“S-s-seven… h-he was o-only-y seven,” the girl sobbed out as she came over to us and touched her brother’s face, tears streaming down her face and falling onto his blood-soaked shirt.

I clenched my jaw and touched the scar under my right eye. Another memory flooded to the surface before I could keep it down like the previous one.

“Very few of you will make it through this week,” Maria stated as she paced in front of the small line of kids in front of her.

I was the last one in the line of thirteen kids, Callam and Niki were standing next to me, all of us shaking in pure terror, but could you blame us, this woman had kidnapped us... killed our parents... beaten us the entire night after we had been brought here.

I was the oldest kid here, and I was only seven years old, the youngest was maybe four years old. These people were ending our lives before they even began.

Someone came up onto the stage pushing a large machine in front of him. Maria walked over to the kid at the opposite end of the line from me and shoved his hands into the machine. Suddenly he began screaming and crying, begging her to stop it, but she held his hands in that machine for several minutes before finally removing them and allowing him to drop his hands to his sides. Callam and Niki both tried to scoot away, tried to get behind me but guards held them in their places in line. There was a guard holding me too, I tried to fight my way out of his grip but he just squeezed my arms tighter. Maria and the person pushing the machine made it to Callam. That’s when I decided to kick back behind me, I caught the guard holding me right between the legs. He let go of me and I jumped at Maria, but she was ready and moved out of the way before I could get her. I hit the floor and two guards grabbed hold of me this time, dragging me back in line.

“Aidan Colt, you’re a fighter… we need fighters, but we need fighters we can control, not loose cannons,” Maria said as she stepped in front of me.

I glared at her, trying to keep my fear from showing. She drew a knife from her belt and put it on my face, just below my right eye. She left it there for a short time before slowly drawing the knife across my cheek. The pain was unimaginable, a horrible burning feeling burst through my entire face as the knife was drawn all the way to my jawline. I didn’t flinch though, I refused to give her the satisfaction.

“Aidan? You still here?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and dropped my hand down from my face. Sophia was looking at me with her eyebrows raised. A guard came towards us and pushed me and Sophia away from the body then picked it up. The young girl tried to keep him from taking her brother but he ignored her and started to walk away. I stood up and stared at him as he approached the door leading out of the pit.

“N-no! Please-se!” The girl shouted, still sobbing.

“Hey!”

I surprised myself and everyone near me when I shouted after the guard. He stopped and turned around then glared at me.

“What?”

“Put him down. Now.”

“I can’t do that, I’ve got my orders already, Colt.”

“I don’t care about your orders. Put him down,” I said as I looked down at the knife I had removed from the boy’s stomach, “unless you want me to make you.”

I flipped the knife around in my hands and stared at the guard. A glimmer of fear went across his face before he grimaced and slowly set the boy’s body down on the ground. He then turned back towards the door. As he walked out I threw the knife, it barely nicked his ear and slammed into the doorframe. He reached up and touched his ear where blood was coming from the small cut and turned back to me.

“Take that back to Maria.”

He stared at me in both anger and fear as he removed the knife from the doorframe and left. I went over to the abandoned corpse and picked it up. I looked back at Sophia, the Asian girl and the boy I had taken responsibility for, then nodded towards the exit.

“Come on, I’ll take you somewhere where you can… say goodbye then bury him.”

The girl nodded and slowly made her way over to me. After a moment Sophia and the other boy followed. I led the way towards the fence I had climbed back in earlier that day. We walked in silence, the only sounds being the quiet sobs of the young girl. Anyone who we passed stared for a moment but immediately moved away when they saw the look I gave them. Soon we reached the fence and I got ready to climb over. I let the limp body I was carrying fall against my chest while I held it securely with my arms and slowly climbed up the fence. I reached the top and carefully jumped down on the other side. Sophia helped both of the kids climb up and over then did so herself.

“Are you taking us to your secret hideout? Wherever you go whenever you sneak off?”

I just glanced over at Sophia and nodded silently as I led the way. We arrived soon after and I set the boy down under a tree.

“What was his name?”

The girl looked up at me and wiped her eyes before responding.

“A-Akira.”

I nodded and pulled one of my knives from its hidden sheath in my coat. I carefully carved his name into the bark of the tree. Nobody said anything as I worked, they just stood there either watching me carve or looking down at the small body. Once I had the name carved I turned towards the hidden hatch.

“Take however long you need. I’m gonna go get a shovel.”

I walked away before anyone could respond. When I reached the hatch I opened it and climbed down into the bunker. I heard someone follow me but didn’t care to look at who it was. I searched through the bunker until I found a shovel. When I turned around I saw both Sophia and the boy staring at the wall of etched names in the dim light. I sighed and grabbed the lantern and turned it on.

“That’s everyone I’ve killed or been responsible for the death of since I became a Phantom.”

“H-how many?” The boy asked as he put his hand on the wall and brushed it over several names.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. Just know that it’s ten years worth of names.”

“Aidan… how many is it?” Sophia asked as she too stared in awe at the names.

I sighed and leaned the shovel up against a wall then began lighting the rest of the lanterns.

“Eight hundred and forty-seven,” I respond as both of them look at me expectantly, “and I’ll be adding another one in a few minutes.”

Before either one of them could say anything else I turned away and brought the shovel up the ladder and over to where the girl was sitting next to her brother.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded silently and I started to dig a hole big enough to put Akira’s body into.

“Thank you, Aidan.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I responded as I glanced up at her, “what’s your name?”

“Sakura.”

“I’m sorry this happened to you and your brother, Sakura.”

“None of it was your fault,” she muttered sadly, “you’re not the one that kidnapped us, and you’re not the one that… that killed him.”

