Full disclosure, I had no idea what I was doing. I still felt sick from killing the first Batarian, and even just the act of moving him back onto his chair had been almost unbearable. I was about to kill again but this time I had a thought out plan.

Hiding behind some crates, I set down my bag and clutched my axe and waited for the second Batarian to come out of the far room and approach the one I had killed and placed back on the chair. Blood was trickling down his arm and large droplets were landing on the floor. In my haste I had forgotten the cigarette he had been smoking that now lay on the floor a few feet from him. He looked like he was dead, all slumped in the chair like that.

I avoided using the shotgun for now because I was still unsure about the number of slavers in the building. Guns, and especially shotguns, have a way of alerting others to your presence rather quickly. So for now, it had to be another up close and personal kill.

Just as Kyle predicted, a Batarian emerged from the far room and began making his way towards his dead fellow. He approached cautiously and I could hear him repeating the same combination of clicks and growls indicating the name of the one I had killed.

I silently emerged from my hiding spot and prepared myself to bring down the axe on top of his head in one swift, hard blow.

When he reached his friend, he stepped back, obviously realizing his partner had been killed and I brought down that axe as hard as I could.

Batarians have a thick, very robust skeletal structure. It's why you don't often see them with broken bones and why they are so good at breaking them in others. My axe did not go through easily, but it sunk in half way through his skull.

I felt the bones crunch through the handle of my axe and heard the sound of his skull cracking and chipping under the axe blade. My heart beat like a drum but I didn't vomit this time, I didn't cry. I was actually a little proud of myself. I thought up a plan and it had worked. I eliminated this threat, and helped these young boys. I had saved them.

Taking the axe out of his skull, I averted my eyes from the mess I had just created and walked over to the group, removing their facial coverings once again.

It's sometimes difficult to look back on these events and realize how stupid I had been. I should have died a hundred times before that point but somehow I had lived. I could have got all of those boys killed, and it's likely only by a miracle that we survived.

The boys were relieved to see my face instead of the one they expected and I could even see Kyle flash a small smile. I untied their hands and examined the collar around Kyle's neck.

"What the hell is this thing?" I asked him.

"I'm not sure," He replied "I think it has something to do with what they were doing in that other room. No one came out of there. There was screaming…" His eyes glossed over and I waited for him to finish. "And then nothing."

"Why is this happening?" That question sounds so much sadder when you hear it coming from a 7 year old.

I couldn't answer. I didn't know why. Thankfully, Kyle responded.

"They're slavers, Mikey. They're bad people. But John here is going to help us until the Alliance gets here."

Mike sniffed and looked at the ground. I had to get these collars off them. They might have been tracking devices, or weapons or a means of control. Later I would find out they enabled slavers to temporary paralyze an individual, allowing them to implant their mind control devices unopposed. These collars only paralyzed but they did not dull pain in any way. The victim would be able to feel everything, but would be unable to struggle against it.

"Check and see if one of them has an omni-tool," Kyle offered, "I think it can unlock these things." He seemed much more confidant and calm now that I had killed the Batarians.

An omni-tool was a luxury we could not afford. My dad had a much older version for work, and he rarely used it and kept it locked in a safe. We were not allowed to touch it. I had however, seen a lot of my friends using them, and was able to navigate it with relative ease. Once I found the English language option, of course. Kyle guided me through and I eventually unlocked each of the collars. They fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

Kyle rubbed his neck and stood. "Thanks, man. I'm Kyle. This is Mike, Phillip, and Derek; my brothers."

Mike was the youngest at age 7, Phil wasn't far behind at 9, and Derek was 13. "I know who you are," I said, "you're a friend of my sister. Stephanie, remember?"

"Yeah, right. They were taking the women to another spot. Some went right to the shipping depot. We got separated from our mom." He paused. "They killed dad."

Mike started to cry and Derek tried to comfort him. Phil just stayed silent.

I knew what they were going through, but I felt a surge of anxiety as I looked around the large open warehouse.

"We need to get out of here." I decided. "Back in the sewers." I took the Batarian rifles and gave them to Kyle and Derek. "Take these. You might need them."

Down we went into the darkness again. I had enough sense to grab a couple flashlights from the warehouse, and the omni-tool also had a light function. We walked a little further back to where I had come from out of the fuel depot before we stopped and I shared some of my food and water. They were grateful to have it.

"Listen, you guys should stay here and wait for the Alliance to show up. I'm going to double back and keep going towards the shipping depot. I need to find my sister." I was losing precious time now.

