It had been almost a year since everything started out: the rings, the damned ones, the ruin of people. Everyone I knew and most of I did not, they all fell equally. They got killed at the hands of their own neighbors, consumed by greed, empty inside…
For a few days, things on San Francisco got worse. We were running out of food and supplies and people started to steal and kill. We could see the meaningless of their actions; they had no target but the rings. There had been some troubles before, but not so many murders, fires, deaths… no more law, no more order.
Once, I stayed at home the whole evening, more scared than worried about repairing the furniture. I had moved with my father to a hostel in San Francisco surrounded by alleys but my father vanished for two days. Bored and browned off by the shots and cries from afar, I finally settled on going down to a kind of canteen or saloon where guests and villagers used to spend the whole day.
When I got at the bar of the canteen I saw a bottle that I had not seen before and asked Jeffrey for a shot of that drink. The label said “Cactus’ Liquor”. I never tasted it, as two damned ones entered the room with the most powerful weapons I had ever seen and opened fire against a group of Blackjack players. The battle was short, their victims had no possibility: they were rather shot out by the strength of the fires or lost inevitably a part of his body. I jumped behind the bar and kneeled down, but Jeffrey was not there and that was unnerving, because I was close to the only way-out.
I had no choice. Nearby the ankle resting on the ground there was a ring. It shone in a strange way; next to it, there was a weapon. I decided to try my luck; it was the only possibility. I put the ring on my finger, and as fast as I could, I took the gun and stood up. A Blackjack player had a gun on the temple of the last of the damned. Staggering in front of them, another Blackjack player was pointing the damned one with his gun, one of his hands had been shot away.
I fired four times. The first one fatally wounded the man with one hand, the two next bullets killed the other Blackjack player and when I shot the fourth, I focused. For some reason, that damned one was totally confused. It was as if, behind that pale and wrinkled face, he was scared for the first time. It was only for a second, but that damned one was searching desperately what had killed his killer, and then had his own life on its hands…BANG!
After that last deaf sound, none of the people who still were there could wait to escape. Some of those who had nothing to do with that and were still unhurt fled as if a vindictive God had come in through the window. Like ghosts, some kids suddenly appeared all over the saloon, stared at me, and walked faintly towards me. For a moment, I asked myself if I was already dead and if those kids were the angels who had come to take my soul away, but at that moment, next to me, Jeffrey appeared out of nowhere behind the bar.
