Fear raced through my mind. I was afraid, and what I feared I wouldn’t think, but it was present in my mind. I had failed my comrades. I had failed myself. Now Death stretched its hand forth.

I ran quickly, through the wreckage, through the ruined city as quickly as I could. The screaming and the gunfire had come up from ahead. They had to be okay, I thought, alive and unharmed. I didn’t think I could live with myself if they weren’t.

Moving forward, I leaped over a pile of rubble, and saw them. And there was one of the Twisted, horribly mutated creatures. My brave friend, fighting the beast before me. The terrible creature was charging at Aroth and Aroth had blood on himself. He unloaded all of his ammunition into the creature, but it kept on. It locked Aroth in between its jaws and lifted him up and shook him.

In a cold rage, I charged the Twisted with my sword drawn. It saw me, and threw Aroth aside. Behind him were my three other companions, both dead. The sight of their bodies fueled my rage.

The Twisted came at me, its mouth open, drooling and raging like a mad beast from hell. It came and snapped at me. As I leaped to one side, I cut off its front left limb. It howled in agony and it turned to charge again, but before it knew what happened, I cut off its head with one swift swing of my sword.

I watched it fall to the ground to be sure it had died and rushed quickly to where Aroth had fallen. He was a terrible sight, and it wrenched my heart to see my friend laying there, dying.

I dropped my sword quickly ad knelt by his side. He looked at me and started to speak “I…I tried to save the others, but…there were too many. Fane carried Te…” Aroth started to cough up blood. So he pointed and I looked and saw many more fallen Twisted. “Fane carried Tess all the way back here, before those monsters got him. Armon managed to drag the both of them where you see them, and then another one of those monsters got him. I tried to save…” he coughed again. “I tried to save them…but, I wasn’t…I wasn’t strong enough.” He coughed once more.

“No, Argoth, it’s my fault,” I said as soothingly as possible, “You fought well. No man could be prouder.” He smiled, and I saw the life leave his eyes.

I sat there for a moment, in shock, not knowing what to do. Then I felt something wet touch my skin; it was a tear. I realized I was crying. Everything had been in vain. We had failed. Failed to find…the Greatest Treasure. Suddenly, I was surrounded by light and everything went white.