We all stand, just paralyzed at Alice's words. How did she get here? Why? We need to move fast! And that's exactly what's we do, because everyone in the area, a grass field hears loud, loud enough to make a person deaf, gunshots near us. Alice takes a hundred or so people, all of us to the back of a house, running for our dear lives.

"Everyone! Listen to me!" She orders when we're gathered together in a crowd. I'm in the middle of the pack, and I can barely hear her give instruction. 

"We have to get out of here! Okay, I know the way to a special exit that's not the front gate!" 

Special exit? What could that be? But we all follow her like sheep, scared and still jogging. She makes a sharp left and later, points to a door in a tall, brick wall that stands by itself. Oh, no.

Just after she opens the door, one of Miko's Asian men shoot a few survivors at the back of the crowd. 

But I can't focus on that, or if they were my friends or just strangers, and I rush to the exit. Then I forget one thing. Mom and Dad. I can't just leave them behind! When I arrive at the door, my heart sinks. 

"Alice, I can't leave my parents!" I say, practically screaming. 

"I have to go and find them! Please!" She has an incredibly stern look on her face.

"Marcus, no. Go with the others." 

At that moment I hurry back into the community. I run and run and run, crying, until I find myself in an abandoned home. Vigilantly, I inspect the closet to see if anyone is there. It's pitch black, but I can tell there's not a person in sight. And then I march my feet to see under the bed, if someone is hiding there. No. Please don't kill me.

Somebody slowly opens the front entrance, and I freak out, until I sigh with a tremendous amount of relief. It's Alex. He followed me. 

"Oh, thank God, you're fine, Marcus," he tells me, giving me a warm, brotherly hug. "Alex," I say sadly. 

"Let's sit down." We take our places on a bed. 

"We have to find Mom and Dad. It's the only reason Miko's here: to separate them from us," I try to reason with him. 

"But-" Alex sees that I'm about to have a mental panic attack.

"Okay. We'll do it. Let's go, I'll protect you." And then I remember something.

"But we're both unarmed. How are we going, you know, defend ourselves?"

"We're just gonna avoid the gunshots and stay safe, Just remember to stay close to me, okay?"

But I'm still extremely scared. About Mom and Dad, our other friends, and if Alice will be mad or not that I left. And so we head out. 

Crouching down, Alex leads me through the sides and the back of a small house, a medium-sized one, and another even smaller one. We've been lucky not to have come across one of her men thus far, but then Alex spots someone when we circle back to the same field again.

I know most of some of the group I was part of got away safely, because they're not there anymore, and I can see a few bodies on the other side of the field. And a question pops into my mind. Did Miko do this because the Settlers didn't follow their rules? Probably, but that's not for me to say.

The person we see is... Dad? And Mom, and Miko is talking to them, and a few of her men are standing there, holding them at gunpoint. 

What the hell is going on? 

Suddenly, I feel a tap on my shoulder. My first instinct is to turn around, because it could be danger! However, the person I see is Moira, with her pale face all bruised and a burst of blood in her right shoulder. She's alive! 

"Moira!" I whisper. "How did you get here?"

She smiles at both me and Alex, and stops a second later. 

"No time for all that. Listen, I found Alice on the other side of the wall, and she said that you guys were out here looking for your parents. She also told me there's a huge herd of growlers coming very soon, in about five minutes or so. They've been tracking it with their binoculars and watch towers. So that's the thing that will get everyone out of here!"

"So we just need to wait?" Alex questions. 

"Basically," she says. I hang my head down and think about how everything will be okay as the three of us just sit, crouching. And then I hear long, drawn-out, ear-splitting growls. We turn to our left, and we see they have figured out how to get through the community's boundaries. Their decomposed, ugly faces with a deep shade of blue skin inching closer and closer to us! 

"Now!" Mom signals us, and later, after killing a few, Dad runs over to where we are crouching, and eventually, Miko and her people get torn apart by the growlers. Mom covers my eyes with her hand. "Let's get the hell out of here!" Mom tells everyone.