The next morning, I start packing my duffle bag with the stuff I'm going to take with me. I go downstairs and put my bag in the kitchen, where Monty is already eating cereal. I also pour myself a bowl and ask him, “Are you ready to break open that safe?”

  He nods and answers, “Yeah, I only need to do one thing before that, though. I'm going to take a shower.”

  I let him take a quick shower while I search for some tools to help me break it open. The safe itself is just a cheap steel safe with a number lock. I go to the garage and search for a hammer and a chisel. I find the hammer on the workbench, but I can't find a chisel, so I take a piece of rebar and turn it into a chisel with an angle grinder and a bench grinder. It won’t be a good chisel, but it will be enough to make a gap near the safe.

  I go back to the supply closet and begin hammering the DIY chisel into the slit near the combination lock. After a couple of minutes of hammering and a couple more minutes trying to get the chisel back out, I have made a large enough gap near the safe door to put the prying part of my crowbar into. But before I can, Monty is back out of the shower and asks, “Do you need some help with that?”

  I think and say, “No, I'm good. It's a rather cheap safe, it will break easily enough.”

  Monty nods and heads to the kitchen to pack the cans of food in his bag.

  I put my crowbar in the gap I made and begin pushing. I can hear the door creak under the stress I'm putting on it. After a few minutes of pushing and pulling, the door is now beginning to bend outward. I clear some of the harder cleaning supplies, as what I am going to do might hurt otherwise. I put myself in a position where I can pull on the crowbar and hold it near my chest.

  In a quick movement, I launch myself back while holding onto the crowbar. My back hits the wall, but there's a loud metallic sound. Either I broke the safe open, or I broke my crowbar in half—and I doubt it's the latter.

  I look at the crowbar in my hand. It's nearly fine, only a bit more scratched up. I stand and look inside the safe, and I find something rather nice. I don’t know what type of revolver it is, but it’s old. I stand there, holding the revolver, and try to remember anything about it. I try, but I can't. I just stand there with the revolver and say, "What are you?"

  I look at the screen and remember the last skill I got—Identify. I hadn't thought about it after I got it and forgot about it.

  I look through the safe and find two boxes of ammo. As I open one, I find it half-empty; the other one is still sealed, so there are about 75 rounds. The only other things in the safe are some documents—nothing interesting. I look at the revolver, happy that I did not leave the safe unopened.

  Suddenly, there is a crash near the front door. Monty comes running but stops in the living room, and I hear a new voice:

  “Get on the ground!”

  Monty gets on the ground, and I guess whoever is here has a weapon. I try to load the revolver quietly while the man shouts at Monty.

  "Where do you keep your loot!?" he yells.

  Monty tries to stay calm, but his voice gets stuck in his throat as the man gets angrier and points his rifle at him. I peek out with the now-reloaded revolver and fire two shots at center mass.

  The first bullet hits low and goes through his hip. The second bullet goes high and hits him in the neck. I watch as the man falls forward.

  I run to Monty to help him up and quickly take the man's bag and rifle before running to the kitchen to grab my duffle bag and the compound bow.

  I tell Monty, "We have to leave now! We don't know if someone or something is coming after hearing the gunshots!"

  Monty just stands there. I don’t know if he’s having a panic attack or is in shock or something. Fuck, I’m nearly having a panic attack.

  I run back into the kitchen, grab his bag, and shove it into his arms. He just stares blankly in front of him. I grab his head and force him to look at me.

  “Monty, look at me. Monty, I'm here, snap out of it. We have to get out of here.”

  I see his eyes start to focus again, and he begins to put his backpack on. I push the rifle into his hands and peek out the door. I can hear something coming from the left, so we go to the right.

  We keep running and turn into the first corridor we find, then keep running. When we decide we are far enough away, I use Scavenger's Intuition to find a safe place to hide. It starts leading me down more corridors, and as we round a corner, we see what looks like a library.

  We enter the library, and the outside does not show its true size. Inside, it’s large and has very bad lines of sight—an enemy would have a hard time finding us here. We search for a place, maybe an employee breakroom. We search the ground floor and find the bathroom and the storage room, so we head to the second floor. There, we find some computer rooms and some sort of study room.

  The study room has several heavy wooden desks, so we push them against the door.

  I slump into an office chair, all my energy gone as the adrenaline fades. What I've done comes back to me.

  "I killed someone. I killed him… oh fuck, I killed someone. Oh shit, oh no."

  I let my head fall into my hands.

  "I did the right thing. He would have killed Monty. I did nothing wrong. I was defending my friend. He was a threat, and he had to die."