Everyone inside the tent heard the gunshot outside. Some cowered and got down, while 32A, Saku and Ilkka rushed out and went to where the sound came from.
”The sound came from there!” Saku shouted and pointed to where the sound came from.
They all ran to that direction and to their horror, especially Ilkka’s horror, they saw one of the children that he was supposed to look after laying on the ground lifeless.
”No!” Ilkka yelled out louder than anyone had heard him say anything in a long time.
”Who did this?” 32A asked.
”There’s tracks here. Looks like a kicksled. Let’s get this guy!” Saku said.
”And just leave Urho here? Go yourself!” Ilkka shouted at Saku and held the dead child in his hands, hoping that he wasn’t beyond saving.
”I might be able to help.” 32A said, figuring there was no reason to hide her ability.
”In what way?” Ilkka asked.
”I didn’t want you to know this about me, but I can do something that may seem strange.” 32A said and knelt next to the dead child that Ilkka was holding while kneeling himself too.
She looked for the bloodiest spot in the body and when she found it, she put her hand on it. The wound healed and the bullet was pushed out of the body.
”How did you do that?” Ilkka said amazed.
32A didn’t reply at all but focused on the dead body hard. The bullet wound was healed and after a moment, life came back to the body and the dead eyes of the child looked at 32A. The now revived child was too shocked to say anything.
”What did you do?” Ilkka asked 32A.
”I wish I knew that myself.” She replied and then looked back at the child in Ilkka’s hands.
”Are you well? What happened?” She asked the child, but the child didn’t say anything back.
"How did you do that? The kid was dead!" Saku asked.
"I have an ability. It's handy, but comes at a cost." 32A said and felt another pulse.
"This is a miracle. So you can just bring people back from the dead?" Saku asked.
"I can. And I can do more than that." 32A answered.
The others were speechless, unable to comprehend it.
"If only we had you a lot earlier." Ilkka said.
"Let's not think about that. Is the kid fine?" 32A said.
”He won’t speak. Let’s get him back inside and take him back to his mother.” Ilkka said and stood up, pulling the child up by his hand.
”Well, now that that’s taken care of, we should follow these tracks and find out who did this!” Saku shouted.
Without waiting for an answer, he started following the tracks. 32A followed, figuring Saku shouldn’t go alone after an armed killer.
”We need to find this guy before the snowfall covers the tracks!” Saku shouted, minding the wind and the snow and kept running against the wind, following the tracks.
"If the killer gets me, you better bring me back to life too!" Saku shouted.
"I probably will!" 32A shouted back.
"If you don't, I'll kill you too!"
”Do you still see the tracks?” 32A asked Saku.
”Somewhat! Come on, don’t disappear yet!” Saku replied and shouted but after some more following of the tracks, the tracks ended because too much snow had fallen on them.
”Do you still see the tracks?” 32A asked once again.
”Damn it! Damn it, fuck! Ahh!” Saku just shouted and 32A understood what he meant and didn’t reply.
”The wanker could be in any of these houses!” Saku shouted.
”No point starting to search through them. We could get ambushed while inside.” 32A pointed out.
”You want to let this guy get away?”
”I don’t want us to get shot too! Think! Let’s go back to the tent and think this over.” 32A said to Saku, who calmed down after a few seconds.
”Yeah. You’re right. We’ll get this guy later.” Saku said.
They started going back the way they came, while being wary of their surroundings. In the dark, cold, windy and snowy evening, the abandoned houses were eerie to 32A who had lived in a forested area for so long. The situation at hand made it even more eerie for her, but scared she was not. Her fear for the evil people of this land had been replaced by hatred for them. While walking back, 32A kept looking behind herself just in case.
32A and Saku saw the tent again and both were unhappy that the shooter got away. Saku went into the tent and 32A went to the truck. She knocked on the doors of the cargo space, but heard no response.
"It's just me! The shooter is long gone!" She shouted and the doors were opened for her and she climbed in.
"Are you still surviving here?" She asked the people.
"Barely. These thin walls don't keep out the cold and those pissheads in the tent still won't let us in." One person answered from the back.