"I'm coming with you." Kyle offered. "I need to find my mom."

Mike moved to clutch his big brother's leg. "No..." he whimpered.

"It's okay. Derek will stay with you. And I'll be back." He placed a hand on his little brother's head. "I promise."

"Alright." I said. "But we need to move now."

I walked a respectable distance to let Kyle say goodbye to his brothers in private and to avoid the feelings of jealousy and complete despair that might come from witnessing such an emotional interaction. Kyle was the oldest, and like me, he felt a duty to find the one who had been taken from him.

I left some food, water, and a flashlight behind and we started out.

Using the omni-tool, I was able to find a map of the sewer system in our town on the extranet. With my map and Kyle's translator and our collective weapons, we felt a false sense of security as we continued to trudge through the dank sewers in silence.

After a while, it was Kyle who finally broke the silence.

"So what was it like?"

"What was what like?"

"You know…killing?"

I thought about it and I really didn't know. The adrenaline had worn off, and I was once again focused on my family. The question threw me off and it still does. The question I am asked most often by young children who approach me is 'how many people have you killed' which is quickly followed by 'what was it like.'

I worried about how I would do it, what would happen, all the possible outcomes, rationalized it, and then killed him. I experienced a brief feeling of elation upon succeeding in killing my enemy, but this euphoria stage was almost instantly overwhelmed by the guilt I felt when I was faced with the undeniable evidence of what I had done. It resulted in physical revulsion and vomiting.

I sighed at my inability to express the feeling into words. "I don't know. Harder than killing a turkey." I said honestly. "In any case, we need to get to the shipping depot and find my sister and your mom."

"What's the plan?"

"I have no fucking idea." I laughed, and Kyle laughed a bit with me. Our nervous laughter cut the tension and relaxed us a bit more. Humour is the best defense against despair.

"I know your sister." He said after a while. "She was going after that asshole Nick Sizer."

"Man, I hate that guy."

"Yeah, me too. I was going to ask her to junior prom you know…"

I looked at him with a smirk on my face. This guy wasn't my sister's type. He was a short, broad, Bavarian type. He wore glasses and liked to read. He kept his hair a respectable length and didn't get into trouble. He had a job. My sister would have hated him.

"Maybe you can ask her when we find her." I laughed. "But I'm pretty sure you'd have to beat the shit out of Nick first."

He chuckled at that, "Yeah. Probably."

The omni-tool chimed softly.

"We're under the shipping depot now." I said, my voice much lower. "Let's explore a bit. Learn the layout. Find out what we're up against, and then figure out what's next."

He nodded in response, and I turned out the light as we approached a distant overhead glow.

To put it in perspective, the shipping depot was a large complex of warehouses and prefab office buildings that spanned about a kilometer in diameter. For two young boys looking for two very specific people, it was overwhelming.

There was the head office complex which they were using as their headquarters, and several warehouses that had their own small offices, parking areas, packing area, driver's lounges, and loading bays.

It was the perfect staging area for the invasion on our peaceful town. They could round up prisoners, subject them to their torture, load them onto shuttles and take them away.

There were possibly hundreds of Batarians in this complex. They were everywhere; walking in groups between warehouses, organizing shuttle pickups and drop offs of troops, guards patrolling the walls, and more and more prisoners being brought in by the hour.

They were being herded like cattle to two separate warehouses. Despite what Kyle had believed, there were men in this complex as well. Prisoners were being separated by sex and age, processed, and implanted with cranial control device if they were lucky enough to survive.

It was in this camp that victims had to look their killers in the face and know that this other being denied their humanity and hated them enough to personally slaughter them, their families, and their species as though they were nothing more than insects.

A person's response to overtly hostile action is usually one of profound shock, surprise, and outrage. Why is this happening? Why does he want to kill me? What did I ever do to him? I asked myself these questions often during those three days. I could never answer them.

I climbed up the couple steps of the ladder so that I could get a better view of the complex. This particular sewer grate was on the eastern edge, next to one of the warehouses. Kyle stayed on the ground and kept watch.

"….I see four…." I started with a whisper, "lugging a corpse." A naked, pale, beaten female corpse. Children were running about, confused, frightened, and howling like dogs. The Batarians picked them up by their collars and tossed them onto the heaps of dead human flesh around them. On top of them were piled the discarded humans, deemed unworthy of slavery. The heap seethed, howled and groaned as it was doused in accelerant and set ablaze.

