Wasteland

   They had been walking for at least two hours, without taking a break or dropping the rhythm of their movement. They were only four people, all dirty on the faces, their clothes a bit ragged, their shoes all broken. The group kept on walking until they reached a group of large rocks, enough for them to hide from anyone coming from any direction. Inside the rock group there was sort of a clearing and a soft surface. They finally stopped walking, dropping their bodies hard against the rock.

They were two men, both around thirty years old, a woman of the same age and a child about ten years old. They all rested, laying down like starfish on the hard surface. It was late in the afternoon, so the shadow made by the rocks was perfect to avoid being toasted by the sunlight. One the men opened a backpack he had being holding. He extracted a water bottle and took a sip. He gave it to the others, who drank hastily, as if thy knew they wouldn’t have the chance to drink any liquids again

No one spoke, maybe because they wanted to keep their few energies to use them on something more worth it or maybe because there was nothing to be talking about. The truth was both reasons were accurate. What could you say when you’ve seen so many people killed, when you’ve escaped death by nothing more than a few seconds? Nothing, that’s what. The group lay down and didn’t move until it was almost night. It was the two men who got out of the small clearing, into the terrain outside.

It was clear they were in a desert or at least near one. The rocky surface on which they stood was covered, in some parts, by a thin layer of sand and other bright particles. One of the men, the taller one, went to the edge of the rock formation and stared at the horizon: he couldn’t see any light except the first stars appearing on the sky. He sighed in relief as that meant no one had followed them. The reason was of no interest; as long as they were safe the reasons could wait to be known.

The other man, some centimeters shorter, climbed the rocks steadily but making a sort of a grin as he did it. It was clear he was in pain, as with each step he let some air out. When he reached the top of that smooth hill, he was suddenly victim of a cough attack, in part because of what he had seen. He hit his chest a bit to clear his throat as he raises his head and so a never-ending desert past the hill. It wasn’t far at all and seemed to be larger than any ocean that the man had ever seen. This was good and bad, as it was a safe escape route but only because they exchanged a few dangers for other ones.

He turned around and joined the taller man. As he neared him, he realized the other one was crying. He wasn’t bothering to swipe the tears out of his face. He just crouched in the spot and cried in silence, staring at the horizon, which was now pitch black. The shorter one kneeled besides him and hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. Again, they didn’t say a word. This time too it was highly unnecessary to talk as everything they had gone through was beyond any word invented by men.

Some time afterwards, they penetrated the big boulders and found the woman and child sleeping. They looked at each other once and decided to join the others in the floor for a sleep. It took them almost an hour to feel the drowsy and to finally fall asleep. When they woke up the next morning, it seemed to be early still, as a cold wind blew over them. The shorter man stepped out of the boulders and took another look at their surroundings. Then, the first words spoken in that place for many years were heard:

Hunter! TO THE DESERT!

It took them only a couple of seconds to wake up and run out. They all stared at the horizon, were a cloud of dust could be seen, nearing the rocky hill they were standing in. It was clear their pursuers were still after them, restless. The shorter man turned around and walked uphill. They all followed fast. When they reached the top, they had to run down the other side. This had to be careful as many small rocks covered the hill. The woman actually fell and was helped up fast.

Once they reached the sandy bottom of the hill, they started to run, straight to the heart of the desert. It was difficult to run on sand, as it didn’t allow them to progress a lot. Nevertheless, they did it as if their lives depended on it and, actually, that was precisely true. As they ran more and more into the desert, they were all thinking exactly the same: they knew the hunters had no intention of entering that place as they knew people always died in there, never coming out on any side of the gigantic sea of sand.

But that was precisely the advantage they thought they had over the hunters. They were too busy hunting easier targets and chasing someone through a desert was not really worth it if they thought the desert and its lack of everything could kill them faster than they could. So when an hour had passed and the small group was already exhausted, they looked back for a moment: the hunters were at the edge of the desert, on a jeep, and appeared to be thinking what to do. Then, they did something no one thought they would ever do: they got out a missile launcher and pointed in their direction. Now, it was the tall guy who yelled:

RUN! RUN!