"And now they're shooting guns here to keep us scared. We haven't done anything!" Another one said.
"The shooter wasn't one of them. They were all in their tent except the one who got shot. Me and one other tried to chase after the shooter but couldn't find anyone." 32A explained.
"So now there's a killer on the loose here?" One of them asked.
"Seems so." 32A replied.
"We need to drive this truck out of here! This place is not safe."
"I promised to feed you. Tomorrow I could do it. You can leave, but you'd leave hungry." 32A pointed out.
"Is it worth the risk to stay here for another night?" One of the people asked Kullervo, who the small group had apparently chosen as their leader.
"Whoever that shooter was, shouldn't know that we're here. As long as nobody steps out tonight, this will just seem like an empty abandoned truck." Kullervo reasoned.
"But what if the shooter saw her coming in?" One person asked and pointed at 32A.
"The shooter ran away and made a lot of noise upon arriving. If the shooter was anywhere near, I'm sure we'd know. We heard music before the gunshot. So I think if we hear music, that's when we should hide. I still need to check up on the tent, so I have to still leave this little truck of ours." 32A explained.
"If you're going to do it, do it quickly, and don't come back here tonight anymore. We don't want any footprints leading here." Kullervo said to her.
"Then I'll leave right away to give more time for the snow to fall on the footprints." 32A said and opened the doors again and added: "Don't drive away."
51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTK2mXnSHsM
She briskly made her way to the tent and kept looking around, even if she could hardly see anything this late at night. She did see the glow coming from the tent and went towards it. Inside the tent, people were arguing.
"There's a killer running around and you want to stay here? Are you crazy? We need to leave!" Tarmo was arguing to Ilkka.
"If we just run away every time somebody spooks us, we'll always be found, and we'll always be running away." Ilkka argued back.
"This place isn't safe anymore!"
"No place is safe! We need to make this place safe for us by teaching a lesson to anyone who tries to mess with us!"
"We have children here! We can't risk them!"
"What kind of an example would we be showing to them, if we just ran away from every fight?"
"We don't even know if there's just one killer or several! There could be an entire gang of them and this could have been a warning."
"But if we leave, the traders won't know where we went. We'd have to find a new way of life entirely. That just isn't feasible! And we might end up in an even more hostile territory and we wouldn't even know it!" Ilkka argued.
"Maybe if we were more open to moving around, Usko would still be alive!" Tarmo said after he lost his patience.
Ilkka didn't enjoy that comment about his dead son, and gestured like was about to punch Tarmo with his right hand, and then punched him with his left one instead.
Lots of people started yelling and holding the two back to prevent any more physicality.
"The last thing we need is fighting each other! Is this brotherhood to you?" Saku tried to shout in the middle of the commotion, but nobody listened.
32A noticed the three childen leave their mother's side and go under the wall of the tent and out of the tent. 32A figured that there's nothing she could say that anyone would listen to, so she left the tent with intention to talk to the child that she brought back from the dead. The light coming from the tent illuminated the darkness of the outside just enough that she saw the three siblings running further away from the tent.
"Hey! You three! Where are you going?" She shouted at them, but they didn't seem to hear her, and just disappeared into the darkness.
32A went back into the tent and ignored all the arguing going on. She walked to the mother of the three siblings to ask her something.
"Did you see those kids running away? Did you let them out?" 32A asked her.
"I did. I usually don't let them out this late but I don't want them to hear this." The mother answered.
"There's a killer out there and one of the kids got shot! Are you sure that that's a good idea?"
"What? A killer?"
"Did you not hear any of what these people have been talking about? Did you not hear the gunshot?" 32A asked in disbelief.
"What? I didn't hear any of that! I hate my bad hearing! Go get them back at once!"
"I'll go get them back right away." 32A said and without wasting time, she went under the tent and followed the footsteps on the ground.
In the darkness it became harder to see the footprints the further away they went from the tent. 32A had to pay close attention just to keep track.
"You shouldn't be out here! Get back inside!" She shouted into the darkness but no response was heard.
