"Hans?"
"Yes. From... from the scavenger team."
"But you're a woman."
"Oh... Ah, yes." Hans, or rather, Hannah, closed her eyes, shaking her head as she sniffled again,
"Scavenger teams... don't really hire many women. So I... disguised myself as a man so I could look for something. My real name's Hannah."
"Look for something?" Adam blinked in confusion.
"Yes. My... dad was summoned to the Game and he... he never came back," she stammered, "I wasn't there to scavenge. I just... wanted to find something that was his."
"Finding something... in a desert of ashes? There are a hundred Domes."
"Yes. I know it's impossible, but I just... wanted to do something or else I would have gone crazy."
Adam couldn't respond, his gaze drifting to the corpses scattered across the ground.
This woman was willing to find something she knew she could never find. Why… did you never try to look for her, Adam? The woman in your dreams. She could… still be alive.
While Adam lost himself in his thoughts, Grace shifted closer to Hannah and whispered, her voice gentle.
"I understand. I... lost my dad too when I was just a child. If... If I had been your age then, I would have probably done the same thing."
Hannah looked at Grace for a moment, and the tears she'd been fighting to contain finally burst free. She leaned onto Grace's shoulder and wept—crying against the body of her supposed enemy, the boundary between sides washing away with her tears.
"Why..." Hannah wheezed between gasping sobs, "Why do we deserve this? Why... do we even need to kill each other? Adam. Mr. Jefferson was..."
She struggled to form words through her tears.
"I don't know if you knew this, but Mr. Jefferson was on your team. And I was... I was actually in the Middle Crystal and I saw you... I didn't even know what was happening, but then I saw Mr. Jefferson, and he saw me too. He smiled... he smiled at me, but then I watched... I watched as he was hit on the head and then... why?"
Her words blurred together in grief, but everyone understood what she was trying to say.
After all, one way or another, they'd all experienced it for themselves—all the death, pain, torture.
"Mr. Jefferson... is dead?"
Adam… didn't realize it at all. At the start of the Game, he had been keeping an eye out for Jefferson and the others from the scavenger team. But until Hannah mentioned Jefferson's name, he hadn't even realized that he'd completely forgotten about them in the chaos.
Adam had been a scavenger since the career became an option a year or two after the Game started. It was still slightly illegal back then, but governments weren't functioning properly during those early days—and when they finally regained control, scavengers were already so widespread that the only way to handle the situation was to make it official.
Adam had worked with several scavenger teams over the years, and out of all of them, Jefferson was the one who made him feel most welcome.
It wasn't only Jefferson, though—the rest did too.
No matter how much Adam tried to maintain his distance, they always did their best to include him in everything.
It never really occurred to him until now that earlier today was the last time he would ever see them.
And their last act was to try and protect him, hide him from the people from the Hospital they knew nothing about.
"Oh... Adam," Grace gently squeezed his hand as soon as she noticed the sudden hollow look in his eyes.
Hannah saw it too, and her tears came harder. And like a wave rippling outward, everyone around them began to breathe in stuttering gasps. Blue and Red creeps alike.
Soon, their tears fell too—enemies weeping together over the same absurd tragedy.
"Why...?" Hannah whispered, "I...I wanted to be your friend, Adam. When... I saw you just working alone. I thought, 'Hey, that guy really looks cool'. It was... so silly. And now why? Why... why are you on the other side? It's so fucked up, it's really, really so fucked up."
Everyone fell quiet after that. They all just let their sobs and tears speak to one another, heavy in the air.
The silence stretched for an entire minute before it was broken by the sound of a blade hissing gently as it scraped against the hard ground.
Everyone turned, only to see Adam slowly standing up with a sword in his hand, his face set with grim determination.
Sylvie looked at him too, closing her eyes briefly as she recognized the resolve in Adam's gaze.
"Adam?" Grace's eyes widened as she tightened her grip on his hand, "What are you doing?"
"What I promised myself," Adam whispered, looking at Samantha, her small face stained with tears. "To keep the two of you safe."
"Adam, no..." Grace shook her head, but Adam gently pulled his hand away and began walking, glancing back at Hannah as he did.
"I really wanted to be your friend too, Hannah. But, I'm sorry..."
And with those words, Adam's feet carried him slowly toward Sylvie, the sword hanging heavy at his side, catching the blue light of the crystal as he approached the S-tier Hero.
And when Hannah realized what he was about to do, she gasped and looked at Grace, panic flooding her face.
"Stop him! He'll die!"
Grace didn't respond with words. She simply gestured for Samantha to come to her, wrapping her arms around the child and holding her close, as if to shield her from what was about to happen.
"This is..." Hannah's eyes darted back and forth between Grace's resigned expression and Adam's retreating back. She wanted to shout something to him, anything to make him reconsider, but the words died in her throat.
She knew it would be useless. The only thing anyone could really do was watch in horrified silence as Sylvie also stepped forward and raised her rapier made from her own blood, its crimson length catching the dim light.
"For what it is worth," Sylvie sighed as she placed the rapier close to her chest and stood straight, her posture perfect as if she were beginning a formal duel against a creep rather than an execution, "I firmly believe the world would only suffer for losing someone like you, sir Adam."
Adam said nothing. His face was a mask of determination as he held the sword with both hands, knuckles white against the hilt. He returned Sylvie's soft gaze with unwavering eyes, and Sylvie responded with a solemn nod, acknowledging his courage.
"But instead, the world would mourn for your loss. I am sorry, but I, too, made a promise to protect the people in my team," she said, her accent thickening with emotion as she pointed her rapier at Adam and whispered,
"En garde, sir Adam."