“Nothing,” Ni scoffed, sitting down near the fire.
Ichi nodded somberly. Exactly what she expected. They’ve searched through half the city and found nothing. Nothing, except back pain from bending down, skin punctures on their soles, and piles upon piles of worthless junk. It was hopeless.
“We are gonna find him.” Ni repeated sternly, though her gaze lacked its earlier conviction.
“Y-yes Ichi… We a-are gonna find your… little one…” Kendall confirmed with extreme anxiety.
Ichi didn’t respond. She knew they would search for him until the end of time… And that’s probably what they would have to do. Digging out the entire city would probably about as long…
She managed to bottle up her emotions, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there – the plug was holding, but just barely. Anything could push her into a spiral of overwhelming despair.
I’ve told you to keep him close. You didn’t listen.
Shut up… please…
That is exactly your problem – you ask. You plead. You consider everything and everyone when you could just have things your own way. When you could just take them.
No… go away…
I won’t. Especially not now. Not when you need me more than ever.
No… I don’t need… you…
You do. You are weak without me. If the worst comes to pass, you won’t survive without me.
I… I…
Le me embrace you… le me embrace… us. And everything will be better.
Ichi clenched her fists.
I will never let you do…
A raindrop fell on the tip of her snout. And another. And another. Before she knew it, a small waterfall flowed from her head.
“Oh, come on!” Ni scoffed. “The scent will get all fucked up!”
Ichi felt her despair reach a critical point. And then, a familiar, internal voice spoke… but not mockingly this time.
We shall see. I will be here once you realise it.
***
“You really shouldn’t have hit him that hard…” said Lin.
Jiang didn’t respond of course – she never did. She just nodded with an apologetic look and tried to calm the crying baby.
Baby… why was he always thinking about it this way? Xie was his son, just like Zhou was – he shouldn’t classify him as a random ‘baby’…
Lin clenched his fists in silent frustration. He knew why – he just refused to admit it. His subconscious fully believed that the sick child would not survive and tried to distance him emotionally from it… HIM. From HIM.
A deep breath helped to calm him down. His son was not going to die. Lin wouldn’t allow it.
Lin looked at their still unconscious captive in the corner. That he hasn’t woken up yet was worrisome, but he was too afraid that getting truly mad at the culprit right now would taint him in the eyes of the ancestors.
For they had granted him a miracle and were likely already angered by his response to it.
Three golden beasts of myth exacted vengeance on the monster that once brought ruination to his home. Three golden spirits from days long past. Had he not seen them, he wouldn’t have believed it.
And with them, this man… This strange man of foreign origin. A servant of the beasts. Kidnapping him might not have been the wisest choice, but it was far too late to back down now – bargaining with him was their best chance at salvation.
If Lin could force him to convince the divine beasts to take mercy on them…
He suddenly realised that their captive… wasn’t breathing. Lin hastily approached and checked the man’s pulse. Still present, thankfully.
And then, just as Lin withdrew his hand, the man groaned and twitched. Lin stood in complete silence, trying to figure out how to approach the situation. His wound couldn’t be too bad… right? The bag wasn’t showing any signs of red forming, so the man’s head couldn’t be damaged too badly…
The man took a deep, painful breath as the bab… his son, had another crying outburst. A long pause followed, during which the man’s head moved slightly, as if he was trying to take a better look at his surroundings…
Wait, could he see through the bag?! Lin realised that he hasn’t exactly checked that himself. Coming to a conclusion that leaving things as they were could only worsen their situation, he decided to remove the bag.
The man squinted from being exposed to bright light. Lin stood right in front of him and waited for his captive to get a hold of himself, which he did after a few seconds. With the bag removed, Lin could see a nasty bump on the man’s head… but it wasn’t bleeding. The captive locked his wide, bloodshot eyes with Lin’s.
“Silence him!” Lin yelled at Jiang.
She obliged and his son stopped crying, if just for a moment, letting him focus on the task at hand. Bargaining.
“You are a servant of the dragons, are you not?” Lin asked cautiously and waited for a response.
It didn’t come. The man just stared at him, somewhat confused. Concluding that his head was probably still ringing, Lin reiterated the question somewhat clearer.
“You serve dragons. Yes, or no?”
This time the man understood and blinked in confirmation.
“Could they help us? We need help.”
