Chapter 3: Murderer

By the time Gio stumbled back outside, the evening had deepened into a cold, muted dusk. The entrance to the electronics shop was now sealed off with yellow police tape, its faded color almost glowing against the grey of the district. A few officers walked about, taking notes and speaking in low voices. Curious onlookers had begun to gather behind the tape, craning their necks for a glimpse of what had happened.

Gio sat on a crate near the entrance of the alley, his hands hanging limp between his knees. His mind still felt hollow, like someone had scooped out everything inside and left only static. He didn’t look up when Captain Balsack approached.

"You okay, kid?" Balsack asked, crouching down in front of him.

Gio blinked slowly. His mouth moved, but no words came at first. Then, in a flat, detached voice, he began to explain. How he had come to see the old man like he always did. How the back door had been unlocked. How he had found him behind the counter, soaked in his own blood. How he had stood there for what felt like hours before his legs finally carried him outside to flag down a passing patrol officer.

Balsack listened without interruption, his jaw tight. When Gio finished, he straightened up and let out a heavy sigh. He looked older in that moment, more tired than Gio had ever seen him.

"This whole damn district," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "It just never stops."

He looked down at Gio, his expression softening just slightly. "Go home, kid. There’s nothing more you can do here. I’ll handle it from here."

Gio nodded numbly and rose to his feet.

"Straight to the orphanage," Balsack added. "No detours. You understand?"

"Yes, sir," Gio said quietly.

He started walking, his legs moving on their own while his mind drifted elsewhere. The streets passed by in a blur, flickering lamps, crumbling walls, the occasional silhouette in a window.

He barely focused on any of that though, instead, he saw the old man.

Saw him hunched over the workbench with a soldering iron in one hand and a magnifying lens strapped to his head, muttering about ancient circuitry. Saw him grinning as he held up yet another rare RPG cartridge from the old world, his eyes twinkling behind those thick glasses. Saw him the day he handed Gio the portable console, worn down to the edges but still humming with life, and said, "Take care of it. Not many of these left."

The old man had always known where to find the games no one else had. He knew about worlds with dragons and magic, heroes and villains, choices that mattered and stories that actually ended. He had fixed what was broken and found what was lost.

And now he was gone.

The walk back to the orphanage was quiet and cold. Gio kept his head down, hands buried in his pockets as he moved through the dim, grimy streets. Above him, the towering walls of Sector City 47 sealed out the dead world beyond. Then a flicker of light caught his eye, a holographic screen above the old transit hub, cracked and glitching but still playing its looped message: "EXPEDITION 67: RECLAIM THE EARTH." The footage showed armored vehicles rolling through twisted, glowing forests, and the massive Sealed Gate grinding open to reveal a sky the color of a bruise. Gio slowed, watching.

Everyone had heard the rumors. Expedition members got powers and impossible abilities that defied logic after they leave the city. Gio had never seen proof of this, but the thought had always lingered. It reminded him of the old man’s games, where heroes left their villages as nobodies and returned as legends.

In those worlds, power was earned through quests and trials. In this one, it only came to those brave or desperate enough to walk through that gate. He stared at the flickering images a moment longer, then kept walking.

Gio’s steps slowed. He had stopped walking without realizing it, standing at the mouth of a narrow alleyway a few blocks from the orphanage. He was about to move on when a sound reached his ears: voices, low and rough, coming from just around the corner.

Familiar voices.

His heart skipped a beat as he pressed himself against the wall, hidden in the shadows of a rusted pipe. Slowly, carefully, he inched closer until he could see them through the gap between two buildings.

The local gang members. Three of them, loitering around a small fire in a steel drum, passing a bottle between them. They were laughing about something, their voices carrying that sharp, smug energy that made Gio’s blood hot.

"Did you see his face when we told him the fee?" one of them said, a lanky man with a shaved head and a scar across his chin. "He thought we were joking."

"Old fool actually said he’d rather die than pay," another one snorted. "So we helped him out with that."

They laughed.

"Stabbed him like, what, six times? Seven? Man, I lost count after he stopped twitching."

Gio’s breath caught in his throat. The world around him dimmed and narrowed to a single point. The static in his mind gave way to something else. Something hot. Something that crawled up from his chest and flooded every limb.

Rage.

He didn’t remember picking up the bottle, not did he remember moving.

He only became aware of himself at the moment the bottle connected with the back of the first man’s skull, shattering in an explosion of glass and a wet cracking sound. The man crumpled forward without a word.

The other two spun around, eyes wide. Gio was already moving, his hand still gripping the broken neck of the bottle. The second man opened his mouth to shout, but before a sound could escape, Gio drove the broken glass into the side of his throat.

Hot blood sprayed across Gio’s face, across his hands, across the ground. The man made a horrible gurgling noise and stumbled backward, clutching at his neck. He fell to his knees, then to his side, twitching as the blood pooled beneath him.

The third man screamed, a panicked shriek that echoed through the alley. He scrambled backward, tripping over a pile of trash, before turning and running. His footsteps faded into the distance, swallowed by the night.

Gio stood there, breathing hard. His heart hammered against his ribs. His vision swam. The bottle neck fell from his fingers and clinked against the stone.

Slowly, the world came back into focus.

The man he had struck on the head groaned. He was still alive, curled on his side, blood trickling from a gash on his scalp. His eyes fluttered open, and when they found Gio standing over him, they widened in pure terror.

He scrambled back against the wall, hands raised. "You... you have no idea what you just did," he stammered, his voice shaking. "That guy you just killed... Fuck..."

He swallowed hard, unable to look away from the body of his companion, still twitching faintly on the ground.

"He was the boss’s cousin," the man whispered, his face pale as bone. "You just killed the boss’s cousin."

His voice cracked as he repeated it, as if saying it aloud might somehow undo it.

"You’re dead, kid. You’re so fucking dead. The whole district is gonna burn for this, fuck."