And they did but the missile had already been launched. It hit the soft desert surface and blew sand everywhere, forming a small storm in the spot. They were all thrown forward, over some small dunes and hitting the sand hard. The jeep turned around and the hunters left, as the small group began to regroup. The short guy had been spared of any injury but as he ran to the tall one, he realized he had been lucky. The other man lied in the ground, panting. His right arm had been burned, from elbow to shoulder.

The kid was crying, not far. He looked good, not injured besides some scratches. But it was the woman that did not seem very well. She was panting too but wasn’t sitting or standing up. She coughed and the kid screamed. The short guy neared him and realized the woman was very badly injured: one arm and one leg were broken. Her face had been badly burned and, as they look at her, she stopped breathing. The kid had stopped his crying but resumed it once he realized what had happened. The thing here was she wasn’t his mother but had acted like one for many days.

The tall guy had crawled next to them, just as the other one had closed the woman’s eyes. Again, he spoke very softly, as if he didn’t want to disturb the woman’s peace.

We have to bury her beneath the sand. Vultures won’t be long.

And he was right because, as they excavated the sand and put the body in there, several shadows began to circle them from above. When they finished, the birds landed close by, as if they needed to verify if there was a dead body among them. They had covered her in a lot of sand and hoped no storm would uncover the body. They didn’t mind the birds as they started walking through the desert, now slower than before.

When night fell, they sat close from one another and tried to light a fire with a lighter and some paper they had on the backpack but they weren’t successful at all. The cold was awful and only the kid fell asleep fast, surely because he was so tired. The short man decided to clean the other’s wound with a bit of water and told him, whispering to his ear, that he would need to get the burnt skin scraped of to let new skin grow. He agreed and stood up instantly. The kid didn’t felt as they walked away, behind a dune. The short guy moistened the paper he had tried to set on fire and advised the tall guy to bite something. He took of a shoe and put it in his mouth.

The screams could have woken a whole town, or so it seemed. But no one was near to hear it. The kid woke up but didn’t move, deciding to stare at the stars and remembering his family and all that had happened before then. As he heard the disheartening screams, he realized he didn’t remember his mother nor is father or any other relatives. He felt he had been running for years but realized that couldn’t be true. He fell asleep realizing he heard nothing anymore and feeling alone and hopeless.

Behind the dune, the two men were hugging. The arm had been properly scraped and it bled a bit. The man held it high as he had his nose in the other man’s hair. Then, in a raspy and sad voice, he said:

What are we going to do? – He sighed. Tears filling his eyes – I’m tired…

The other one gave him a gentle kiss on the lips and cleaned his eyes of tears.

We’ll keep living. They won’t finish us. We’re not dead yet.

And then they hugged tighter and the pain on the man’s arm wasn’t as strong as the one in his heart and soul.

Castle by the cliff

On the tallest hill of the entire region, there used to be a castle. If tales were to be believed, one could see the ocean from the westernmost watchtower. Visiting nowadays was disheartening, to say the least: only the walls remained, in some parts even less than that. One could see were the rooms used to be, the primary water source and even the most important person’s chamber.

That last one was the duke. There was no king here, at least not for a very large radius. In these mountains, only the duke ruled over the peasants, back then. Today, it was still a remote region although some roads crossed the former forests and even got close to many of the old fortifications.

Back then, there were only two towns in the region: one just outside the castle and another down the hill, close to a thin river that passed through there. Today, the river can only be seen in the spring or in the fall. It source freezes in winter and gets dry in the summer.

The duke, according to historians, was benevolent and all his sons and daughters kept the region peaceful. They built watchtowers all over the forest, creating a perimeter around their lands but many saw it as unnecessary: there was nothing coming in and the only people that left were merchants and they always came back.

