Dylan: "Strike."
The bat swung, erasing the creature's head in one quick motion.
Its body fell still, succumbing to the strike.
Ethan simply stood there, watching.
His eyes remained fixed on the corpse while his mind tried to grasp the situation.
Several long seconds passed before words finally escaped him.
Ethan: "The fuck..."
Dylan turned, raising an eyebrow.
Dylan: (Huh?)
Ethan: "Why'd you DO THAT?!"
The sudden snap in his voice cracked the silence.
Dylan: "What?!"
He furiously aimed at the corpse.
Ethan: "Why did you kill him?"
Dylan stared at him as though he'd completely lost his mind.
Ethan: "We could have teamed up with him."
Dylan: (What's gotten into him?)
A memory resurfaced, something he wished to forget.
A man collapsed on his knees, tears streaming down his face as he desperately clung onto the makeshift cage.
???: "KILL! KILL! KILL!"
The deafening chant swallowed him from all directions.
Beyond the cage stood a sea of blurred faces. Some waved money in the air. Others cursed. None of them seemed human anymore. They were only mouths screaming the same words again and again.
The man's desperate cries grew quieter beneath the roar of the crowd.
Ethan: "We could've made peace!"
Ethan's words shattered the memory, enraging Dylan.
Dylan's eyes locked onto Ethan's.
Dylan: "Peace you say..."
Slowly, he approached Ethan towering over him. His hand landing onto Ethan's shoulder.
Ethan went silent, sensing the shift in atmosphere.
Dylan: "Are you out of your damn mind? THAT THING, is a MONSTER!"
Ethan: "It was SCARED!"
Dylan: "SO WHAT?!"
His voice rose even further, echoing through the room. Shoving Ethan back.
Ethan: "We~"
Dylan: "Think, Ethan. Think!"
He took another step forward.
Dylan: "After what we did to the goblins, that thing will stab us in the back the first chance it gets."
Ethan: "...."
Dylan: "What's stopping it from attacking us? What's stopping it from lying?"
His words shoved Ethan futher back.
Dylan: "What's stopping it from bringing all the other goblins back here?"
His hand slammed onto a nearby locker.
Dylan: "It's a MONSTER! Nothing more, nothing less."
Ethan: "..."
Dylan: "Now, do you UNDERSTAND?!"
A deafening silence filled the room. Both contemplated their words.
A long pause ensued.
Ethan: "...Ya."
Without another word Dylan promptly left the room, wiping the blood off his shirt.
Ethan: (Why did I say that?)
Ethan: "Damn it."
His hand dragged across his face.
Ethan: (What had gotten into me?)
His gaze lingered onto the creature's corpse.
He wasn't even sure himself.
Ethan: (That thing just felt so... Human.)
He stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what to do next.
*Clang*
Something hard rolled beneath his foot.
A black police baton lay next to him.
Ethan: (Could be useful.)
He crouched and picked it up.
His eyes quickly wandered around the room.
Now that he was actually paying attention, he noticed the room despite being cramped, was filled with rows of metal lockers.
Ethan: (Isn't this what we were searching for?)
He quickly skimmed through the lockers, most of the lockers were surprisingly left open... but unsurprisingly empty, with no firearm in sight.
Ethan: (Looks like the officers cleaned most of this place up, before abandoning the station.)
Ethan: "Tch."
He reached into his pocket. A heavy bundle of keys jingled in his hand.
One by one he began trying each key.
First key. Locked.
Second key. Still locked.
Third key. Wrong again.
Ethan: (This, will be annoying.)
Dozens of keys hung together, taunting him.
(Meanwhile – Dylan POV)
[Level up]
Dylan exited the station with a heavy sigh, as the cool night air hit his face.
Without thinking, he kept wiping his blood stained shirt.
Dylan: (Shit...)
He stared towards the empty roads.
Dylan: (I lost my cool.)
The atmosphere felt rather soothing. Everything was silent.
Dylan: "Wait? Why did I leave??"
One of the many unsolved mysteries of the universe that will never be answered.
???: "What happened?"
A quiet voice emanated behind him.
He spun on pure instinct. Brawn before brain.
*Woosh!*
His bat sliced through the air missing Elin by an inch, and giving her lifelong PTSD.
Elin: "Ek!"
The now discovered Elin stumbled back, landing hard on the pavement.
Both arms shot over her head in surrender.
Elin: "W–What did I DO?!"
Dylan: (Oops.)
He immediately retracted his bat.
Dylan: "Sorry, sorry I thought you were an enemy."
Elin: "Do I look like a goblin?!"
Dylan: "...."
Oh wow, he's actually considering it.
Dylan: "Sorry."
Elin took several deep breath calming herself. Her heartbeat gradually slowed.
Brushing the dust off her clothes, she finally picked herself up, still wobbly.
Elin: "Forget about that. Why are you out here? And what happened inside?"
Dylan: "Well, there was a goblin."
Elin: "Really?"
She frowned.
Elin: "Why didn't it attack us earlier?"
Dylan: "It's probably one of the intelligent goblins. Like the one I fought near our house."
Elin: (So, Ethan was right!... It's still hard to believe goblins like that exist.)
Elin: "So are there any traps in there?"
Dylan: "No."
Dylan recalled the fear in the goblin's eyes.
Dylan: "On the contrary the goblin was cowering in a corner."
Elin: (A goblin... Cowering?)
She never thought those words could ever belong in the same sentence.
The thought felt too ridiculous to even be uttered.
The feeling of missing something surged in her mind. Her eyes quickly surveyed the surroundings.
Elin: "Where's Ethan?"