"Sir, the smoke is coming from a Caretaker compound. It appears that it has been attacked." The young man had just returned from his short scouting mission. The group had set up camp to wait until nightfall when they had noticed a plume of dark smoke, rising from just outside of the forest. Now, the scout had returned.
"What should we do?" Whispered Marcus, a cautious man in his late 20's. He wore thick glasses, and was always worried about all kinds of things. "It could be a trap."
Yes, it could be a trap. That was always a possibility. Richard commanded only a small group of about 13 men and two women. None of them had any significant military training, but they had made it this far, so they must be doing something right, right? "We'll go in slowly. There might be something for us to find." Richard picked out several other men, including the scout who's name was Michael, Marcus, Jeremiah, an older man who had once been a cop, and Drake, who was a genius in computer technology.
The small team, equipped with only basic weaponry, carefully made there way through the forest and to the site of the battle. Upon coming out into the clearing, they could see the fire damaged building. Soot blackened the concrete walls and the steel doors had been blasted open. After making sure that there was no one around, Richard led his men into the soot blackened and smoke smelling structure.
Inside, they could see that a vicious fight had occurred. Bullet holes riddled the walls, which were crumbling from the force of previous grenade blasts. As they moved through the building, they could see trace amounts of what had stood before. Furniture and supplies meant for the raising of infants and children, a mess hall, a school room. The structure was practically a whole town in one building. Not once did they find a single weapon, or a corpse.
It wasn't until they reached the central common room that they found out what had happened. "Oh my God." whispered Jeremiah in horrified awe as they walked into the heavily fire damaged room. Piled in the center of the room were corpses, charred beyond recognition. Men, women, children, and even infants had been piled up and burned. Drake whispered something about needing air and left the room, Marcus straight up discharged his last meal, and Michael simply fell to the ground, stunned.
"Who could've done this?" Whispered Richard, still not completely understanding what he was seeing with his own eyes.
Jeremiah began thinking out loud, albeit quietly. "The Regime would have taken prisoners, The Masks would never have murdered children, and last I checked, The Beasts didn't have guns." He stopped, letting the implications sink in.
"You can't be saying we did it?" Richard said, horrified. To think that anyone could do something this horrible, even to the enemy, was simply mind boggling.
"Who else?" said Jeremiah. "C'mon." He said as he helped Drake to his feet. "Let's get out of here. They didn't leave anything here but tortured souls." Richard nodded numbly and followed Jeremiah out of the tomb.