The man confirmed again, which almost made Lin cry from relief. Years of stoicism prevented it from happening though – at least until the deal was made.
“You truly mean it?” Lin paused for a split second. “Is there a catch? Some price to pay?”
The man stared at him… and then laughed. The gag prevented him from making much sound, but it was clearly a laughter… a somewhat mocking one… or maybe… maybe desperate…
“What… What is the price? What do they demand?”
There was no answer. No blink, no laughter, no gesture… The man just stared at Lin. Stared with a somewhat tired expression of a man knowing perfectly well that their interlocutor knew the answer…
Lin squashed the rising panic. Of course. Of course the price was steep. Nothing could be gained without losing something in exchange… He glanced back at his family.
Precious things required… great sacrifices…
“Would they… take me? Me in exchange for saving my family?” he whispered, terror mounting in his soul.
Again, no answer… Just a blank, somewhat tired stare.
“Would they take me in exchange?!” Lin snapped, shaking the man by his shoulders.
“What?! Father, what are you saying?!” yelled Zhou from behind.
“Silence!” Lin blurted out, which made his son freeze.
Lin took a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm down. He knew it was the right choice… but it didn’t make it any easier. When he looked at the man again, he was… staring at something behind Lin. He followed the man’s gaze and… Shivers nearly overwhelmed him, once he realised what he was looking at.
His baby boy, cradled in his wife’s arms… The price they would demand wouldn’t be his life… It was his child’s…
“NEVER!” Lin screamed and hit the man’s hideous face for daring to even suggest it.
His captive reeled from the impact, giving him a hateful eye. It said a lot. The man wasn’t the one responsible – he merely answered Lin’s questions… With things Lin wished not to hear…
“It would be better if we let him speak. It’s really hard to understand what he means with just looks,” Quian remarked.
Lin hid his face in his palms and slowly ran his hands down. She was right… From the very start… As usual… And as usual, he didn’t listen to her at first. He got caught up in his own interpretation of it all – maybe the man had meant something completely different…
“Yes… Dragons are benevolent… they wouldn’t demand a child sacrifice…” he mumbled barely audibly, and with shaky hands removed the man’s gag.
The man instantly cleared his throat, moving his jaw and huffing with visible relief. And then, he produced some incomprehensible gibberish instead of words.
Lin froze and stared at him, flabbergasted, which prompted his captive to produce another series of incoherent sounds.
It finally dawned on him… The man didn’t get a single word Lin had said since the very beginning… He was literally talking to a wall and taking its lack of comprehension for answers…
At the very least, he knew what language the man spoke – the soft, moany gibberish accented as if his mouth was overstuffed with hot noodles and dumplings. The language he sometimes heard on television when he was still a child.
“Does… anyone speak English? Anyone?” Lin helplessly asked his family.
Avoiding his gaze told him everything. But he knew that it wasn’t exactly the case.
“Son… You’ve learned it, right?” he asked Zhou with desperation in his eyes.
“Yes dad, but… it was just one book and… only briefly…” Zhou nervously responded.
“You’ll have to make do with ‘briefly’,” he ordered the boy sternly.
They swapped places. Lin crossed his arms and anxiously waited, silently praying to the ancestors that his son’s knowledge was enough…
They exchanged cautious gibberish between each other, and it resulted in Lin catching something sounding like a name. He just didn’t pick up how it exactly sounded… Just that it was weird.
His son tried to spew more nonsense sounds at their captive but suddenly stopped and tensed up. Lin already knew what it meant – Zhou had no idea how to say what needed to be said… And his suspicions only solidified once the boy began flapping his arms, apparently trying to imitate a dragon.
Lin facepalmed. It would go absolutely nowhere. The ancestors took their revenge in the most humiliating way imaginable…
The exchange that followed was comprised of repeating, simple words. It was going nowhere, especially once his son began screaming about pizza of all things. Zhou jolted up, ran up to one of the only still not emptied freezers, and pulled out a box expired by several decades…
Well, all their food was technically expired by several decades, but beggars couldn’t be choosers – everything being permanently frozen prevented anything worse than a severe reduction to taste qualities.
Lin sat down and put his elbows on the table, trying to think of a way out…
“Quite the predicament, huh?” Quian nudged him.
