stomach, letting the snow underneath him melt as it soaked up crimson, and he went silent. Spere for a moment just stared down at the sword in her hands, dripping with hot blood, her hands gripping it painfully tight and shaking. She only looked up when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Cloudy's. She noticed he was shorter than she. Which made sense; he was younger than her.

"You're okay," he said softly. Spere didn't know what to think. Mayhem, believe it or not, used to be her best friend. Stable, kind, and gentle.

"What happened to him?" She whispered, her lower lip quivering. "What happened to him? That's not the Mayhem I know."

"Politics," Windy growled loudly. "Stonehenge is changing the people of that town. It used to be a good town. I'm not sure what he's up to, but whatever it is, it's digging a deeper hole with the war with the second town, and it's causing members of Stonehenge's town to sway. They do whatever they think is best to get in his good graces, or they do whatever they think they can to get his power stolen. He's turned it into a dictatorship." Spere nodded, not truly collecting what he said. She slowly slid to her knees, and let the sword clatter across the road as she threw it far from her, striking a streak of red in the shallow snow. Cloudy sat beside her, a hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay," he said again. "Things like this happen." She nearly jumped at a hand on her other shoulder. It was Windy.

"I know what it is," he said, and leaned down beside her, too. "At the town, we've got a full brewery of poisons. Some of them can make you crazy."

"How so?" She asked.

"Mood swings. We use it to get information out of people sometimes, but only on rare occasions, since it's hard to make... It's possible Stonehenge was using that to control people," Windy explained.

Spere shook her head in disbelief, "I'm so confused. Could it even have stayed in his system for that long?"

Windy looked away, "Thing is, the poison... It's permanent. Does something to your brain. Another reason why we never used it often."

"And if the entirety of the town had been poisoned, that would explain why they're acting crazy. But why would he do that?" Spere asked, tempting to cry and ignoring the pain that the cold of the snow beneath her brought.

Windy shook his head, "It's like a disease now. Stonehenge might've not known what it was used for or..." his eyes widened. "He probably used it as a weapon so he could climb to the top. Those who oppose him, get poisoned."

Spere nodded, and grumbled, "That sounds like him."

Rebel sat down in front of her, and sighed, "So it's just us now. Again."

"Just us," Cloudy confirmed. "It'll be better this way."

"How is this better?" Spere asked quietly. She covered her face with her hands. "I'm a killer. I have been for a long time."

"For a good reason," Cloudy said. "If you kill someone for a really good reason, then it's worth it, and you shouldn't feel bad. Mayhem was going to hurt us. He was unstable. He was poisoned. It's lucky you got rid of him before he tried anything." Spere was quiet, and moved her hands out of her face. She let his words bump around in her mind for a short while. Maybe Cloudy was right. But what consisted of a good reason?

Did saving the planet consist of a good enough reason to kill as many people as she could? She didn't want to think about it.

"We should get moving," she said, and stood, but nearly fell from lightheadedness. Cloudy helped her up by the arm, and Windy put his arm around her waist.

"Are you sure?" Windy asked.

Spere nodded, "Yes. The farther away from him I get, the better." The rest of them agreed, and once again, began walking. Spere hated being able to let her thoughts run wild, but knew scavenging to keep herself busy wasn't an option. Instead, she tried to keep up the conversation, but to little avail. She ran out of things to talk about fairly quickly. So, instead, she focused entirely on walking and keeping pace and regulating her breathing, which didn't stop the worry and guilt and sorrow from creeping in, but did give her something else to focus her energy on. Night came all too quickly. They'd made it to a town, and found a house to stay the night in. She cried before she slept that night. A bright sunrise came just as quickly as night had. Today was it; after three days of walking, today would be the day that they found the house with the girl.

After a few hours of walking through the small town, they found what the white cat told Spere was the young girl's house. A very pale yellow house, with short walls and a flat roof. So simple, so run-down. A fenced-in yard. A white, locked door. First, Spere knocked, her group beside her. With no response, she turned to Cloudy, who used a paperclip to pick the lock on the handle of the door. Then, it creaked open. Spere didn't know how to feel. Excited? Angry? Hopeful? Really, she just felt numb. She wanted to get the girl, and get out. But she knew, she knew that she'd have to kill the mistress before they left. Spere drew her gladius sword and slowly entered the house, looking both ways in the darkness. She was in a small living room, with a leather couch in the center.

