You decide to flee. You grab Melody's hand and pull her to fall back toward the other cars. You don't even manage ten steps when an unbearable sting pierces your right leg, knocking you face-first to the floor. You grunt, you sweat, your tears spring forth. Melody screams your name and tries to get you on your feet, without much success. When you look at your leg, you discover that the bullet destroyed your knee, and a few bone fragments are hanging from shreds of flesh.
The guerrillas surround you. The last thing you taste is the butt of an AK smashing against your temple.
Darkness.
The PSUV opens an online broadcast. The room is opaque and free of furniture or decoration; it reeks of fear and asphyxiation, and the single lightbulb providing illumination flickers every minute or two. You are kneeling, a gag in your mouth. The pain in your leg prevents you from thinking, or even worrying about Melody, who is subdued next to you. A guerrilla woman with short hair, a beret, and a face painted red is the one speaking to the camera lens.
"We are the Diosdado Cabello Brigade of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Our demands are well known... We embody the outcry of a people who categorically reject any participation in the war. Until the complicit and oppressive government of the New National Ideal announces a total break from the dominant powers of the world, now known as the Earth Nations Alliance, we will not cease our Bolivarian, Chavista, and revolutionary mission. As proof that we act with total seriousness, we will broadcast the sacrifice of one hostage every hour until our demands are heard and met."
To begin the demonstration of muscle and cruelty, you are dragged to the center of the room. One of the guerrillas hands a wire-wrapped wooden mallet to the brigade representative. The woman's boot pushes on your back, pinning your chest against the floor. She raises the mallet above her head, and with all the strength her arms can muster, brings it crashing down against your skull.
Ending 4: Striking with the mallet.