I kept watching the group move through the city until they came to a stop.
"If we keep walking, we'll end up where the wave first hit. All the buildings are destroyed, and no buildings means no beasts. We turn around. The sounds of us fighting should have attracted more."
I stifled an exasperated groan as I thought about having to watch them do the exact same thing again, before quickly realizing that them turning around meant I'd be right in their line of sight. I slunk away from the edge of the roof I was on, and dropped onto the street running parallel to the one the group was on. I quickly and quietly moved in their direction. I moved a bit farther than where they had stopped and jumped back up onto a roof. I was once again behind them, and they had started moving back the way they came. I took a second to just sit and watch, letting them get a good distance away before I started following them again.
From where I was, I had a good view over the initial path of destruction. It was a good few hundred yards across at its widest nearer the edge of town, and gradually narrowed as it got closer to the center. The destruction lessened as it got closer to the center as well, due to the beasts peeling off into side streets as they ran. This was what afforded us, the Mayor and I, an arena of sorts to fight in earlier. Looking around a bit more, I also noticed the building the Mayor had initially fought on was still standing as well. I chuckled at that. Immediately after that, I caught movement out the corner of my eye and my head snapped around to face it. Off in the field, far enough to just be a silhouette, there was a person approaching the town. He was coming from the fort, which seemed an impossibility, yet reality seemed to be fond of defying logic today. I couldn't make out any details with the distance, but I could tell he was big. It was strange, but it wasn't worrying. If he was at the fort, it meant he was an ally, and if he was still alive, it meant he was strong. I decided to let him make his way here on his own, as I still had a mission. I looked back to where I had last seen the group, but they were now out of sight.
After a second of panic, I stood up and started dashing across the rooftops. I reassured myself by thinking that they couldn't have gotten very far in the brief time I looked away. I also realized I hadn't heard any fighting happen, so I probably hadn't missed much. Reality though, for the second time in less than a minute, seemed to laugh in the face of my logic. After only a short amount of running, I abruptly stopped, looking down onto the street below. The five of them were collapsed in various spots in the middle of the road. There was no sign of a struggle, there was no blood. I froze for a second, solely focused on the unmoving bodies below me. I jumped down, giving into the urge to investigate what happened. There was also a part of me that didn't want to return with no explanation.
As I approached them, I began to realize how truly bizarre the situation was. They were strewn about close together, but with no particular order. All of their weapons were still on their persons as well, meaning that whatever happened hadn't just been quick, it had been so fast they didn't even have time to react. It was silent, and while it had been quiet around the city to begin with, this silence was particularly deafening. I walked up to them, a part of me hoping, as insufferable as I found them, that they'd all suddenly spring up from the dead, but I soon found myself standing in the middle of all of them and they remained deathly still.
Being close to them, I took a second to examine their bodies a bit closer. I confirmed that they weren't breathing, but they still had their color, meaning they were very recently dead. I bent down to check to see if they had gone cold yet, or if they by some miracle had a pulse, really just grasping at straws. Just as I was about make contact with one of them, who happened to be the man in the middle of their formation, I caught something at the edge of my vision and looked up. His eyes were black – bottomless abyssal pits with a speck of burning white light deep in the center of them. My mind was instantly cast back to the child I had seen earlier in the day. Whatever that kid had run into was the same as what these people had, but the image in their eyes was different. The image looked less defined.
In the same second the realization flashed through my mind, I realized the silence surrounding me was truly deafening. I had gotten the order mixed up; the silence wasn't deafening, I was quite literally being deafened. My mind refocused in an instant. I looked up, but there was nothing in front of me. I made to turn my head to check my surroundings, but before I could even make a full turn to the side, a shape appeared in the corner of my vision, standing in the middle of the street. Everything in my body screamed at me to keep my eyes off of it, but there was a force that seemed to compel me to look at it, whatever it was.