She pushed past the living room, where her group had begun to scavenge for anything of use. She let them, although she wouldn't be participating in any scavenging at all. She had a mission; her group were simply bystanders. Spere stood in the kitchen now, eyeing the many cabinets, surely stocked with lots of food. Finding nothing, she moved into an empty mud room, with cold cement floors. She left it, walked back through the small kitchen, and into the bathroom. Still no sign of anyone. But then she thought for a moment. She thought of the time that her and Stonehenge and Fallen World had hid from the townspeople.

She silently moved back into the living room. There was a large rug covering the wood plank floor, and pressed down by the couch on one side. Her friends were all in the kitchen, now, talking excitedly and eating canned goods. Spere crouched down to the floor and lifted up a large corner of the mix-coloured rug. Sure enough, there was a trapdoor in the floor, which surely led to a basement. She lifted it up using the end of her blade, and peered into the darkness.

Nearly immediately, she was shouted at, "Leave us alone!" by an older woman. Spere felt excitement now. A strong sense of it, a sense of purpose and will and planning and adrenaline. She lifted the small door in the floor completely now, letting the dim light illuminate the faces of a tall, pale-skinned woman, and a dirty, messy-haired little girl. Spere's eyes widened when she saw her. The girl looked terrified, tears running through the dirt on her face, her eyes wide and glassy. She had a black bruise across her face. Spere physically felt sick for her, and dropped down into the basement, pointing her sword at the older woman.

"I'm not here to hurt anybody," she lied. "I just want the girl to be safe with me."

"How do you know us?!" The woman shouted, her voice breaking, tears running down her face now. "How did you find us?!"

"That doesn't matter now," Spere said calmly, reaching out an empty hand to the girl.

"You can't take my baby away from me!" The woman shouted again, pulling the child close to her. Then, with her other hand, she pulled something from the base of her jeans. "You care so much about this stupid girl," she hissed. "If you take any steps closer, she's dead!"

She pressed the gun to the sobbing girl's forehead. Spere's eyes widened.

"Nobody wants that," she said, a bit panicked now. This woman was completely unhinged. More so than Stonehenge or Mayhem. At the very least, Stonehenge was aiming for something- power- and Mayhem had been poisoned. This woman? She was just... crazy.

"Oh, ho, ho," The woman laughed, grinning too widely for her slender face. "You wanted this girl dead the moment you knocked on that door!"

Spere shook her head, "No, that isn't true."

"The moment your slaves stole my kitchen!" She cried.

"Slaves? No, those are my friends. We won't steal anything, we can give you your food back. Your daughter will be safe with us," Spere said, frantically.

The woman laughed again, "No, you know what's funny? She's not even my daughter! So why should I care at all?" Spere felt as though she was going to vomit. She couldn't reason with this woman. This had been a mistake. It was all a mistake, this whole journey had been! And it was all the stupid cat's fault, stupid God's fault for making her believe she could save the little girl. Maybe the little girl didn't even need to be saved! Perhaps the bruise on her face was from a fall, or another tumble with strangers, or-

Spere's thoughts were cut off as she was deafened by the echoing bang of a small gun.

In an instant, Spere was forward, and had plunged her sword through the chest cavity of the older woman. She never even asked for her name. She never even knew the little girl's name, whose body was now on the floor, motionless, and bleeding.

She pulled her blade away, her face smeared with grime and blood. The woman dropped to the floor, beside her adoptive daughter. Maybe that's the way it should be. Spere cried, now. Not just at her own failure and self-pity, but at her foolishness for lacking a plan, at the death of such an innocent child, at the death of the only thing said child had known for a mother. Spere held her cross necklace tightly in her palm, then ripped it from her neck. In that moment, it was like her soul sucked from her body. Like she'd lost something that had made her Spere. She gasped, having lost her breath. The back of her neck heated with pain, but she didn't care. She deserved that pain. She kept the necklace gripped in her hand tightly, so tightly her fingers ached, and she climbed herself out of the basement. She ignored the heavy gut feeling she had. The weight in her stomach, the headache that was growing. She sniffed.

