After coming around a bend, he ran into a horrible scene. Three men were beating someone, and a woman was standing near them crying. Jose drew his ninjato as he approached. He was smart enough to recognize that humans were likely still the most dangerous monsters on the planet.

  “Hey!” He yelled. “What is going on over there!?”

  Immediately, the woman screamed. “Help! They are killing him and are going to r…!”

  The thug closest to her pulled a knife across her throat before she could finish the sentence with a wicked smile across his face. She grabbed at her throat, eyes wide, terror and confusion written clearly across her face.

  These shitheads were exactly the kinds of people Jose was worried about getting ahold of magic and skills. Should they live and gain these things, the world would become a living hell.

  In a flash, he ran through hundreds of similar scenarios in his head. People like this cared little for others, for their plight, for their pain. They cared only about what made them happy, what made them feel alive. More often than not, that included watching others suffer. He’d had the miss-pleasure of knowing too many assholes like this in his life.

  In the old world, he would have to suffer through this scene feeling helpless and trapped. Punishing a wicked person for their crimes, even when committed before your very eyes, had a good chance of landing one in jail and being labeled a vigilante or murderer. Of ruining one's life way beyond any punishment the terrorist would receive.

  Because that is exactly what these people were, terrorists. They terrorized and cowed the goodly people of the world into allowing them free reign. Terrorized and harassed good people into exhaustion, so much so, that they'd all but given up on making the world a better place. So much so, that being a good person was frowned upon and had begun to even be seen as a mental illness.

  But no more, in this new world, in this new life, he would not stand idly by as these types of people simply had their way with the world. He’d seen too many evil people walk away laughing as they committed atrocities and burned people's lives down around them.

  Too often, these were the fake strong people who had backing or would find some loophole in the legal system to get away with murder, literally. No more, if and when he came across such horrors he would waste no time in punishing the evil bastards responsible, he would waste no time in cutting out the cancers they were.

  Outrage and horror took over, and Jose moved quicker and more violently than he’d ever had before. He dashed forward and cleanly lopped off the heads of the two thugs closest to him before they could go more than a step.

  The other bastard had made it behind a car and bolted. Jose threw his sword at the man like a frisbee with such force that it cut off one of the thug's legs at the knee. The man cried and screamed in pain as he crumpled to the ground.

  It turned out this was the guy with the knife, the one who’d slid the woman’s throat. He tried to crawl away, but blind with rage Jose reached him, grabbed him by the hair, and dragged him to the sword. Then he slid the man's throat like he had done to the woman a few seconds ago.

  Without even noticing, he began screaming at the top of his lungs. “Are you happy?! Is this the type of shit you like?! Huh?! Answer me, you fuck!!” He took in short, rough breaths as adrenaline pumped through his veins. A man possessed of pure anger.

  Taking a deep breath, he calmed a little, and his voice became cold and unfeeling. “What’s that? You’re in pain? And you don’t want to die? You’re sorry? Maybe you should have thought about that before, don’t you think?” He mocked the dying man, accentuating each word with a poke of his blade on a limb.

  Finally, rage flooded out of him, and he lost sight of his words, simply spitting out obscenities and asking why over and over.

  “YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! WHY DO YOU LIKE HURTING OTHERS?! WHY DO PEOPLE THINK SHIT BAGS LIKE YOU HAVE A PLACE IN SOCIETY?! JUST FUCKING DIE, GO DIE IN A FUCKING CAVE AND LEAVE THE REST OF US ALONE, YOU FUCKING DOUCHE BAGS!… WHY HURT OTHERS WITHOUT RHYME OR REASON? WHY SOW CHAOS? WHY?! FUCKING WHY? - Just fucking why?”

  Losing the fire in his voice, he whispered it one last time as the man’s life faded from his eyes. Breathing heavily from physical and emotional exhaustion, Jose slowly came to his senses and began making his way back to the couple.

  He was certain the lady hadn’t made it, and even if by some miracle she had, he didn’t have any medical know-how or supplies that could possibly save her life. Approaching the scene, he could see her lifeless body lying in a puddle of her own blood as she had clearly tried crawling to the man in the last seconds of life. The quiet finality of it was stifling; the only audible sound was the man’s labored breathing.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The man didn’t look too good, his eyes were swollen shut, his jaw seemed dislocated, he was bleeding from several deep cuts, and Jose knew he might have other broken bones or internal bleeding. ‘Who knows how long these bastards were beating him before I got here.’

  Jose noticed they wore wedding bands, and Jose knew the true horror of their situation. They were a married couple, and the man just had to witness his wife die a slow agonizing death.