He didn’t respond. He was… tired. Exhausted. He had spent his entire life hoping against hope for salvation and when it came… It was just unfair. And now, everyone he knew was going to die…
Not immediately, but in near enough future to feel uncomfortable. He glanced at the untold rows of now empty freezers – in a few months at most, their food supply will finally run out. There was nothing left to scavenge in Kaohsiung and the surrounding areas – of that he was certain. But…
He glanced at the power generator they stole. With it, they could try bringing back food from further north than Tainan – take one or two freezers on wheels, put the generator on top… push I all the way there, look for still working equipment… take everything from the inside and push it all the way back here, without the food unfreezing. All the while avoiding getting noticed by the occasional kaiju roaming the island. His back already hurt from the mere thought. At the very least, he knew there were still working freezers in some shops – they’ve been there a few years ago…
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Still, talking with him was the only way to spare Quian the arduous journey to find a new place to live – and that was assuming there were other places to live on this accursed island.
He looked at her mother-in-law with pain and regret. She wouldn’t survive a longer trip. She would be the second one to go… And once it happens, he would have only Zhou to talk to.
A thought that wasn’t completely horrific only because he loved his boy to death.
“Are you sure you can’t talk with him?” Lin asked without hope.
Quian shook her head.
“Never learned that. Taught Japanese and sometimes Vietnamese,” she responded somberly.
He hesitated for a second. “Any chances he would understand any of those?”
She thought about it. Quite deeply it seemed. She finally shrugged and walked up to the tied man, passing right next to Zhou religiously focused on a microwave. She walked up to their captive just to spout some incoherent nonsense of her own. The man shook his head, which prompted her to try a different variety of gibberish – with the same result. Quian returned to the table.
“Doesn’t get a word…” she sighed. “And if I remember his people correctly, he most likely couldn’t even tell that I was speaking different languages.”
He couldn’t… What? Was the man really that stupid? Well... he did look ugly as hell… Maybe he was a different species after all.
Zhou’s microwave beeped and the boy gleefully took out the steaming food just to present it to the captive. They exchanged several sentences that… seemed surprisingly coherent, all things considered. And when a spark of hope glittered in Lin’s heart… Zhou hit another roadblock.
“How do you say ‘dragon’ in English?” Zhou threw over his shoulder.
Lin shrugged and shook his head.
“Dragon.” Zhou addressed the captive. “DRAGON!” he once again tried to imitate the beast.
Their captive snapped at him all of a sudden, making Zhou reel back in surprise.
Lin finally reached his limit. He stood up and nearly shoved Zhou away. “It’s very simple you stupid monkey. We’re asking about the dragons. Just tell us,” he drawled.
“Chimchirimchi ching chong ping pong,” the man mocked and followed with more gibberish.
Lin understood that it was meant to be an insult. His mood darkened as he glared at the animal in front of him. They wouldn’t get anything out of him. He tried to walk away, but then…
The ground quaked. And again. And again. And…
A terrible flashback from a distant past invaded his mind. Titanic monsters plowing through the buildings, ravaging the city, silencing the all-encompassing screams with each rumble…
A glimpse of Quian’s face was what brought him out of his panic attack. Just like back then, when she pulled him to safety, now she brought him back to his senses. Once his sanity returned, he heard his baby son crying… and the captive screaming at the top of his lungs.
He was trying to get the attention of whatever was outside.
Lin silenced him in the only way he could – by shoving his own forearm into the monkey’s mouth.
The captive was smarter than he looked though, and used another quake to tip his chair and flip them to the ground. He managed to screech for a brief moment, before Lin gagged him again.
And then, the ape-man’s jaws clenched on his forearm, making a series of deep, painful wounds. Lin didn’t relent though.
A rumbling, incomprehensible voice echoed from above. He could only gather that it was a question and… and that the quakes stopped.
“Please, make him quiet!” Lin desperately pleaded with Jiang.
His wife borderline choked their baby boy… but it was the only way.
More thundering voices… and then, more rumbling as the beasts walked away. Lin finally freed his forearm from the monkey’s teeth. It was bleeding, and quite profusely at that.
The captive spouted some more nonsense… but in a tone that was very clearly a threat. And from the look in his eyes, a promise death no less.
Lin scoffed put the monkey in its place in the corner, gagging it again. A part of him wanted to laugh at the empty threat or punish him for everything he had done… But there were more pressing matters.