"Spere," Windy said, breathless, kneeling beside her. Rebel and Cloudy stood close to them, eyes wide and worried. Spere couldn't catch her breath. She couldn't speak. She simply sat on the floor on her knees, shaking, wondering how she'd messed things up so badly. She laid her sword down beside her, and then threw the necklace at the right wall across the room as hard as she could. Cloudy kneeled beside her now, too.

Cloudy murmured, "We did what we could." Spere grew angry, then.

"We just made things worse!" She yelled. "I should be the one dead!"

"Don't say that," Windy hissed. "You've led us so far."

"I've led you into disaster! I'm not even leading us! Mayhem was right, you're just blindly following me! And now look what's happened!" She cried.

Cloudy shook his head, "No, we follow you because we want to." Spere shoved him by his shoulders, pleading for him to just get away from her. She didn't want to hurt anybody else. But he didn't move, he didn't stumble. He sat firmly beside her, still. It seemed like hours passed. Eventually, as day turned to night, Rebel and Cloudy left, and found a bedroom to stay in. Windy was still beside Spere, laying on the floor, likely falling asleep. She wished he wasn't. She didn't deserve his love at all. She deserved death, and pain, and agony, and all that was wrong.

"I'm going to turn myself in to Stonehenge," she whispered shakily.

Windy stirred, "What?"

Spere sighed, quivering, "I don't deserve anything. I'm just... a murderer. I'm going to turn myself in to Stonehenge."

"No, no," Windy sat up. "Love, you can't do that."

"And why not?" She hissed.

He shook his head in disbelief, "What's giving yourself up to a monster going to do?" Spere tried to push the horrid feeling down, but couldn't, and the tears fell from her eyes.

"If he's a monster, then I am, too. Someone deserves to get justice for me," she said quietly.

"No. No," Windy said. "You are not doing that! Spere, what's done is done. There's nothing you can do about it."

"I should've never listened to that stupid cat," she sobbed. "Why did I listen to a stupid faceless cat?" She glanced over at Windy, and at the cross necklace still hanging from his neck. "Windy, you've got to take that off." His face shifted, from worry to panic, then to confusion.

"I- no, no."

"Windy," Spere said again, sternly, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "You've got to take that necklace off."

"But you gave it to me?" He said.

Spere shook her head, "For the love of all that is good, just fucking take it off!"

Windy shook his head, and scoffed, "Stop it. You aren't thinking right." Then he stood, and began to walk away.

"What's wrong with you?" She cried.

Windy turned around for a moment, and growled, "Listen, Spere. You can't change what happened. You're going to be okay, but I think you just need time alone right now." With that, he was gone, presumably to find a room to sleep in for the night. Spere paused for a moment, feeling like she couldn't breath, like she couldn't live. And then, a wave of realization and grief washed over her, that Windy had finally left her, and it was as though her body could shut down, or was shutting down, as though she had no air left in her lungs and no tears left in her eyes. She cried and sobbed, covering her mouth to not make noise as she slowly sunk herself deeper and deeper into the sorrow she felt. She slowly laid herself down on the floor, never wanting to move, wanting to sink down and past the horrid basement all the way until she fell through the earth and suffocated in dirt.

Her cheek was pressed against the hardwood floor, the freezing cold burning her skin and bones. She let it, and enjoyed the idea that she would be in pain as a way of paying for her murders. That's all she was now; a murderer. A failure. A lost soul. She shivered. She didn't want to sleep. She didn't want to feel better. She didn't deserve to feel better. She jumped at the odd feel of fur against her clothes.

She rolled over, and saw the small black cat staring right at her. At the sight of his eyes, his wide green eyes, she began to cry even more. She pulled him tight to her chest, but the cat hissed, and squeezed himself out of her grasp, and trotted away, leaving her to suffer alone. It was better that way.

She wasn't alone. She was still in the house, with Windy, and her friends. She slowly and unsteadily got to her feet, and shuffled out the door, opening it with a quiet creek. The wind was firstly, and plowed into her, nearly knocking her over. The sky was pitch black, with no stars. It would storm soon. Shards of ice in the wind seemed to peck at her cheeks and clothes. Her hair, which was much too long for her liking now, whipped over her face and then back again, blinding her every couple of seconds. The snow was harsh and blinding as well. It was the coldest she'd ever felt. And she welcomed it.

She stepped out through the snow, out into the street, and then gently dropped herself to the ground, face first in the snow. She wasn't crying anymore.

She wanted God to take her now.