[hr][hr] [center][h2]The Outback Camp[/h2] [h3]10:48AM[/h3][/center] [hr][hr] The first bullet struck him in his right side, piercing his chest and lung - but it seemed as though he barely noticed, apart from a twitch in his arm and a lapse in his stride. The next shot was a miss, from over correcting her aim for her attacker's centre mass, but then he got within fifteen feet of her and a little switch in the back of her mind flipped - the lights didn't go out, but the thought of letting him get any closer dimmed them. Ellen meant to fire one more shot, hit him in the chest, and conserve her ammo. Consciously, she'd meant to do nothing more than protect herself, do no more damage than absolutely necessary. Instead she fired three. One round found its home just above his stomach, one hit him in the dead centre of his chest, and one struck just to the left of his Adam's apple. He made it a few more stumbling steps, powered mostly by his own inertia, before losing focus and clutching desperately at his wounds, not quite realising that he didn't have - and would never have - enough hands. He wound up face down in the sand, chest heaving against the incredible finality of his injuries, body movements gradually slowing. It was slower than she expected, not that Ellen had spent a lot of time thinking about how long someone took to die. But when she had told herself that she would be alright with this, she imagined it being a moment--something filled with adrenaline that would pass quickly, and she would process the event later. Instead, she stood and watched the man fall to the ground, his movements slow. He was dying. There was no way the shots she fired weren’t fatal, but she had expected something much more...instantaneous. Ellen sunk to the ground a few feet away from the man, painfully aware with each breath she took that the man dying in front of her would not continue to do the same. After about a minute, she straightened, remembering that there were other people around and someone else could be coming her way--or her friends could be dead/dying. She should go and make sure they were okay. But frankly, what could she do if they were dying? Ellen looked at the man on the ground in front of her, feeling powerless when perhaps she should have felt more powerful than she ever had before. Either her friends were fine and they had been successful, or they were dead and all was lost. Ellen wasn’t quite ready to find out which. She flicked the safety on, not wanting to be startled into shooting a friend. And then she flicked it off again, worried that one of the thieves might be the one to stumble upon her. Ellen needed to know what was going on. She stood up and took a few steps away from the body on the ground. When she looked closely, she could see he was still breathing, barely. He didn’t even have a weapon. Maybe she had made a mistake. Maybe he had the keys to the caravan. Maybe he had a wallet. Could Goodnight use a credit card for a short while until this guy was reported dead? Could they use cash? Was it heartless of her to wonder? Or was it practical? Ellen probably should take his wallet and check his pocket for keys at least. She [i]knew[/i] she should. But the act of actually [b]doing[/b] it seemed so wrong...and it took another minute for her to muster up the courage. Well… maybe she was just trying to wait to be sure he was fully dead. Ellen was getting a much better idea of why video games often had the bodies disappear and just the loot remain after combat. Whether he was in too much pain, or had already slipped beyond the realms of sensibility and consciousness, he put up no resistance to the young woman as she rifled through his pockets. He did indeed have a wallet, containing about $7.50 in cash, along with a debit card reading “Mr Joseph Barrow”, and a couple of old, out of date McDonald’s coupons. He also had ID - full name Joseph Leslie Barrow, age 39 - and an organ donor card, plus a photo tucked behind the little plastic window he’d put the ID card behind. It was him, though younger, with his arm around another young man that looked a great deal like him - so much like him, in fact, that they were more or less identical. Like twins. They were standing in front of some ratty old building that looked like a pub, holding dark brown glass bottles, grinning like absolute idiots - as though they knew they were doing something they weren’t meant to be, and were just daring the world to let them get caught. On the reverse of the polaroid, written in stunningly neat biro pen, was a little message. “I know things have been hard, but I want you to never forget that I love you, and that I believe in you. Growing up I knew you could do anything you put your mind to, and I know that still. Please come stay some time, please let me help you, please just let me be your brother, Joe.” “ - love, Harry.” As Ellen opened the wallet, her attention shifted to his license. More specifically, his name and his picture. She stared at them for a few moments before noticing the picture of the sibling behind the identification. Ellen could tell instantly that the men were likely twins. She felt a stab in her chest at the thought of tearing someone’s sibling away like hers had been taken from her. Ellen forced herself to read the entire note on the back, feeling like she knew these brothers more than she should. Perhaps it would have been better not to look in the wallet at all. It certainly would have been easier. Ellen shoved the card and picture back in the wallet, closed it, and brought it with her as she walked away from Joe, towards where her friends were hopefully gathering what they needed from the campsite. She shoved the wallet in a pocket, and carried the gun at her side--finger outside of the trigger guard--unsure exactly who she would encounter there.