Like his still bleeding wound.
“Here here… Let me take a look.” Quin approached with a freshly wetted cloth.
“Stupid monkey tried to kill us all…” Lin huffed.
“That’s not true… He tried to get rescued. You’ve kidnapped him after all,” she retorted.
“Doesn’t change anything,” he scoffed. “We would have died regardless.”
Quin sighed and shook her head. She was old, but he knew that this time, he was in the right. There wasn’t a better way…
“Go clean that mess, Zhou.” Lin barked.
The boy obeyed without hesitation.
***
Slow, awkward, but methodical strokes. For hours on end that was everything he did. No matter how tired he got, no matter how much his wrist hurt, he had to keep going. It was the only hope.
It got quite dark after they turned off the lights – the only thing allowing him to see anything was the faint glow emanating from the rows of old freezers…
Something hit him – how were they exactly functional? Where did the power come from? And water they were drinking too for that matter. How was the infrastructure working after decades?
It was a mystery he would have to solve later. Now, he just focused on slicing.
Slowly and carefully, the rope around his wrist got thinner until it was hanging on just a few threads. He pulled and it finally snapped, freeing his right hand.
Good.
Peter put the piece of ceramic in his lap, then got to untying the bonds of his left hand. It was admittedly a challenge with just one hand, but in comparison with what he had just endured, it barely registered as difficult.
With both hands free, untying his torso proved trivial. At the very end, he ungagged himself.
His captors all slept in beds on the opposite side of the concrete room, somewhat hidden from him by the central pillar. Was this some sort of a bunker? Probably, though it also could have been an underground storage.
Very carefully, he stood up… which caused the ceramic to fall to the ground and shatter, making him clench his jaws from anxiety. Thankfully, it didn’t wake anyone… or at least, anyone who did wake up didn’t show it. Yet.
Taking careful steps, he got closer and closer to the exit door. He pushed the door handle and… found a tiny storage room. Nodding with a hint of frustration, he moved along the wall towards the actual exit door.
Peter opened, slipped outside and closed them behind in one swift, albeit not as silent as he wished motion. Taking a deep breath of the fresh, cold air of the night gave him a much-needed strength boost…
Hold on… The air wasn’t completely fresh, and not just because of the kaiju stench. It was also bitter from smoke…
His head snapped and he found himself staring directly at the granny smoking a mauled cigarette. What’s worse, she was also gazing straight at him with a look of genuine surprise.
The cigarette dropped and she gathered herself to yell. “Tā zhèngzài tá…”
His shaking hand interrupted her by serving a straight punch into her face, sending the poor woman to the ground.
And then, he ran. Ran through a sloped tunnel leading upwards, towards the faint light at the very top.
“Tā táopǎole! Zhuā zhù tā!” he heard the granny yell when he reached the midpoint.
So, she wasn’t dead, thankfully… He wouldn’t forgive himself, if…
No. It was not time to busy himself with pointless what-ifs. It was a time to run the fuck away from a bunch of maniacs.
He ran out into the night, getting wet nigh instantly from the heavy rain. Fantastic, cold water was the exact thing he needed right now…
“Kuài! Bié ràng tā pǎole!” he heard a voice of his tormentor in the tunnel behind, prompting him to run.
Run into near utter darkness, with absolutely no sense of direction, his eyes penetrating a few meters at most. Constantly tripping on rubble and long forgotten trash, occasionally getting his feet stuck in the cracked asphalt and nearly falling over whenever he encountered the huge, familiar pawprints.
Which was nearly constantly, since the girls took it upon themselves to obliterate everything left in the city, at least judging by the amount of flattened and freshly ripped apart cars littering the ground.
“Zhèlǐ shì!” the man’s voice resonated through the rainfall.
He tried to sprint, but instantly tripped in the paw imprint, painfully landing on his elbows. He whimpered and jolted back up, trying to get away from the faint, but ever-clearer footsteps.
Why wouldn’t they just leave him alone?! What did he do to deserve their ire… apart from punching the granny but… they started it! He didn’t ask to be kidnapped!
He stopped, noticing a faint silhouette in front of him. He turned and saw an outline od rapidly approaching man behind him. It was a trap – they were trying to double team him. He chose a direction at random and ran again, leaving the ambush unscathed.