If one goes by the books, there were two hundred years of peace and isolation, were the folk of the region would just mind for themselves and take care of their land in their own way.

But one day, without them knowing it, the king that ruled the country died. To be precise, he was murdered and his brother, a bloodthirsty devil, sat on the throne. From then on, every single region would slowly fall into his sphere of influence, that consisted of troops being sent to sack every town of its most prized possessions and then asking them for all their crops when time was right.

So during the next fifty years, region-by-region, land-by-land, the soldiers of the Dark King (as he was known) invaded mercilessly. So one day, they followed the one road that, back then, linked the castle in the rock with the rest of the kingdom.

At first, no one really noticed anything strange, besides a few uncommon deaths in the forest but that was not really that uncommon: wolfs roamed the wood in the search for meat and many people were sure their numbers were rising, so the town had already begun a plan to kill some of them or at least to push them away from the areas they frequently visited.

It was in the winter when a girl named Ariana finally realized that what was killing the countrymen were not wolfs but humans, soldiers in gray armor. She managed to escape without them noticing her near the edge of the woods. Crying, she told her mother about what she had seen and they, in return, went to the duke and told him that vicious deeds were being done in the forest, far more vile than anyone would have imagined.

The girl herself told the duke, a peaceful man, that she had seen soldier wearing gray, eating by a fire near the edge of the forest, inside their lands. She had been there picking raspberries for a dessert but she had dropped them all when she saw what they were doing: As it happens, the soldiers were not by the fire to keep warm, they were there eating, cooking their meal. And when the girl saw what they were eating, she couldn’t scream, not even breather. She confessed to have been paralyzed for a few seconds, before she managed to escape.

The soldiers in gray, the color of greed, were eating a human child. Even more disgusting, they were eating one of the girl’s friends. This made the duke realize that those soldiers had already entered the region and were probably waiting to be given the order to attack, to invade their territory.

The duke summoned all his advisors and the strongest and fittest men and women from the two towns. Every single person that knew how to use a weapon or how to defend him or herself, was now essential for the survival of their territory.

It was ordered that all people that couldn’t battle, elderly or very young, pregnant or just not strong enough to battle, had to stay inside the castle, in a special room overlooking the cliff. The rest of the people would prepare themselves for the fighting, which wouldn’t be taking long.

A week later, the grey soldiers finally attacked. First, they aimed for the town by the river. They took it rather fast, with no casualties from either side. Any way, there were only a few persons guarding it, mounting bombs and traps. The duke had decided that the river town, as it was only made of a handful of houses, could be left behind to better defend the upper town and, if it came to that, the castle.

Anyway, the bombs and traps left in some of the houses worked beautifully and many grey soldiers had to pull back as they weren’t fit for battle anymore. But disabling a dozen wasn’t enough. Between the river town and the castle town, there was a small plain with scattered trees. And when the grey soldiers army stepped into it, the people of the region finally saw what they were up against.

They were at least a thousand soldiers, creating a tight formation on the plain. Some had horses but most of them came by foot. All of them wore helmets, to conceal their identities, to make them even more fierce and despicable.

The people of the mountain were hidden among the many houses and little streets of the castle town. From inside the castle, no one could see anything, so they wouldn’t know if their loved ones died or got taken. Only if they won they would ever see them or their bodies again.

For a whole day, the grey soldiers just stood there, waiting, picking the best time to attack. The duke thought that they might decide to attack at night or early the next day, as they were skilled soldiers and knew how to attack when their enemies were mostly weak.

Indeed, the attack came covered by clouds that reduced the amount of light in the mountains. They raided houses and wholes streets, screeching horribly and laughing with a deep and awful voice. The people of the town lived up to the expectations and begin attacking from the rooftops and the sewers, from the trees an even standing in the middle of a street.