She still saw the footprints and kept following them. Eventually the footsteps led to a small wooden shack in the back yard of a house. The door was busted open and 32A approached it slowly and cautiously.
She opened the door slowly and the three brothers inside saw her instantly and one of them raised a tire iron from the ground. In the darkness they didn't recognize who it was. 32A raised her hands.
"It's just me. I came to get you back to the tent. It's not safe out here." 32A said but heard no response.
She walked closer to them and crouched down. She recognized the one who got shot and turned to him.
"Are you all right? You must be distraught after what happened." 32A asked but the boy didn't respond anything.
"He hasn't spoken after what happened. What even happened out there?" One of them said and asked.
"There are bad people out here and one almost got your brother here." 32A answered, figuring that lying about the reality would only be a disservice to them.
She then turned to the one who held the tire iron.
"Why did you go outside even after what happened?" She asked.
"It was too loud in the tent."
"And that was a good reason to go out here right after what happened?"
"Okay, we won't do it again!"
"You better not. Your mother told me to come get you back in the tent. So let's go." 32A said and stood up.
Now that her eyes had gotten used to the dark, she looked at the inside of the little wooden building that they were in. There were bicycles leaning on the walls and wheels hanging on the walls.
"What is this place by the way? Why did you come here?" 32A asked.
"We come here to hide sometimes."
"Hide from what?"
"Nothing really." One of them answered and 32A noticed a sleeping bag on the floor along with empty water bottles.
"Is this stuff yours?" 32A asked.
"No. That was here when we found this place." One of them said.
32A took the dirty sleeping bag and shook it a little.
"I don't have one myself. Might as well take this one." She said.
When she took a step, she noticed that she stepped on a paper note. She picked it up.
"Did any of you write this?" She asked.
"We don't know how to write." One of them answered.
32A squinted her eyes to see the text written on the note. It was written with a pencil.
"If you're reading this note, run away. These people have been chasing me from town to town, from village to village. No matter where I run or hide, they always find me and the sound of their violins follow me. I've been kicked out of communities for endangering them because these people chase me everywhere. Only a matter of time until they find me here too. If anyone lives here, I'm sorry if I've endangered you. These people have no problem harming those who aren't even their desired target. I've gotten too many people killed by running away from these people. I have to end it. I have to get rid of them. I have to fight them myself. If there's no sign of me anywhere, I probably lost, or ran away again." 32A read from the note quietly in her mind.
"We all need to leave this place. There's more than one of these evil people here."32A said to the three brothers.
Just as she was about to take the first step outside, she stopped. Somewhere in the distance she heard a strange sound nearly getting drowned out by the howling of the wind that made the sound barely even audible. She listened closer, and the sound got louder. It was once again the sound of a violin playing the same melody as the last time.
"Inside! Hide! We're not going out there right now." 32A said dead seriously and closed the door of the bike storage, even if it didn't close fully.
"In the corner. Stay quiet. Don't make a sound." She said to the children who were visibly scared.
The one who was shot earlier still had the same empty stare. In the corner 32A crouched in front of the three of them and kept a close eye on the door. The sound of the violin kept coming closer slowly.
"The tire iron. Give it to me." 32A whispered to the one with the object in question and was then given the tire iron.
The closer the music got, the harder she squeezed the tire iron in her hand. It sounded like whoever played the violin was coming exactly to this location.
"He must have seen our footsteps. This isn't good." 32A thought in her head and although she was immensely worried, she did not want to entertain the idea that this might be it.