Even with the smell of my hometown burning around me I'll never forget the mixture of rotting meat and feces that makes up the stench of death. Smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously. Sometimes I can still taste it.

"What are they doing?"

I didn't really hear his question, but I hushed him with my hand. It was better he didn't know what I was seeing. For all I knew, that corpse could have been his mother.

Whoever they didn't kill or burn outright they brought to this complex and decided their fate here. It seemed few survived judgment.

Another truck was entering the complex and approaching the warehouse. This time, a little girl was pushed out of the small entrance of the vehicle and fell out onto the gravel. Stunned, she lied still for a moment, then stood up and began walking around in a circle, faster and faster, waving her rigid arms in the air, whining in a faint voice.

A merc approached her calmly; his heavy boot striking her between her shoulders. She fell. Holding her down with his foot, he drew his pistol, fired once, then again. She remained down, kicking the gravel with her feet, until she stiffened.

There is a simple, horrifying, and obvious value resident in atrocity. The Mongols were able to make entire nations submit without a fight just on the basis of their reputation for exterminating whole cities and nations that had resisted them in the past. Who can say this cannot be accomplished between entire species. Terrorism is just that: terror.

But atrocity does not diminish your enemy's will to fight. In most cases, it fuels it. Terrorism often begets more terrorism.

"What?" Kyle inquired. I hadn't spoken in what seemed like hours.

"N-Nothing. We need a plan."

I descended the few steps and sat down beside him.

"There's a lot of them up there."

He slumped down against the wall beside me, his fatigue more noticeable than before.

"We can't do this." He sobbed. "There's too many of them." He rubbed his eyes with his free hand the other clutched his gun. Kyle was letting his emotions spill forward now.

"I've got to try." My eyes were feeling heavy and hot with tears now too. "I can't let her go like this. She doesn't deserve this. You should go back to your brothers though."

"No." he quickly replied. "We've come this far…"

"Just a little further now."

"Yeah."

"We can't move until it's dark anyway. Get some sleep. I'll take first watch."

Kyle nodded and hugged himself tight as he attempted to sleep. I ascended the ladder to watch for a break in their patrol patterns, or anything that would allow us an opening to slip inside the warehouse and find my sister.

The sun was beginning to rise on day three of my ordeal and help still hadn't arrived. I let Kyle sleep through the night while I thought up my cunning plan.

Using the sewers, Kyle would go about 800 meters west of the warehouse and using my lighter and one of the many chemicals in abundance create a distraction. This would hopefully cause the guards to investigate and draw most of them away from the warehouse where I would then infiltrate, and locate my sister and his mother. I would take them back to the sewer where we would meet up, and we would head back to the fuel depot.

"You sure this is going to work?"

"No." I replied honestly. "But it's our best shot."

"Okay." With shaky hands he topped up his rifle and stuffed a few extra bullets in his pocket.

"You ready?" I asked.

He forced a laugh. "I'm terrified."

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It's that same fear that keeps us alive. It prevents us from throwing ourselves into the fire.

"Me too." I put my hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eyes. "You can do this. You have to do this. There's no other way."

"Okay."

I hugged my friend of 24 hours and wished him luck and waited for his distraction. It felt like an eternity.

The city around us had been put to the torch and I could smell the fires burning constantly. I could feel the heat around me. The sounds of gunshots had dissipated but were still present. The Alliance still hadn't arrived and I was getting more and more resigned to the fact that I might very well die there without their help.

Be careful what you wish for.

Kyle had left minutes earlier and I was waiting in the shadows to burst through the sewer grate and slip through a window of the warehouse with his signal when a loud explosion rocked the entire complex. There was shouting and the sound of alarms as shuttles lifted off and chaos ensued.

My first thought was that Kyle had created one hell of a distraction. Batarians flooded out of warehouses, completely ignoring me emerging out of the sewer as they passed. They rushed to the perimeter, preparing to defend while others attempted to evacuate. The Alliance had arrived, and they arrived in force.

The Batarians were abandoning their staging area, and staying true to their scorched earth policy, they were burning the shipping depot in their retreat with the civilians inside.

I waited until the area cleared before climbing on top of some crates and dropping through a window into a warehouse in the midst of the chaos. I could hear more explosions and gunfire, feel the concussions of impacting rounds around me, and feel the world becoming hotter.

I looked frantically around before my feet took me at a sprint towards the sound of screaming. The windows of the warehouse were falling down around me as fire started creeping and spreading from the outside.