In the first few hours, many people of the mountains were killed, without mercy or a single second of doubt. But when the sun started to shine, they recovered quickly, killing several soldiers with arrows, stones and swords. For such a peaceful people, some of them were very skilled with metal.

Some of them even created a melted mixture of metals that they poured on top of a large groups of greys trying to penetrate the castle. The screams of pain were heard by the men and women waiting inside, waiting for their deaths or for the end of the struggle.

But it did not seem to end. Soldiers and townsfolk kept on fighting, maybe slower and with far less agility but insisting on their actions, on what each thought was right.

Then, from inside the castle, came yelling and screaming and cheering. The ones outside had no idea what happened. At least not until they saw it too: the day was bright clear so anyone could see it. There were five big vessels on the shore and people from inside were already heading towards the castle. In a matter of time, they would arrive to the battlefield.

The duke, a wise man, seeing his land in distress, had decided to use an old way of communication to contact some ancient allies of this land. Passed down by generations of his family, there was a ring, made somewhere beyond the sea. The duke took it and put in in a tiny bag, which he tied to the leg of a hawk. The bird left they day before the grey soldiers attacked the river town and now, their allies had responded.

That alliance had been forged centuries ago but it was visibly still alive. The troops from the sea help destroy the grey army and defend the castle. With the duke, they organized a greater alliance to liberate the rest of the kingdom and bring peace back to the known lands.

Eventually, no one really knows how, the dark king was defeated and everything came back to normal.

Several years after, the castle fell into disuse when there were no more descendants to sit inside it. Now the place is in ruins and the people from the town try to get tourists to visit the castle in order to tell them the legend of their lands and the magic of these mountains.

Afterlife

He wasn't stopping, not even to breathe. It was amazing and awful, incredible and horrible. He had entered the church, were members of the Cataclysm Circle had come to take shelter after the Alliance had pushed them from one side to the other of the Arno river.

We were exhausted but he, the Creature some called it, seemed to be unstoppable, never being tired, not thinking his actions more than once. He was driven by anger, despair and grief. Just pain, that was it for him and it showed.

No one really knew how, but he could use all the power of his mind. With only thinking of it, he elevated people from the ground ant threw them across the room, not caring if they broke their necks or their legs. He was merciless and no one tried to stop him, at least not us.

He had been known as Adrian. He was a legend of the war as he and a rather small group of people had died activating a bomb inside the castle were the supreme chief of the Cataclysm Circle lived. They had been able to destroy the core of the organization but that didn't seem to hurt them as much as everyone had thought. Not all members of the Alliance had died back then, some of them knew who he was and that's why some still referred to him as Adrian.

Now, that dead man was throwing people from one side to the other, choking them with his mind and stopping their hearts. In the storming of the Circle's castle, many people he loved had died. His most beloved person in the world among those. He had never wanted for all of them to be there. He had actually told the Council that he had a way to get inside without being detected, nor the bomb, and that he would use that in his advantage to destroy them

But the Council saw it as a way to become a hero and they didn't wanted any of that so they formed a team of six people to penetrate the rebel base and a latter group of thirty to knock out any remaining machines or communications of the Circle's core with the rest of the organization.

Thirty people died that day, high in the Alps, so far away from anything. Including him, or so it seemed. His body was sent to Vaduz, as the Alliance closest base was there. So many bodies, from so many parts of the continent. And there was word of so many more elsewhere.

But Adrian was not a normal human being. A week after his death, he woke up in a huge storage building. No bodies had been buried yet as there was nowhere to do it. Luckily for Adrian, anyhow. He stood up there, in the middle of the place and cried in silence. He knew he was never supposed to come back but he did anyway. Before guards realized he was inside, he saw the familiar faces he had loved so much and his tears were simply not enough for the pain he felt.

And now, he had already finished his raid on the church. Fellow soldiers entered the place and scouted for survivors or men Adrian had maybe missed. But no, that wasn't the case. Everyone there was dead and he knew it.