Not long after, the violin was playing right outside the walls, and everybody inside was breathing heavily. The violin was louder than the sound of the wind, and quiet footsteps could be heard along with it. The sound was moving along the wall. Whoever played the music could have come straight in, but didn't. The player went around the little storage entirely. 32A quietly went next to the door, ready to ambush anyone who came in but just then she felt another painful pulse, and in her nervous and focused state, it caught her by suprise and made her drop the tire iron onto the stone floor where the clanging sound of the impact echoed in the walls. The music outside stopped, and only footsteps and wind could be heard. 32A didn't pick up the tire iron to avoid making any more sound. The footsteps came closer to the door. '
The door was kicked open, and 32A grabbed whoever it was who kicked it open. She got her hands on the hunting rifle that the attacker was holding and tried to wrestle it away. The attacker got in the little storage and was still wrestling for the rifle with 32A. The attacker wore a dirty gray jacket, a half mask and a hood and had a violin on the back. The attacker pushed 32A into a wall and choked her with the rifle. 32A tried to kick the attacker's shin but she couldn't land a good kick. She couldn't even look at the attacker because of the position that her head was in. The same boy who 32A revived earlier grabbed the tire iron from the floor and hit the attacker in the back with it. The swing didn't have much power, but it distracted the attacker who hadn't seen any of the three siblings in the dark storage in the midst of the commotion, so the attacker was surprised and slightly let go of 32A, who then smashed her forehead on the attacker's nose. The attacker took a couple of steps back and turned around to see who landed the hit with the tire iron. The attacker kicked the young boy in the chest and made him fall to the ground. 32A jumped on the attacker's back and put her arms around the attacker's neck. The attacker fired the rifle right next to 32A's ear, and the loud sound in the small and tight storage disoriented everybody. 32A let go to hold her ears. The attacker recovered the quickest and tried to reload the rifle, but figured that there was no time, so the attacker ran out the door instead. On the way out, the attacker got another strike from a tire iron but this time on the knee. The attacker left out an angry and masculine sounding grunt of pain and then hobbled away into the darkness.
When 32A got her wits about, she saw that the attacker was no longer there. She saw the boy with the tire iron and freaked out.
"What did you? I told you to stay in the corner! He wouldn't have seen you there." She said to him.
"You looked like you needed help." The boy explained.
"What if he got you, or any one of you three? Better to just let him get me."
"Ilkka at the tent said that we shouldn't run. We should fight. Are you angry that I helped you?" The boy asked and 32A couldn't make a good point against that.
"Thank you for helping me. I saw when he kicked you. Are you all right?" She asked.
"I'm all right. And thank you for coming here. If you didn't come here..." The boy was about to say but couldn't finish.
"Thank your mother. She sent me here. Now let's get back to her." 32A said seriously.
She opened the door and looked outside, listening carefully.
"I don't want to go out there. He's still out there." One of the siblings said.
"But if we stay here, he might come back. He knows where we are. We need to get back to the others. The evil people won't dare come to us when we're all together." 32A said back.
She took the first steps into the dark and windy outdoors. The footprints of the attacker were still on the snow, and she saw that they went into a different direction than where the home tent is.
"No time to go on a manhunt now. I have to get these kids back home. That's most important." She thought to herself.
She looked behind her to make sure that the others were following her. They were.
"Stay close to me. If you lose me, shout loud." She said to them and led them the same way they all came.
She walked slowly and quietly, not wanting to attract anyone.
"There's the tent. Don't run away now." 32A said quietly when she saw the tent.
Once they arrived at the tent, 32A let the others enter before she did. Once the others were in, she took one last look outside, and saw nothing unusual. She then went inside as well and saw that everybody had calmed down. She saw the mother of the children holding them and also scolding them. Ilkka was kneeling by them as well. All the others were either sitting or laying on their sleeping bags. 32A went to check on the three brothers and their mother. She had no intent to go back to the truck as that's what she promised earlier.
"Is everyone all right?" 32A asked when she sat down.
"Thank you for getting them back. I already heard what happened out there." The mother of the children said to her.
"Did everything go well? It took you a while to get them back." Ilkka pointed out.
"No reason to lie about it. Your children were hiding in a little old storage. Somebody found us and attacked us. He had a violin and a rifle and he ran away after I... We ran him off." 32A explained.
"What? You are not going out there again!" The mother said to her children.
"Are you three all right after what happened there?" 32A asked the three siblings.
"I'm fine." The one who got shot replied positively, making his mother and Ilkka relieved.
"You talk again. That's a relief. Everything that has happened tonight must have been an unpleasant experience." Ilkka said, but got no reply from the boy.
