Lucius wasn't able to read the words of the system flooding in front of his face; his vision was still a blur after the head-splitting psychic damage he had just endured. The blood loss and exhaustion probably weren't helping much, either. He carefully pulled his legs, one by one, off of the creature's spiked carapace. A few of the holes in his legs had been torn open from the violent movements of the Abyss Queen while he was desperately struggling to hold tight to her back, but it wasn't anything that would threaten his life. Against all odds, Lucius would be able to walk away—if in pain—from his battle with the Abyss Queen.
Lucius stood up next to the Abyss Queen's corpse for a few moments, letting his head clear, and regained some clarity in his vision. He looked around and noticed Jack walking towards him. The tough young man had ripped a sleeve off his shirt, wrapping it around his wounded hand to stop the bleeding. Lucius took a few wobbly steps towards Jack, stumbling from the pain shooting up his thighs at first, but he gradually learned how to move without aggravating his wounds. When Jack saw how his friend was struggling to walk, he picked up his pace, quickly coming to Lucius's side and throwing Lucius's arm over his shoulder to help him walk.
"That was incredible! You saved my life!" said Jack, a wide grin spreading across his face. "I even got credit for helping fight the Abyss Queen! The moment you killed it, my level shot up to 5, and I got some kind of item upgrade token!" Noticing the pained look on Lucius's face, he quickly changed the topic. "Let's get you inside, bud; we can take a look at those injuries."
"No, not yet. Let's finish what we came out here to do first," Lucius demanded, pointing his free hand at the vehicle where Patrick had been trapped for so long.
"OK, come on, then. Let's make it quick," Jack replied.
Even as the two young men limped and shuffled their way over to him, Patrick was already getting out of the vehicle. He had a front-row seat to the entire violent battle, and he knew exactly who he owed his life to.
Patrick was a middle-aged man with brown hair that reached down to his shoulders, wearing a green scholarly vest over a button-up shirt and slacks. "Thank God you are both ok! When I saw you come outside, I was sure you would be killed by that creature! I have been watching the beast do its horrifying work for hours now; I never expected to see it killed by a couple of young men, armed with homemade spears no less!" Patrick explained as he walked up to the boys. "I cannot thank you both enough for saving me. Let's quickly get inside; I want to be reunited with my family, and there is something you both need to know about what that creature was up to!"
The two young men, along with the newly freed Patrick, made their way back toward the safety of the store, where Mary and James eagerly awaited them. Once inside, Lucius and Jack witnessed the heartwarming family reunion.
"Oh, thank God," exclaimed Mary. She had witnessed the Abyss Queen's assault on the boys, and she was sure in that moment that she would never see her husband alive again. The relief she was feeling now was palpable. "Dad, Dad! Magic is real! Isn't that amazing?" James shouted as he ran into his father's open arms. The young boy had complete confidence in Lucius and Jack's ability to defeat the monster, so he was never as flustered as his mother.
The reunion was short-lived. Mary was aware of the injuries that the two boys had suffered, and she insisted on applying first aid to their wounds before doing anything else. Mary cleaned the wounds that were too deep to heal on their own, applied antiseptic cream to everything, and finally wrapped all the wounds in clean bandages. Then she gave the boys some over-the-counter medicine for the pain. For her efforts, she received another message from the system:
Through effort, you have raised "Mend Wound" to level 3.
Once the boys were all patched up, Patrick asked Mary to take James away for a moment so he could speak to Lucius and Jack alone.
"Earlier in the day, I saw those monsters carrying humans up on top of the canopy, where the Queen made her nest. I assumed they were already dead at the time," Patrick began, his solemn tone conveying the serious nature of what he was saying. "I thought they were just gathering food, like any hive of insects, but when you boys fought the Queen, the telepathic images she sent out made me rethink my guess." Patrick took a deep breath before continuing. "I think there might be people up there, alive, with those eggs in their bodies."
"Then we need to go help them. What are we waiting for?" Jack said quickly, already moving his body toward the entrance.
"Wait!" Lucius grabbed Jack's shoulder to stop him from walking away. "It's not that simple. Think about it. If there are people with eggs planted in them, we have no way to save them. They will die a slow and painful death, AND more of those Abyss creatures will be born from their bodies!" Lucius explained.
"Exactly," Patrick confirmed what Lucius had said. "If we do what you suggested, Jack, we are increasing their suffering and putting all our lives in danger."
"So what are you suggesting we do?" asked Jack incredulously. "I am not going to murder people! What if it was Mary or James up there? Would you still want to kill them?"
"That's the wrong question. The question is, if it was YOU up there, what would you want us to do?" Lucius interjected. "I know what my answer would be: take me out of my misery, as fast as possible!"
Jack's expression became conflicted. He knew what Lucius and Patrick were saying was true, but he hated everything about the situation. "Fine! But we don't even know if there is anyone alive up there! And if there is, we don't know for sure that they have any of those eggs in their bodies yet!"
"You're right. So the first thing we need to do is go outside and see what we are dealing with," said Patrick.
"Come on, we are gonna need a ladder..." Jack ended the conversation, signaling for the two others to follow him. They rearmed themselves, just in case they ran into any more creatures while outside, and made their way over to the canopy.
Jack placed the ladder against the side of the structure, and they took turns climbing up. The first one up the ladder was Jack, who immediately started to gag and cover his mouth when he reached the top. That was a bad sign. When Lucius finally reached the top, he understood why Jack had reacted so strongly. There, in front of him, was a pile of naked human bodies. Most of them were missing at least a few limbs, and all of them had been catastrophically damaged in one way or another. The bodies were stuck together with a thin layer of webbing—just enough to hold them but not enough to cover up the gruesome sight.
Even witnessing such a nightmarish scene, Lucius felt relief. All these bodies were dead. The worst-case scenario they had considered wouldn't come to pass. Just as Lucius was about to suggest that they move on to the next step—burning the bodies—one of the bodies in the pile started to shift. Something was alive. The three quickly made their way over to the movement, and upon noticing the child-sized body that the movement was coming from, a terrible dread began to descend on all of them.
Jack ran up to the body, that of a small girl who couldn't have been much older than James, her stomach clearly bulging from the sickening parasites inside her. As Jack reached out his hand toward the girl, her body dropped from the pile and rolled away. The group suddenly became aware that she was, indeed, already dead, and the movement of her body had been coming from what lay beneath her. Now, with the girl's body out of the way, the three had a clear line of sight of the only living thing on the roof. It was a small goat, probably less than a year old itself; the animal's body had been mutilated just as badly as the humans around it, its stomach bulging just like all the others.
A wave of relief washed over the group. They wouldn't be forced to end the life of a child—not a human one, anyway.
"I'll do it," said Patrick, feeling responsible for taking on the burden as the only fully adult man present. "We need to quickly move these bodies away from the gas pumps so we can safely burn them. Can you boys go get a wheelbarrow?"
As Lucius and Jack reached the bottom of the ladder, they heard the sound of an animal cry out in pain, then the scene quickly returned to silence.