  “P…s… k..l… m..” The man barely squeezed out the words between raspy breaths, and he said them so low Jose could barely hear them.

  But he didn’t need to hear to figure out what he was saying. The man knew, as well as did Jose, that he wouldn’t make it. What they didn’t know was how long it would take for him to utter his last breath.

  Jose, sadly, had no medical experience from which he could pull to save the man's life either. First aid was something he could do and even had the supplies for, but this required a lot more than just first aid, this required surgery, multiple surgeries even.

  He kneeled in front of the man as he whispered the words one more time. At this point, Jose was crying; he hadn’t known them or the circumstances that led to this event, but he did know that no one deserved such a tragic end. No one deserved to watch their loved one be beaten to death, or have their throat sliced in front of them.

  They were a younger couple too, neither past their early thirties at most. The wife was a beautiful woman, and Jose had no doubts about what these animals had planned to do, or what her last words were going to be. The thought of it made him shudder in anger and despair. Had he not come along, they would have made the husband watch with his last breaths as they ravaged and violated her.

  The man reached out, his hand feeling around for something on the ground as tears rolled down his face. Jose could see the gut-wrenching pain assaulting him, how the emotion tore him apart and broke him down in a way the physical pain simply couldn’t. Any physical injuries he’d suffered were incomparable to watching his wife die before his eyes.

  “I’m sorry… I couldn’t save her… or you.” Jose managed to stumble out the words between muffled cries while placing the man's hand on his dead wife's outstretched arm. The man smiled and managed a final nod before Jose stabbed his sword into his brain.

  For a time, Jose stood there staring at them, a storm of emotion warring within him. He was torn between what he’d had to do, even as he recognized it had been a mercy. No ambulance or police were coming to save the man, and leaving him as he was would have been much too cruel.

  He was outraged at what they had done to these people. If he could, he would bring the fuckers back to life and kill them again. He simply couldn’t understand what joy they derived from causing others such pain. What could this couple have done that deserved such an end?

  Why? Just why were people like this allowed to live and walk the world? He looked down at his hands and made himself a promise. Now that he had the power to do so, he would ensure that these types of people would pay tenfold for any pain they inflicted on others.

  Jose hadn’t had an easy life and had seen horrifically violent scenes before, but this felt different. Somehow, he’d naively thought that humanity would come together and stand in solidarity against the monsters and new threats of this apocalypse. It was a curse that followed him throughout life, despite his outward cynicism, he always believed most people were inherently good, but people always found a way to prove that a lie.

  However, this had served as a wake-up call and reminder that just because some people were good and interested in mutual survival, others simply didn’t care about people or their circumstances. Some people simply reveled in, and would even thrive in the chaos of the apocalypse and the suffering it brought with it.

  ‘This is too much.’ Jose thought to himself despondently.

  It was weird how ending a life felt different under separate circumstances. Killing monsters was nerve-wracking, to be sure, but it didn’t feel wrong. Having to kill the thugs that deserved it felt somewhat wrong but not emotionally draining. Having to end an innocent man's life because he couldn’t save him had driven him to the very edge, and there he teetered.

  It was stifling, the horror and despair it evoked; for a long time, he stood there unmoving, unable to gain his bearing, calm his emotions, and come to terms with what he’d had to do. No amount of hardship had prepared him for this, and he almost lost himself to the anguish of the moment.

  Eventually, he was able to move again and found himself running with all his might from the scene, trying to leave those feelings behind. But they followed him like a shadow. He knew he might never be rid of them, and worst of all, he knew, considering the state of things, this might not be the last time he would run into such a scene or have to make such a choice.

  His mind and heart were in turmoil as he ran. He knew the right thing was to kill the thugs for what they had done, that in the coming days, he would have to do it again. But could he? Could he keep the promise he made himself in anger and continue to punish such people?

  At the end of the day, he wasn’t sure. He was a good person by nature and prided himself in always trying to resolve problems without violence. Of course, life was never that easy, so he’d been forced to use violence on occasion, but still, violence and murder were different things.

  And so, his mind and heart in turmoil, he ran. Flipping through different emotions, jumping from one severe extreme to the other, he ran. His breathing became labored, and his legs felt like lead, but still, he ran. Imaging horrible things happening to his loved ones and hoping it was only in his mind, he ran.

  He ran and paid no heed to things happening around him. Monsters would, on occasion, jump out at him, and unfeeling, he would slaughter them and continue running. The world passed by in a blur while he ran with all his might, hoping to soon reach his loved ones.