I'm Sorry

I wasn't sure how to write this.

Ethan's gone. The cost of a pyrrhic victory. Maricel is beside herself. I'm not sure how close she and Ethan were but she's taking it really hard.

I don't know what to say that can help. All I can do is listen.

About a day after my last entry, maybe sooner than that, a group of maybe a dozen or more came to my house. Guided by the markers that had been left. We tried to clean them off but one of them seemed to know where he was going and was likely the person who scouted the place. They were armed to the teeth, just like us. We kept quiet and listened as they talked outside.

"This one is a gold mine." the scout said, a skinny fellow wearing a black hoodie and jeans. "It's another one of those places that clones things."

I filed that particular piece of information mentally. My house isn't unique in that it can replicate things. Good to know.

They came to the door and tried to open it. I called out, telling them to go away.

"Ain't gonna happen," one of them called back. A guy wearing one of those skull masks that bikers use.

I offered a retort by shooting a slug through the door. Caught the scout guy right in the gut and he fell over in a heap. I managed to hit another before the rest of them finally overcame the shock and scattered, firing back at the house with one of them (their leader I'm assuming: a fat guy with a plaid shirt) warning them not to hit the windows.

Bullets came ripping through the front door for a good while, forcing us to take cover further inside. They got confident, with a couple of guys rushing the door. But as soon as they kicked it down Maricel and Ethan unloaded their 870s at the doorway and cut down the two guys standing there.

We had to retreat into the main hallway when they started hurling explosives into the house. I didn't stop to look at what they were, the tell tale hiss of a fuse was enough to get me moving. One of them landed at Maricel's feet. Ethan pushed her away.

It saved her life.

It ended his.

Maricel mentally broke, but her brain chose "fight" among the other two options. In a berserker rage she gunned downed the next group that rushed in after the explosions. Firing from the doorway of my bathroom.

We held the hallway as they pushed into the living room. Knocking over furniture to cover themselves from the relentless hail of 00 pellets coming from us. The firefight was fierce and at one point I had to switch to my Glock as the barrel from my 870 was too hot from the repeated firing. I couldn't pump the action without burning my hands.

It looked like we were at an impasse but things went sideways quickly. For all of us.

The noise of the fight must've attracted the mimics. I heard the bandits screaming outside, alongside the mimics calling out in their usual gibber-gabber. The guys who in the living room knew they were caught in a vice and called out to me and Maricel.

"Yo! Truce! Truce!"

Maricel wasn't having it. The guy who called out to us was soon deprived of the digits on his left hand. It wasn't long before the mimics made their way inside and...

...it wasn't pleasant. I'll leave it at that.

Now the mimics made their move on us. One of them, a shirtless guy with no head but a face on his torso, had picked up a gun from one of the dead bandits, aimed it the wrong way and gave himself a Darwin award. The others just rushed straight at us.

I switched back to my shotgun, which had cooled enough to use again.

I remember calling out to Maricel that we just had to hold them long enough for the reset to happen.

We just had to hold on.

The hallway took away their advantage in numbers but they were pushing closer and closer each time we had to reload. It was like trying to hold back a flood with your bare hands.

Things got desperate when I lost sight of Maricel, who had to retreat further into the bathroom. A man with four arms in a business suit chasing right after her. I could hear her crying out and I thought the worst. I tried to break out to get to her but I only got two feet from my bedroom before I emptied the last shell in my shotgun and had to fall back again.

I got my Glock out again and kept firing. Until the slide locked open and I reached for another magazine and couldn't find one. I ran towards my nightstand, where a couple spares should've replicated. No sooner than I had slammed one in that I had to unload that entire magazine into an obese man with mouths for hands. I got the second and last magazine in and aimed to fire. More mimics than I had bullets screaming towards me when... Thank God...

*Click*

They were gone.

"MARICEL!"

I screamed her name three times as I rushed towards the bathroom and thankfully found her alive though huddled in the shower, eyes wide. She had tried to shoot me. But her own Glock was empty...thankfully. She was catatonic. Barely registering anything I was saying until finally she came to and started bawling.

I cried too. Or at least I think I did. I made sounds but no tears came out. Almost as if I forgot how to do it. That can't be good. I don't think anyway.

I brought her to my bedroom to let her lay down on the bed. I went looking through the house. The damage was gone, though I had way more furniture now since those damn bandits moved everything. I also couldn't help but notice that, although the mimics and their corpses were gone. The bodies of the bandits and...what was left of Ethan...was still there.

I cleaned everything up. As best as I could anyway. I checked outside to see if the coast was clear and those... Paper Towel people I guess you can call them, were there. It was quite a mess, the rest of the bandits outside must've put up one hell of a fight because it was a massacre out there.

I tossed the remains outside. They were absorbed with the rest.

I'm sorry Ethan.