But it didn’t last long. The exact same situation repeated multiple times, and he found more and more cut-off roads and collapsed buildings each time he tried to run. He realised what was happening – they obviously knew the layout. Where everything was. He didn’t even know what direction he was facing. They were herding him into a dead end where he would have to fight two, or even three versus one.
No. He wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it. Glancing around, Peter located the nearest uncollapsed building – a roughly ten stories tall high-rise – and ran inside.
“Shénme? …Liú zài zhèlǐ. Tā táo bù diào de, míngbái ma?!” the man yelled as Peter ascended the first set of stairs.
His plan was fairly simple – reach the roof, run along it and descend on the opposite side of the building, bypassing any blockade they might have envisioned. Sure, climbing it would make him even more exhausted, but it was still a better prospect than trying to face a group of survivours with his non-existent combat sk…
He froze, feeling water under his feet. What? How was this possible? He was inside; rain couldn’t just…
Oh no… OH FUCK!
He ran up the stairs, fueled by sheer adrenaline, until the reason came to view. Exactly what he feared. The building had a huge, gaping wound at the seventh story. A piece of it was missing – everything above it was just gone… at least in that staircase. To his left, he saw open apartments and still intact walls.
He heard a laugh right behind him, which made him instinctively square up to the new threat.
“Nàme xiànzài zěnme bàn ne, hóuzǐ?” the man asked, clearly mocking him.
The message was clear, despite the language barrier.
Peter carefully considered his options… Not that there were many of them. He could try running back down the stairs and fall into the obvious trap… Try climbing the ruined wall… or maybe fight the man. After all, Peter was taller than him, so a one versus one wasn’t as clear cut as…
The man unsheathed a huge bowie knife.
Nope, climbing it was. He jumped up, grabbed onto a brick, and pulled himself upwards, powered by adrenaline and fear.
Truth be told, it wasn’t even that hard – a bit like climbing Ichi when she showered… Just that the wall had more friction and wasn’t moving.
***
Ancestors must have truly hated him. All his insults and mockery came to bite him as the ape-man… really did climb like a monkey. Lin watched in disbelief as he jumped up and scaled it without so much as hesitating.
What else would go wrong? So far, nearly everything did. It was really reaching a point where nothing could get worse…
Lin sighed, glanced around and tried to remember the building’s layout. There weren’t any corridors connecting staircases directly… But…
He glanced at the floor number, confirming that it was the building he was thinking of. Flat number twenty had a wall missing, which connected it directly with flat nineteen of the neighbouring staircase. He holstered the knife with which he attempted to scare the man into submission.
Lin went inside and it indeed was the case… just not exactly as he remembered it. The wall was missing, but so was a sizeable chunk of the floor in both apartments.
It was so tantalisingly close that he decided to risk it. A small running start and a jump put him just barely where he needed to be, though he could feel pieces of rubble separating right behind him and falling into the shadowy abyss made by an errant twitch of a kaiju’s tail.
Lin exhaled shakily, but didn’t give himself time to rest – he had a man to catch…
As he climbed the next stories, a realisation came – that ship had sailed. After what he had done, and how he treated him… Even if a miracle happened and they could communicate flawlessly out of a sudden… he had too much of a grudge against them. He recalled the seething hatred in the man’s eyes… and the threat he made. Letting him go for any reason at any point would bring ire of dragons upon them… And he knew exactly how that would end.
A decision was made as he reached the roof. He couldn’t let him go.
The knife left its holster.
***
Peter grabbed onto the flat surface and with a maniacal grin pulled himself over the edge. He did it – he successfully climbed through three floors of wet, nearly vertical rubble. A feat at which he would dismiss as unrealistic even for professionals just a year earlier.
Standing up from his knees made him rejoice at the sight – a clearly visible pillar of fire in the distance. Their fireplace. Far away for sure, but at the very least he knew where to go.
With reignited hope, he stepped forward, carefully avoiding the collapsed part of the roof. And then, an all too familiar man stepped out from the shadow. Wielding the same, terrifyingly huge knife as before, its eyes dead and hollow.
And blocking the only route out.
Peter froze, all his fear returning in an instant. He wasn’t getting out of this one that easily.
“Nǐ zuò bù dào, duì ba? Nǐ gēnběn bāng bùliǎo nàxiē xūyào bāngzhù de rén. Nǐ dé shàngyǎn zhè chǎng nàojù. Jiéguǒ ne?” the man mumbled under his breath, a mixture of anger and exhaustion audible despite the overwhelming rain.
