Passing through the entrance of the town, it felt like I had walked into a swamp. It was all in my head, I was sure, but it felt like the air suddenly became thick. I figured it had to have been there the whole time, most likely growing stronger and stronger from the time the wave hit the town, and I simply hadn't noticed it until now. Continuing to walk into the town, I once again became accustomed to the mental swamp.
My dash slowed to a walk as I thought about my next steps. I had come here with only a rough idea of what I wished to accomplish. The Mayor was injured last I saw him, and while I had faith in his ability, the state he was in likely would have killed a weaker man. Somewhere, probably running around aimlessly, was the group I ran into earlier. They should have had some ability, given their position, although I felt that their arrogance would lead them into a bad situation, assuming it hadn't already. Then again, maybe they had already learned how to turn that aspect of their personality off when they needed to. In any case, I was sure to find out in short order.
While thinking of them, and while walking towards the courtyard where I expected to find the Mayor, my mind drifted back towards the person trailing behind that group. He was out of place, clearly, in more than one way. He didn't seem to me a person who would stick to a group like that out of choice, meaning that there was some set of circumstances forcing him into it. There was a clear lack of confidence in his demeanor, almost comedically so, given the contrast with is companions.
But the lack of confidence was purely external. I knew this, not through some sort of deduction or an ability to read body language, but by something much simpler: I felt threatened by him. None of the group, despite their confidence, made me feel any sort of threat. There was nothing special about them. Their ability likely wasn't lacking, but there was nothing special about it either, reminiscent of the hunters that spent their nights blacked out and bent over a table in a bar.
This boy, which seemed to be a more fitting term for him than "man" given his soft features, on the other hand, had something special about him. He was outwardly tired and seemingly oblivious to what was going on around him, but the entire time he stood before me, I felt like there were invisible hands hovering just barely above my skin. At the time, I thought it was just my unease at being approached by the group of insufferable individuals, but the feeling stayed even after they had walked off, and only truly faded once that boy turned his back to me. And what truly unsettled me about this phenomenon was that I don't think it was at all intentional. It is my firm belief that he was not putting on an act to leave potential enemies off guard, but rather that his ability, whatever it was, was constantly active and ready to meet any challenge. The group acted like nothing could threaten them; the boy could not be threatened.
The streets I walked down were empty. Most of the buildings lining this main street were untouched by the beasts, as people who lived in them were largely more temporary residents of the city, meaning that they little incentive to stay in the city after the evacuation order was issued. Even though it was a main street, it twisted enough along its path to prevent a sightline of the town hall and the courtyard, which was at roughly the center of the city. I could've jumped up onto the rooftops as I did before, but I wanted to take a bit more of a thorough approach in case something was waiting in ambush.
Eventually, collapsed buildings became more common than standing ones, and I could catch glimpses of the courtyard through gaps in the remnants of walls. A thin gray dust hung in the air in places. The city was silent apart from settling rubble, but as I approached the ring of buildings around the courtyard, I could faintly hear the sounds of combat in the distance. It didn't immediately and with a loud bang, so I assumed it to be that Cleaner group and not the Mayor. How they ended up on the opposite side of the city though, was a bit confusing. My guess was that they ran after a beast and got a bit lost, but for all I knew they were getting paid by the hour and wanted to extend their time here as much as possible.
I stepped over one last collapsed building and the thin gray fog was replaced by the black miasma which still hung over the courtyard. A few scattered piles of flesh were all that remained of the hours-long battle from earlier in the day. I realized unfortunately late that there was a black liquid covering most of the ground of the courtyard, which I only noticed when my footsteps sounded a bit wetter than usual.
I walked through the courtyard at a faster pace to get out of the aerosolized beasts. It hung just over where we had been fighting and was gradually thinning out as I approached the stairs leading to the town hall. Walking up the first few steps, my head cleared the upper limits of the cloud, and I could breathe comfortably once again. I didn't get much time to savor this relief though, as after a few more steps, I reached the top, and the town hall was in front of me again. Sitting before the town hall in simple wooden chair, a young woman stood offset just behind him, was the Mayor.
He had told me to leave, I remembered at that moment, saying that it would be suicidal to stay. I suppose that in the time that had passed since then, I realized that I would rather gamble on living with the possibility of dying knowing I had done everything I could, instead of running from one unknown future into another.