My reason was losing the fight. My desire to fight this corrupted instinct wasn't the solution, so instead of continuing on the path of fight, I switched to the flight option. I drove my feet into the ground with as much force as I could. My feet slid on the dust covered stones that made up the street, but I was able to regain my balance with another few steps. The jolt of adrenaline from almost falling managed to break my mind out of the non-physical hand that seemed to hold it. As soon as the winding street broke line of sight with whatever that thing was, I jumped onto the closest building and beelined towards the town center and what I had determined as a relative safe zone. My legs were outputting as much power as possible, but it still didn't feel fast enough. I was jumping over streets, using my hands to stabilize myself when I landed to keep myself moving. At some point in this mad dash, the knot that held my cloak in place around my shoulders finally gave way. I fought the urge to try to grab it, feeling that if I were to look back for even a second, everything would end.
Eventually, the layer of buildings on the perimeter of the courtyard came into view and, with a final sprint, I found myself back on level, solid ground. I kept running until I reached the Mayor, who had been watching me with an amused smirk, where I collapsed just behind him. I laid there on my back for awhile while I caught my breath.
"So, care to explain what's got you running like that?"
"Just… give me a second. And keep watching that direction."
"Can't exactly go anywhere right now, y'know. All I can do right now is keep an eye out while we wait for any developments."
"Would five people suddenly dropping dead count as one of those developments?"
"Probably, yeah. What happened?"
"No clue. They were out of my sight for less than a minute. I caught up to them, but by then they were all… I don't even know. There was no sign of a struggle; no blood, no nothing. They didn't even have their weapons drawn."
"Blacked out eyes with a light in the middle?"
"Yep. Just like that kid."
"Kid? What kid?"
"The kid in the hospital. Didn't you say you visited him?"
"I saw the kids. Plural. The ones who brought the message of the wave. There were two of them in the room, and I know they were still alive since we'd be having a much bigger issue if the dead started talking. What kid are you talking about?"
"In the morgue. There was a kid that, as far as I can tell, died in the same way these people did. Speaking of which, if you didn't see the kid, how did you immediately know what happened?"
"One of the possibilities I mentioned earlier, the annoying one specifically. Nothing I haven't seen before, just a bit of a different situation, hence why it's annoying."
"What's our plan then?"
"Still need to figure that part out. We frankly don't have the people to deal with this in the ways I've used in the past, so we're at a bit of a stalemate. Anything else you have to report?"
"Do you want to hear about their behavior as a team? That was the point of having me watch them in the first place, wasn't it?"
"Doesn't really matter anymore, but we don't have much else to do, so have at it."
I sat up, having finally caught my breath. I was also starting to get a stiff back.
"Where would you like me to start?"
"Reports are usually organized chronologically, so start with the first thing you noticed and work from there."
"Alright then. First thing I noticed was that they are, were, argumentative."
"Hardly a surprise."
"No, actually. It is. Their dynamic was centered around their leader. Only one of them was willing to argue with him, that one girl, while the other three just watched. They seemed more amused than anything, which makes me think this had happened a few times before."
"I disagree but we'll talk about it later."
"Okay then. After that, they got into combat and didn't do much talking. They broke into a formation immediately. It looked well-practiced. They had one guy distract the beast, the leader and the third guy flanked it, while the two girls stood back. Their formation was vulnerable to crossfire, but it never became an issue for them since the leader was the only one who attacked. He dealt with it quick and did it consistently. They killed a few beasts in the same way before turning around and walking straight into their deaths."
"So, those are the facts. Now, what are your opinions?"
"Are there opinions I should have? The leader was self-centered and the way they fought reflected that. Anyone who challenged him was argued in circles until they gave up. I don't know what opinions you're looking for."
"Me neither. I just wanted to get you thinking more. There's a lot more going on here, and I want you to pick up on that. I also wanted you to get experience with reports and knowing what information to include or not to include. Personally, I'd put an unexpected arrival in the 'include' pile."