Without saying a word, he had vanished. No one worried though, because he always came back.

Weeks later, word was that he had meet with the Council. If gossip was to be believed, they were not very happy to hear he had massacred all the Circle's soldiers inside the church. They told him that the Alliance didn't wanted the world to think they would do just about anything to stop their enemies. They told Adrian that they couldn't be linked with a person which such a particular background, so he needed to calm down in order to join them in future missions.

Well, the rest was not gossip as many people heard Adrian himself speak. He exited the room were the meeting was being held and got to the main hall, were many people were working with wounded or preparing strategies. He told everyone he would be leaving the Alliance to work by his own account. He encouraged everyone to defeat the Cataclysm Circle, fast and with little or no casualties.
Adrian told them he had to much hate inside and that no person working to accomplish a goal should be driven by hatred.

What happened after, again, was subject of interpretation and depended on the information people received from few that claimed to have seen Adrian. Some fisherman in Norway, claimed he had travelled by foot to Bergen. There, a fish saleswoman claimed he had worked for her for some time until he decided to leave for the Americas, or so she claimed he told her.

But no one in that side of the world ever said anything about a man with extraordinary powers. Many, even after the war had ended, insisted on finding him. They were sure he couldn't die and possibly not age, either. So he had to be alive somewhere. Those people looking for him desperately, were the ones disappointed with the new government, which had failed to guarantee basic rights and many other things they had fought for. They believed Adrian could bring them that freedom they wanted, so they looked for him.

Years passed until a farmer in eastern Iceland claimed to have been helped by a man that seemed ravaged by war. He claimed the man didn't spoke at all but he volunteered with signs to work for him, helping with the sheep and the pigs. The farmer told papers that he was the best worker he had ever had. When asked what happened with that man, the farmer said he didn't know. He just disappeared on day, after finishing his chores.

Almost a decade after that event, even less people remembered Adrian and his exceptional mind. Only a small group of people insisted on finding him. They would travel around with their own money to look for clues of Adrian's whereabouts.

They finally found an old fisherman that claimed to have been saved by a merman, off the coast of Greenland. The small group of investigators flew to Kangerlussuaq and spoke with the fisherman but they soon believed to have been duped. The story did not make sense and the man was so old he might have been just inventing nonsense.

The fisherman's son told them he always told people that story, and he frankly had no idea why. He even said the merman took care of him for several days but that was ridiculous.

The fisherman's cottage was a little bit far from the main town so the small group stayed there to rest before their journey back home. The fisherman's son prepared a delicious fish stew and they all talked and joked all night long, drinking liquor, having fun without thinking in nothing else.

They left the following morning. After they did so, the fisherman's son went back to his usual duties: caring of the man that had actually saved him before becoming senile. He had saved him from drowning and the man responded by giving him a home and support. Adrian would never forget that.

Of victims and heroes

Far be it from me to mistreat a person that has gone through something hard. But hey, that woman is a fucking bitch. And no, I'm not saying she "was looking for it" or that "she deserved it". No, I'm just saying she's a bitch. And here's why.

First of all, the woman is not a victim. That fucking simple. She was just followed by a guy at night and then the guy disappeared. For all we know, it might have been a drunk guy or someone really stoned. Nothing really happened after that. Well, not besides her boyfriend going crazy and slapping her, once, in her apartment.

Yeah, I think I have to explain that. Margie, our "victim" and "hero" had a boyfriend. They had been together for at least three years and, naturally, they were thinking of getting married. Marge has always been kind of attractive (not to me, but whatever) and she certainly loved to party. Friends of mine knew for a fact that the woman couldn't stop herself from going out at least two days on a week and drink and dance and so on, for hours and hours.

Ok, that doesn't really make anyone a "bad person". But may I remind you that she didn't only had a few too many drinks, the girl was kinda loose and had more guys in a year than an army barracks. The girl was a bit too "free" and the worst was that her boyfriends, a fairly nice guy, had no idea she had been spending some much of her time with others.