"Are you scared?" 32A asked the boy.
"A little." He answered.
"What's your name?" 32A asked.
"My name is Urho." The boy answered.
"Fitting name. My closest ones call me Three. You did well out there, but stay in here for now. All of you." 32A said.
"Weird name." Urho said back.
"That's not the point. Just be careful and always stay close to your mother or Ilkka." 32A said.
"You heard her? Will you do as she said?" Ilkka asked Urho, but got no reply.
"Will you do as I said?" 32A asked.
"We will." Urho answered.
"Are you only talking to her now?" The mother asked Urho, but got no reply.
"Must still be shocked. Three saved him from the shooter the first time, maybe that's why." Ilkka commented and Urho didn't say anything back.
After some silence, Ilkka started wondering:
"How fast is this guy? He seems to go around quickly. Is he targeting specifically these kids?"
32A then pulled him aside and showed him the note that she picked up from the storage.
"There's more than one. And it's somebody else who they seem to be after. We're just in the way. Maybe we should all leave before we get involved in somebody else's battle." 32A said to Ilkka where the others couldn't hear.
"You might be right. But we don't know where to go. If somebody is running away from these people, we might just be running in the same direction without knowing." Ilkka said after reading the note.
"Should we tell everybody else about this too?"
"We have to. Everybody has to know about this." Ilkka said.
"Then let's tell everyone about it right away." 32A suggested and asked for the note back from Ilkka who gave it back to her.
32A went to the center of the tent by the bonfire.
"Excuse me, everybody. There's something you should all know about what happened tonight. The shooter who almost got Urho today is not alone. I found this note in a storage where the three boys hid and it mentions a group that is chasing whoever wrote it. So they're not after us, but we should still be wary of them, because they have no problem hurting those who get in the way. You can all take a turn reading this, and we can think about what we should do." 32A said to everybody out loud.
"Horseshit! As soon as you and your truck gang arrived, this killer arrived too! The killer is one of you, or after one of you! You people get out, and this will be over!" Somebody in the tent shouted at her and more arguing started.
"She saved Urho's life with a miracle! We are not getting rid of her!" Saku shouted in defense.
"We didn't see that! The only ones who saw it were you, her and Ilkka! And I've seen you two being buddies with her so of course you defend her!" The accuser shouted at Saku.
"Could you at least read the note first?" 32A asked frustratedly.
"You wrote it yourself!" Somebody shouted.
"Why would I even do that?" 32A asked like she couldn't believe that such an accusation was even made.
"You're one of them!" The same voice replied.
"I found it in the same place where the kids hid. It was in a sleeping bag that was there. They saw me take it from there. Ask them if you don't believe me." 32A shouted back at the accuser.
"Kids are easy to scare into saying what you want them to say." The same accuser replied.
The accuser then walked up to the corner of the tent where the mother of the three siblings was still sitting and keeping her children close. She pulled them closer to herself when the accuser got close.
"Is that strange lady trustworthy? If any of you say No, we will throw her out and make sure she never returns." The accuser said to the three brothers.
"She fought the guy who attacked us." One of them replied nervously.
"Why did the guy attack specifically her?" Somebody shouted.
"Because I was in the way." 32A shouted back.
"And did she save you by an act of miracle, like Saku claimed?" The accuser asked Urho, who didn't reply anything.
"Well?" The accuser asked.
"He hasn't spoken tonight to any of us except Three." The mother said.
32A then also walked to the same corner and knelt down in front of Urho.
"Why are you not speaking to anyone but me now?" She asked Urho.
"I'm confused and I'm scared and I feel weird. I don't know what happened and I just remember seeing you first when I woke up." Urho answered honestly.
"Is she threatening or scaring you to say these things?" The accuser asked Urho, who once again said nothing back.
"Perkele! Speak already!" The accuser yelled at Urho, who moved to hide behind 32A who then stood up and stared off with the accuser.
"I don't think it's me who he's scared of." 32A said angrily.
"I don't think you are who you say you are." The accuser accused.
