Chapter 33 – The March of Regret
The sky was burning gold by the time they turned back.
But none of them noticed.
They ran. Hard. Fast. Past the city streets they had painted red just hours ago—streets now quiet, but not silent. Not clean.
Corpses.
Everywhere.
Their own doing.
Collapsed walls blocked the main paths. Ashes blew in the wind. The entrance they’d blown apart to get in was now a pile of broken stone now swallowing bodies it never meant to bury.
And then—the faces.
People.
Not enemies. Not soldiers. Civilians.
Peeking through cracked windows. Standing behind shattered carts. Watching them with wide, hollow eyes.
Not gratitude.
Just fear.
Like the devils had returned to finish what they started.
Grim didn’t look at them. He couldn’t.
But he felt it.
The weight.
Ash was silent. The insider, breathing hard, muttered curses under his breath—but none of them spoke the truth aloud.
They had slaughtered a city for nothing.
And now they were sprinting back into the unknown, praying that this time, they hadn’t been too late.
By the time they reached the hill, the sky had broken open.
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A mess of deep blues and burning oranges—dusk bleeding across the world.
Grim stumbled behind them, slower than the rest, his lungs clawing for air.
At the hill’s edge, they saw it.
The camp.
Still standing.
Still whole.
From a distance, there were only a few bodies.
A flicker of hope lit behind Grim’s eyes. He ran.
Maybe—
Maybe they’d made it in time. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as—
Then he took one step into the camp.
And everything shattered.
His foot landed in something soft. Wet.
He looked down.
It was the old man. The one from the fire. The one who made stew. Who talked about dreams and grandsons.
His throat had been torn open. His face half-smashed. One eye open, still staring at the sky like it had betrayed him.
Grim’s breath caught.
He stumbled back, a gag rising in his throat—
And stepped on something else.
Another body.
But this one was warm.
Not gone. Not yet.
Tiny fingers gripped his ankle.
He looked down.
It was her.
The insider’s daughter.
The one who danced around tents. The one who chased chickens. Her gut was sliced open. Blood pooled around her in thick, glistening waves.
She opened her mouth.
No sound.
But Grim knew exactly what she said.
Help me.
He screamed without a sound. Covered his mouth. Vomited.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Tears blurred his vision. His body heaved, the taste of bile mixing with the scent of rot.
He tried to breathe.
But couldn’t.
He backed away—stepped on more limbs, crushed ribs beneath.
But he didn’t stop to look. He couldn’t.
He just ran.
Blind. Trembling. Through the camp. Through hell.
He ran until the tents blurred into chaos—until his knees gave out, and he collapsed in the dirt, hands scraping against blood and glass.
That’s when he saw it.
Two sides.
The reformers, ragged, desperate.
The king’s army, cold, organized.
And in between?
Civilians.
Families.
All dying in the crossfire.
Gunfire tore across the field. Screams pierced the air.
Someone shouted his name—but it didn’t sound real.
He turned back.
Tried to run.
His leg twisted. His body collapsed again.
Now crawling.
He coughed. Vomited again.
Blood or bile—he didn’t know.
His eyes burned. His lungs ached. His heartbeat hurt his ears.
His hands gripped the earth.
But there was nowhere left to run.
Nowhere safe.
Nowhere real.
And in that moment—between fire and dusk, between grief and gore—
Grim realized
This was never a mission.
It was a massacre.
End of Chapter 33