Well, he finally realized it, about a week before they got married, when everything had already been bought, the venue was decided, the flowers chosen and the dress was resting on a hanger wearing to be worn.
He went to her house to drop the seating arrangements and found her going at it with a guy from her pilates class. So the marriage was cancelled but not before the guy beat the hell out of the lover of his bride to be (or not to be) and slapped her in the obvious rage.

So, no. She is not a victim in that sense. It wasn't gender violence or anything like that. It was a man deep in love hurt by a woman he should have never trusted. That was it.

Now, for seconds, let's talk about that guy that followed her. Working in the organization to defend the rights of women and others, I was there when her case was exposed and used in the media as one more act of harassment and violence against women and so on.

Of course, I was interested in knowing what had really happened. It was around that time when I decided to leave the organization, as I noticed they wanted to use anything to make their demands valid. They had greatly exaggerated what had happened with her boyfriend. Mutual friends told me he had to leave the country, as people began to harass him.

So I left that place but kept asking here and there about what had happened with the guy that followed her. As it turns out, it wasn't harassment, not a crazy stalker obsessed with the woman, as it had been said on the news and in numerous reports. Nothing close to that.

Albert Foch was around thirty years of age and had been consuming heroine and other drugs for around ten of those years. His body was not that strong and the drugs help him go through the cold nights, as food was pricier and less satisfying.

The night of the events, Albert had not consumed any drugs for some hours and was really hungry. He really wanted something hot, chocolate or coffee. He hadn't tasted any of those for quite some time and no drug could replace that need right now. He was walking through a neighborhood, shaking from the cold when he saw a young woman, that happened to be Margie. She had stepped out of a bus and dropped a wallet when she got down from it.

Albert waited for a moment and then went closer to grab the wallet. He checked it out and saw it had money and papers. So what he did was taking one of the bills, to buy some food, and decided to follow to woman to give the wallet to her. Maybe if she received it, she would give more money to him. So he followed her.

He did it for several streets and even yelled at her for the woman to stop but nothing worked. She just walked faster and yelled "Don't rob me, I have nothing". The man, exhausted from running after a crazy woman, yelled back: "You have nothing. I have your wallet". And maybe that was misinterpreted because she ran even faster and finally entered a building where a security guard warned him not to go near and threaten with calling the police. Albert explained to him that the woman had dropped her wallet and gave it to the guard. He left immediately and finally had a decent dinner, for once in many months.

All of this, I heard it from various sources, mainly the security guard but also, after scouting the neighborhood, I found Albert himself who told me the whole story and said he was actually thankful that he had the opportunity to grab the bill. I asked him why he didn't take it all and he answered he wasn't a thief and only took what he needed. He told me all when I invited him to have something to eat and he was grateful and, of course, surprised when he heard what she had said about what happened that night.

 - Bitches be crazy.

Well, this time Albert was absolutely right. Marge had judged a little bit too fast and never gave him a second chance.

Anyhow, she had one last surprise. She filed a lawsuit against her boss, because he had apparently harassed her in the office and cited as an accomplice a women that worked as a secretary in the office. As she announced a book in which she would tell her "courageous story", I decided to investigate this last event in her life.

I worked in an NGO called Human Rights for All and I had even more resources so it wasn't difficult to find out the man that had been Marge's boss, now unemployed, had never really come on to her. The truth was he was in love with the secretary she accused as an accomplice. And Marge was jealous of her and that was said by several of their coworkers. Apparently Marge wanted the boss to pay attention to her to get a raise but he only had eyes for the secretary, who also happened to be a skilled woman, dedicated to her work. Marge envied her for that. She considered her a "smart-ass", as many said she had called her.

So that was their story.