The warehouse was like a maze of crates and sea cans stacked a mile high. I just kept running towards the sound.

As I rounded a corner I bumped into a running Batarian, clearly bent on getting out of this burning hell as fast as he could. Without a second thought I pointed my shotgun in his chest and fired before he could even react.

It left a hole in him and left me covered in his bloody, pulpy mess.

Eventually I exited the maze and found the loading bay. There were several offices beside one another divided by concrete walls; all but one had flames bursting through their windows. I ran to the office and saw between 10 and 15 prisoners lined up, collared, bound, all screaming and crying as a Batarian doused them with accelerant.

I only saw Stephanie. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she wailed as the foul liquid was thrown in her face.

I yelled her name so loud I felt my throat bleed; I ran so fast I thought my legs would break. But I wasn't quick enough. Her eyes locked with mine as the Batarian threw a flare on the ground and drenched the room in fire.

Time slowed down. I left my body.

I smashed the window with the butt of my shotgun and was instantly thrown back by the explosive force of the flames. I saw myself get up and run into the burning room. I was not afraid to die. Nothing was stopping me.

I tackled my sister to the ground and tried to put out the flames. I remember grabbing her leg and feeling the skin peel off and I remember feeling scared that she had not screamed. I scooped her into my arms and looked around for an escape. As strong as I was, I remember thinking she was so heavy and that my arms would give way. I must have been completely exhausted.

In front of me I could only see fire - everything red, like the door to a furnace. An intense heat struck me. A burning beam fell in front of my feet. I shied back but then, when I was ready to jump over it, I was whirled away by a ghostly hand and knocked to the floor by the fire storm within the warehouse. Convection winds were blowing in with hurricane force and the sound of the wind was like the devil laughing.

I reached the front of the building and someone came out of the shadows and grabbed me hard, and pulled me out of the warehouse.

I dropped my sister and fought off the one who had grabbed me. He pinned me to the ground and covered me with a wet blanket. He was an Alliance soldier, one of the many who had come too late. I kicked, I punched, I screamed and I yelled. I continued to fight him until I was punched in the face, and the world went dark.

If that soldier hadn't knocked me out, I could have killed us both. He had to get me out of danger quickly and I later thanked him for it. At the time however, I was a very angry, frightened, confused teenager.

I woke up in a field hospital, rather abruptly, and found myself restrained, and in tremendous amounts of pain. I quickly locked eyes with the soldier who was responsible for saving my life, and giving me a rather fat lip. He looked big and imposing, even sitting down.

"We had to restrain you for your own safety." He said, gently unbuckling the straps. "My name is Lieutenant David Anderson. You're going to be okay."

I rubbed the painful spot on my face.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't mean to deck you so hard, but you didn't give me much choice."

When I finally realized where I was and what was happening I shot out of the bed and looked around in panic.

"My sister." I looked at him, and he looked right back at me.

"Where is my sister?" He shifted in his seat but his eyes never left mine.

"The one you were carrying." He stood and closed the distance between us. "She was too far gone. She didn't make it. I'm sorry, son."

I already knew in the pit of my heart she was gone, but it didn't make it any easier to hear. I felt myself starting to shake and I felt dizzy as I sat down on the floor. I still couldn't cry. The tears wouldn't come. There was just too much anger.

"You came too late." I sobbed. "You could have stopped them but you never came!"

Anderson was a large man in his early 30s, and very intimidating in the way he spoke and carried himself full of pride. He knelt to my level and placed his hands on my shoulders.

"I'm sorry." My fists started to clench. "You've been through more than anyone should ever have to endure. It's over now. You're safe."

"Everything's gone."

"Not everything. You're still here."

I was still there. Everything and everyone I had ever known was gone. I was still there. Why?

"What's your name, son?"

I had no family left. I was the last of my name.

"Shepard. Jack. Stacia. J.J…Stephanie."

I was all their names.

"Shepard it is, then."

He gave me a drink from his canteen and stayed with me as I calmed down. The tears still wouldn't come. I was just full of hate.

"There's a group of boys, hiding in the sewers under the fuel depot."

Anderson looked at another soldier in acknowledgement and I saw him run off to deal with Kyle's brothers. I was certain Kyle was likely dead.

Everything that I was and everything that I could have been died that day with the rest of my family. I was changed forever.

I looked at David Anderson, my eyes red, my face hot, but I spoke in an even tone. "I'm going to make them pay." I said. "I will kill them all."

His expression didn't change as he waited for me to finish.

"I promise."