I chose not to respond to that since I had already been starting to blame myself for the poor boy’s death. If I had listened to Colonel Joseph I could have stopped this before it happened. I could have killed Maria and freed all these kids before any of them died. I don’t know how long I spent digging, but I stopped when Sophia approached us from the bunker entrance.

“I think that’s deep enough,” Sophia said as she stopped next to me and looked at the hole.

I nod in agreement and set the shovel down. I gently picked Akira’s body up and carefully set him down in the hole I had dug. I was about to start covering him when Sakura reached out for the shovel.

“C-can I?”

She was starting to cry again but I could see the look of insistence on her face. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I hand the shovel over and she begins moving the dirt I had dug up over her brother’s body.

“Let’s let her do this alone.”

I nodded in agreement to Sophia’s statement and the two of us walked back over to the bunker entrance. I climbed down first and saw the other boy still staring at all the names.

“How do you carve them into the concrete so nicely?” He asked as I went to stand next to him.

“With this,” I stated as I grabbed the laser pen from its place on the counter, “it’s a laser pen. The same kinda thing used to etch stuff into jewelry only portable instead of the etching machines that professional jewelers use.”

“And there’s really eight hundred and forty-seven?”

“Yeah.”

“How many of them did you actually… you know… kill?”

He was awkwardly looking at me now. Clearly not quite comfortable with the fact that he was standing with someone who had been responsible for so much death.

“Most of them.”

He visibly gulped and took a step back from me. I turned away and found a clear spot on the wall to carve the new name. Soon enough I had finished and the eight hundred and forty-eighth name was officially part of the wall.

Akira.

I stared at the name as I set the laser pen back on the counter.

“Are… are those the names of… of your family?”

I winced as I glanced over and saw the boy staring up at the first four names.

“Yes.”

“What… what happened to them? Why are they part of your… memorial?”

I didn’t want to answer that so I cleared my throat.

“What’s your name, kid?”

He looked at me for a moment before stuffing his hands in his pocket and responding.

“Orlan.”

I nodded in response and sighed as I walked over to stand next to him. I looked up at the names as we stood in awkward silence. The silence was broken when Sophia cleared her throat.

“We should probably head back… if we’re gone too long they’ll start looking for us.”

“Yeah… let’s check on Sakura,” I reply, happy to have a reason to stop standing here hoping Orlan wouldn’t ask about my family again.

As we headed towards the ladder we put the lanterns out. Sophia climbed up first, then Orlan, then me. When we got above ground we saw Sakura standing at the foot of the grave. The shovel was on the ground beside her. I went over to her and picked the shovel up, getting her attention.

“Sakura, are you ready to head back?”

“Yeah… yeah I am.”

I nodded in response. I walked back over to the hatch and tossed the shovel down into the darkness before closing the bunker door and heading back to the facility. The others followed me, none of us spoke as we walked.

Once we reached the fence Sophia climbed over while I helped the kids up and over then followed behind them. Sophia put her hand on Sakura's shoulder and said that she could come stay with her tonight so that we wouldn’t have to find her an empty room or deal with any of the guards, or worse, Maria. The girl agreed and they both said bye before heading to Sophia’s room. Orlan and I both already knew he was supposed to stay with me so I led the way to my room and he followed.

“This is… nice,” he muttered after I unlocked and opened my door and he walked in, “it seems so… normal.”

“Well what were you expecting? Bloodstained walls and floors with skeletons and stuff hanging on the walls?”

“Definitely something more like that than like this… it reminds me of my old room… we’ll sort of. I didn’t have a kitchen in mine.”

I rolled my eyes at his response and pointed to a door to our left, “that’s the bathroom if you need it. Bedroom is that door over there,” I finished as I pointed towards a different door leading out of the main room.

“There’s a cot in the closet in the bedroom, you can use that, unless you wanna sleep on the couch.”

“Um… I’ll sleep on the couch. Sounds comfier.”

I nod in response and go to grab a spare blanket and pillow for him to use. When I come back I find him rummaging through my fridge.

“Sorry there’s not much in there. I don’t spend a lot of time here since I’m on missions so often.”

He shrugs and settles for a couple fruit cups that could last a million years and still taste the exact same as when they were packaged. I grab him a spoon from the silverware drawer and we walk over to the couch. He opens the first fruit cup and starts eating. I just sit there tapping away at my C-Watch display trying to act like I was doing something important so he wouldn’t try to ask me about anything I didn’t want to talk about.

“Hey… Aidan… um… thanks,” I suddenly hear him say, I look up and see he’s finished the first fruit cup and stopped in the middle of opening the second one.

“What for?”

He really doesn’t have anything to be thanking me for. Those fruit cups probably cut ten years off his life.

“Not… well… not killing me in the pit. I know you could have and probably should have… so thanks,” he says as he finishes opening the fruit cup, “also for convincing Maria to let you teach me instead of her just… well… doing what she did to Akira, to me.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure how much good I did you. Maria wasn’t messing around when she said we’d have to fight to the death in a week. I’m gonna do my best to keep that from happening, but… I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop it.”

“So, if we do end up having to fight again… are you… are you going to kill me?”

He turns pale and sets the fruit cup down, not seeming to have the appetite to finish it now.

“No. No I’m not,” I say as a thought occurs to me, “stay here, I need to go talk to someone.”

Before he can say anything I’m jumping off the couch and running out the door, barely taking the time to lock it behind me. I bolt down hallway after hallway until I come to the door I was running towards. I knock on it several times then stand and wait. Colonel Joseph soon opens the door.

“Aidan?”

“Tell me what your plan is. I’m ready to be a part of it.”