"What exactly happened out there earlier when we heard the shot?" Tarmo asked from the crowd.
"We found Urho laying there wounded, bleeding and not moving. Then 32A told us to watch and the wound healed and Urho was awake. And as Urho himself said, 32A was the first person he saw when he woke up." Ilkka answered.
"I don't believe that for a second. We didn't get a miracle healer just stumbling in here on a truck. Are you serious?" The accuser said.
"If you don't believe your ears then maybe you'll believe this." 32A said and walked to the bonfire in the middle of the tent.
She put the note in her pocket and rolled up her sleeve. She then put her hand in the flames, touching the burning wood and making sure that her hand was in the flames.
"What the hell are you doing?" The accuser asked.
32A was in anguishing pain and even though she didn't scream in pain, she let her pain be heard. She was used to immense pain at this point, as she felt it every 59 seconds already, which had built her pain treshold. After ten seconds that felt like ten minutes, she pulled her hand out of the fire and all the skin in her hand was dark red. Everyone looked at the hand. Some looked worried, some disgusted. 32A looked at her hand and clutched it. She then did what she intended to do, and focused on it. The skin on the hand slowly healed and was just like it was before. After the pain in the hand went away, 32A felt another pulse and twitched, and then raised her healed hand for all to see.
"Is the story more believable now?" She asked, looking at the accuser.
"You're the devil." The accuser said, almost speechless.
"She's a miracle!" The mother of the children exclaimed.
"I didn't come here to make this about myself. Just read the note, and then we can think about what to do. Assuming everyone believes me now." 32A announced.
"No wonder the gang of killers is after you!" Somebody shouted.
"She hasn't lied this far! When she says that the gang is not after her, I believe her!" Saku shouted back.
Without warning, Tarmo took the note from 32A's hand after she had taken it out of her pocket again. He quietly read the note and then looked pondering. He passed it to the person next to him who also read it. The note was passed around until every literate person in the large tent had read it.
"We all need to leave this place. That's still my stance. Especially now. This note was written by somebody who the killers are after, and we're in their way." Tarmo said to the room.
"Where ever we go, the killers will follow our footprints. They probably think that their man is among us. We most likely outnumber them." Ilkka argued.
"We know for a fact that they have at least one firearm. So they already have more firepower than we do." Tarmo argued back.
"Are you sure?" Saku shouted and raised a heavy revolver.
"Where did you pull that from?" Tarmo asked.
"I've had it since before I came here. I just haven't showed it to anyone." Saku replied.
"That's the only thing that you haven't shown us!" Some jokester shouted.
"I was drunk and I thought that this was the outhouse! But that's not relevant right now! What I mean is that I can do my part in fighting them. But I can't do it alone." Saku shouted back.
"I'm ready to fight." Ilkka added and felt his knife on his belt.
"I won't run away. I will never again in my life run away." 32A added.
"I obviously can't run." The mother of the siblings added.
"So those who want to run, run. Go out there where the killers are and make sure to leave some visible footprints behind you. I will stay here alone if I have to." Saku said.
Nobody left the tent.
"We'll have to be aware tonight. We need somebody to keep watch." Tarmo said after concluding that he won't run away.
"I'll stay up outside all night if I have to. I hate sleep." 32A said.
"I volunteer to stand guard and show all of you some example." Saku added.
"I'll join you." Ilkka said.
Urho let out a sound like he was about to say something, but couldn't. He then walked up to 32A and tugged her sleeve to get her attention.
"I'll stay up and stand guard." He said to her.
"No, you will not. After everything that happened out there tonight, do you want to go back out there?" 32A responded.
"I...I don't." Urho answered the question and felt embarrassed.
"I thought so. You stay by your mother and don't do anything stupid. You don't need to impress anyone." 32A said back to the disappointed boy who walked back to his mother without complaining.
"Any other volunteers?" Saku asked the people.
Two more people volunteered but no more. The bonfire was extuingished to hide the tent better, at the cost of warmth. After that the volunteers all left the tent well dressed for a long and cold night.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
