The night was on fire as the battle went on. The loud popping of the automatic weapons sounded almost like firecrackers as they went off every second. The battle that had been going for three decades now, between the last humans and the mutants. The mutants, who were sick humans, thought themselves possessed by a higher force. Their messiah was a man renamed Dominus. A word almost forgotten to most, but not him. His brain, totally mad with the mutation, believed to be the new son of a god he created. Their mission, destroy every normal human on Earth.

“Tony, you take eastside and I’ll take the west,” Jonathan said as he disappeared in the dark.

The place the mutants attacked seemed full of humans. There were bodies everywhere. Some were mutating, as others looked so normal. Jonathan watched around him, gun ready. A small cry made him move to an open area. He watched the small lit area, as three mutants hung a man from a tree. Another held a small boy, who was covered in dirt and crying out for his father. He aimed shooting all of them, even the one holding the boy. He did not flinch, and ran to his swinging father.

Jonathan went over, and saw the man was alive. He did flinch, thinking the things wanted to use the man as a pinata. The boy started climbing the tree. “I will get you down father. We can get away.” The man looked at Jonathan pleading, the pain in his eyes didn’t stop as the boy cut his father free.

Jonathan helped untie the man. “Please,” he said once the gag was off. “My son is not sick, please take him. I cannot go along. I have started to grow a lump along my back. But it’s broken now.” Jonathan knew what the man had just said. The lumps along the spine were early signs of the mutation, which showed he was a dead man anyway.

“Father, get up,” the boy said. “Please.”

“I love you,” he said to the boy. “I am already dead.”

“No,” the boy looked at him horror stricken and took a step back. “It cannot be.”

“You must do what I have showed you,” he said.

The boy shook his head. “How can you ask your own son to take your life?” Jonathan asked.

“It is our way,” he said.

The boy dropped his knife. “I ca-an’t,” he said.

“Don’t be a coward,” the man said angrily as he lay limp on the ground.

Jonathan aimed his gun quickly shooting the man in the heart, before any of them could say anything. “It’s done now. Come with me boy,” he said as he continued his sweep of the area. He didn’t need to look to see if the boy followed, he could hear him silently weeping behind him. Did he feel sorry for what he just did? Yes, but the man was already dead with the broken back. Not even their doctor could have helped him, he was turning.