Well, I know there two sides to every story and the truth is always a mix of both. But Marge's life has not been an exemplary one and she has proven in numerous times, many more than the ones I tell here, that she is a prejudiced human being, only capable to achieve her goals by scheming and telling lies even to the people that decide to love her.

Even if it isn't all like that, I personally don't think that woman can be called a "hero" and, not at all, "a victim". She has used that status to make people feel bad for her and somehow that has made her superior to others, as if that made her a better person, which she actually thinks she is having released two books and becoming a model and spokesperson.

But that's our world, where real victims and heroes are ignored in favor of the fabricated dreams of others.

One thing

It was dark and rainy outside. It had been raining for almost two days, non-stop. It seemed like it never end.

Inside the hospital, only some patients were aware of the weather. One of them was Alfred, Alfie if you went by what his mom called him. She had been there some hours ago to tell him how the family was going. He had been absent from home for almost a week and things, as expected, had continued without him present.

He was sitting on the leather sofa the room had by the window. He couldn't see much from the outside but he felt better feeling the raindrops and the cold through the glass rather than being laying on the bed. He had no need for more sleep and would have loved to have a book, his computer or something to distract himself from the hospital.

But then again, his books were at home and his father had forbid his mother and siblings from taking anything from the house for him. And his laptop had been destroyed in the "accident", or at least that was what the policemen that had visited him said.

So, he only had the rain to spend time with and, after the first minutes it was already a bore. And the memories of the "accident" settled in every five seconds... Accident! How dare they say it had been an accident. Since when is a brutal attack considered an accident? The laptop was smashed to the ground, that is after they had used it against Alfie. His head was still hurting after that. They had kicked him several times, punched him, hit him with his laptop and they even spitted on him.

He went to the bathroom and looked at his scars, again. It was something of an obsession looking at the scratches on his face, the bruised skin all over his body and his now funny finger. He had no idea how or why but that one finger was always cold, as if it was dead.

A little bit embarrassed with himself, a stupid notion, he opened his robe and saw more bruises and scars from both the attack and the operations. They had told him he had being hit on the pelvis severely so that's why his that part hurt more than any other. Not that he was interested in having children or anything like that but he did plan to use his penis again. The doctor said he wasn't sure of the state of his reproductive organs and that further tests were needed to know if would all work again as usual.

Alfie walked back to his bed and sat there, grabbing his feet. Doctor Mason told him that same morning that he had been in a very frail state and they even feared for his life but, thankfully, the procedures and medications had call worked perfectly. Although he wasn't the fittest guy around, his body had healed almost completely very fast. His immune system was incredible, according to one of the nurses.

But that didn't fixed it all for him. What if those two men had hit him with a baseball bat or cut him with a knife. The police said they normally didn't use guns but who they might be exceptions to the rule.

He wasn't scared anymore. He had no real reason to be. He was more worried about the consequences of it all. His father now had even more reasons to be against him and no so-calle frienda had cone to visit. He felt really alone. His mother didn't count because he knew she too was worried about her husbands attitude and she had no intention to contradict him.

Alfie decided to think about something else, other than his father, but that was to no good. He had just realized of the amount of info that had been lost for the foundation. He had been trusted with a very important report and now all that work was gone. They had destroyed it all: cellphone, hard drives, usb devices and, of course, his laptop.

As he laid down on the bed, he thought that only a few coincidence were necessary to be lost forever. He never stayed that late or liked to be entrusted with so many responsibilities but that week it was all different because he had decided to go on and live by himself. He knew the costs were barely affordable but he didn't mind at all. He jus wanted to be a bit more free, more in charge of his life.

He stepped out of the Rainbow Foundation at ten o'clock at night and walked to the nearest bus stop. He had sensed someone close or watching but he ignored it until a tall, bald guy stopped him a block away from the bus stop, asking for the time. Well, he wasn't really interested in that.

The rest was all a blur. He remembered parts and pieces but not the whole puzzle. Then he woke up and they told him he had been on the hospital for three days.

