Is This True?

Chapter 13

"We don't have much time."

I saw a body being dragged by two guards, a worried Scott following closely behind. A hand peeked out from underneath the blanket that was covering the body, but the one guard stooped down to cover it so that no one would see.

Why was that body covered? And the others weren't?

"We need to get these people out of here."

"What's going on?" I ask, referring to the body that was placed separately from the others.
"What happened to that person over there?"

"That man--" Scott pointed behind him without even looking. "--was murdered."

My heart dropped.

"Whoever is doing this, they've already started their work."

"What can we do? That is, for the time being?" I ask, not even expecting an answer, but receive what I figured: I don't know.

"We can't just sit here, and besides, can we hide the truth from all of these people? They're going to figure out something is wrong. They're going to ask why they're sitting duck and cover. Why aren't they finding a way out? Why aren't the police looking for them? Why aren't the phones working? Why are they in groups? Why are they still here?'"

Scott didn't say a word after that, his eyes looking over towards the crowd.

"You're right about one thing though, we don't have much time." He looked at me, his face filled with no emotion before walking away, "but I'll figure something out."

I was about to call back, 'you'd better hurry, but I didn't want to pressure him. His plate was full enough, and it seemed that I wasn't helping at all. I was just getting in the way and asking too many unanswerable questions.

Veering off into the distance, I hesitated to lift the blanket off the dead man, but I had to know, how he was murdered. It didn't take me long to figure it out though that he had only one arm.

I shrieked backward, dropping the sheet as I jumped. How did Scott know he was murdered and not blown up by a bomb elsewhere?
I lifted the sheet again. The incision was clean-cut meaning it was deliberately cut by some tool used by someone. This person, whoever they were, wasn't kidding when they said they'd find anyone and kill them.

Speaking of which, I was off in the distance alone.

Not smart.

But when I was about to step away from the dead man, something fell in front of me.

A body.

From the ceiling?

I looked up, horror written all over my face as a figure in a black hood stared down at me from up top on the third floor. I could almost sense their smile beneath their protective covering, but I'd be too afraid to find out.

Fear. Anger.

I ran up the nearby escalator, but when I reached the top, whoever it was had a scurried away faster than me. Again, I shouldn't be up here alone.

"Did you get him?"

A nearby guard calls when I approached from coming back down. Scott was bent down on the ground checking for the man's pulse, but it was clear he was already dead. I didn't know which was worse: falling down a couple of floors or getting your throat slit open and your arm chopped off.

Probably falling. That sounded quicker and far less painful, I think.

"No. They got away."

"They?"