“Look man… I really do not know what do you want…” Peter waved his hands defensively, slowly stepping backwards.
The man didn’t respond. Peter’s words most likely resembled gibberish to him just as his words did to Peter. The man simply walked towards him at a very slow, cautious pace. Still, desperation pushed him to try again.
“Why don’t we talk this over with the girls? They’re nice once you get to know them…”
No response. Just brief glimpses of light reflecting on the blade getting ever closer.
“What do you really want, huh? Money? Food? A lift? I can give you anything, just… don’t get closer.”
No response. The man didn’t listen anymore. Nothing but the task existed for him now. Glancing to the side Peter realised that he was on the very edge of the roof already. There was nowhere left to run.
“L-look…” he forced out, hyperventilating. “I-I’m sorry f-for that… ching chong…”
The man suddenly stopped and looked at him in disbelief.
For about half a second, before lunging at him furiously.
Peter jumped to the side, avoiding the first stab and nearly falling into the chasm. He didn’t quite manage to dodge the following slash, earning a shallow, nasty-looking cut on his arm. Hissing from pain, Peter ran before the man could regain his footing. He firmly placed his hands on a piece of metal railing that looked a bit looser than most and ripped it off, trying to get a weapon.
Unfortunately, it had spent way too many years exposed to everything but conservation, making it shatter to pieces.
“Shit!” Peter screeched at no one in particular, barely dodging a furious charge swing.
He threw whatever remained of the railing at the man, with predictable results – most of it turned to dust in his hands, while the remnants did so after meeting the man’s forehead.
It did nothing but slightly annoy him.
A series of furious stabs and slashes followed, with Peter dodging them only because of his wild, often desperate jumps and reels that nearly always resulted in almost falling over. The further he traveled, the closer the edge was getting… again.
Having nowhere left to run, he desperately tried to remember the self defense lessons… well, lesson he took years ago… What did it say exactly? Run if you don’t have to fight… and if you do, block your opponent’s forearm with your own forearm, which…
It was absolutely worthless, even if he could do it properly because of one, simple reason – the technique assumed both parties had knives. Preferably identical ones. He desperately looked around for a weapon and found nothing… No, wait… there was a decently sized rock… piece of concrete here… Too bad it was near the man’s leg.
He barely managed to dodge a stab directed at his heart, with only some skin and fat on his chest getting sliced. Matadoring the man and collecting the ‘rock’ that proved to be… not as big as he hoped… Peter took a fighting stance. The man didn’t seem to think much of it.
His mistake.
Peter threw the ‘rock’ at him. It smashed into his forehead, momentarily stunning the man and making him reel backwards. Using this opportunity, Peter rushed at him and grabbed the wrist of his knife hand.
The man shouted furiously, trying to force his hand down, but to no avail – Peter was stronger than him. Realising it, the man punched him in the face with his other hand.
Peter kind of expected this, but the hit still made him a bit dizzy. Not enough to release the knife hand though. He managed to intercept the second punch, locking them both in some awkward stand-offish stalemate.
Or at least Peter wished that it was, since now the man began kicking and trying to headbutt.
“Calm the fuck down!” Peter screeched, his voice cracking from stress.
It had the exact opposite effect though – even more fighting, wriggling… and kicking. A very nasty kick made him relinquish the man’s left hand. He braced himself for a new punch… But instead, got something completely different.
A small, peculiar and rather… cold sensation.
With utter shock he realised that the man stabbed him… stabbed his side with a smaller knife. The extremely sharp pain registered after half a second, threatening to paralyse him.
He pushed the man away on instinct.
And suddenly, the man was gone. He left behind only his knife and… scream. Two and a half second of the most horrific scream Peter had ever heard… followed by a distant, barely audible through the rain thump that ended it.
Peter stared at the darkness in front of him, unable to comprehend what just happened… Or maybe, refusing to. Because he knew.
The knees under him suddenly got very… jiggly… he had to take a step back to… not fall down…
He had pushed the man from the roof. Not by accident. Not unknowingly. Pushed with full… intent…
He collapsed to the ground and heaved. He just murdered someone.
As the full extent of his action finally registered, he puked.
***