His father had always been against him working for such an organization and now he had all the reasons to hate all about it even more. He disapproved of Alfie and that hurt him every day. But there wasn't much to do about that. Alfie had moved on from trying to impress his dad, to not caring what he thought of his son. It just didn't mattered any more.

Two days passed until he was allowed to leave the hospital. When got home he told his parents about moving out. He wasn't asking for anything, just letting them know.

He did move out a month after after the attack. The foundation had not blamed him for the lost data and congratulated him for his work and effort. It was no.mystery all of it was a good thing for them as fundraisers began to invest money in them in the light of such a vicious attack on "the foundation".

He didn't really care about all of that. They gave him a big bonus on christmas, gave him a raise and a better position. He was happy for all of it until the police came back, in order to interrogate him. They had captured a group of skinheads that had been blamed for various hate crimes in the city and they wanted him to see them, in order for them to be sure they were the ones.
Well, at least one of them was. Alfie confessed he only saw one of the guys, so he could only be sure of that.

After that he went home, his new home and thought of the face of the attacker and all the good that one bad action had in his life. The guy had no idea but he had made him better, stronger to face life's many challenges.

Drive

Ariana took the lead tube from the floor. The man slowly stood up from the ground and looked at her, as if he wanted to kill her.

But she was beyond that. The girl tightened her hand around the tube and, before he could do anything, hit the man on the head once and again and again.

When she stopped, he was dead, his blood forming a small pond that grew larger by the minute. She ran from the place, not letting the tube go.

Half an hour later, she got to her house. She finally let go of the bloody tube that hit the floor hard. She slowly took her coat off, trembling a bit, remembering how he looked after she had killed him.

No, she didn't felt pity or remorse. She just couldn't. Ariana had promised herself never to be a victim again and she had taken steps for that not to happen. She went to a martial arts school and began doing yoga, although she failed miserably at the latter.

Fighting, the inexplicable drive she felt when hitting another body, was to her like a drug. A brand new one she discovered to be very addictive.

So that night, when she killed a man that had attempted to rape her, she felt powerful and strong, filled with adrenaline and ready to take the world by her rules and not by the ones society imposed. She was fed up by the feeling of fear and hopelessness. No, she decided to take action.

Many people, mainly man, were afraid of strong women. Days after the killing, she went out with a former lover called Richard, by her request. He had stated she was different somehow but that he liked it. She just smiled, not really understanding what he had meant.

News of the murder filled the papers soon but the man was a reported rapist and many of his victims were thankful for his demise. Some actually said they were happy as that was what he deserved. Others just wanted time to heal, both physically and mentally.

But Ariana had already healed, or at least that was what she said to herself. Before the first attack, the one that almost made her insane, she was just a fearful girls just sailing through life, not really counting on anything. The attack just made her even more shy, more scared and she even lost the will to live.

Now, however, she had taken the bull by the horns. Richard, now her boyfriend, was specially surprised by how much she had changed over the years. He knew hair as the bookish, rather dull girl in high school. To be honest, he never paid attention to her back then.

But now it was impossible not look at her: she had blossomed into this sexy and daring woman. Sex was wonderful and even better was sharing long talks with her. Ariana had always loved reading, so she had decided to open a small bookstore. She did it all by herself and just a year after she was a favorite in the neighborhood.

Richard moved in with her and they shared even more than before: travels, memories, experiences and more. One day she finally told him about her rape. Richard was an even better man that she taught. She kissed and hugged her and promised to be there forever.

Of course, sometimes she still remembered everything: the rape, the aftermath and the killing of that man, in a dark alley. That was her biggest secret and she never told anyone. Ariana never felt guilty for what she had done but she knew it was a sin with which she would have to live forever.

And she did. She lived a full life, doing what she loved, living life by her rules. The man that loved her shared her feelings for the beauty of life and the horrible events of her life never tainted the powerful drive to keep on going.