Unlike the few photos in the newspapers, Hal, Oliver, and Arthur saw the massacre site with their own eyes. Faced with such a bloody, brutal scene, they fell silent.
There was nothing much to say about the cartel's massacre. They had simply stormed into the village, opened fire on every living thing in sight, then thrown all the bodies into the sea.
There were no corpses strewn everywhere, no blood spraying through the air—only an empty, silent village. Farming tools lay abandoned in the middle of the road. Judging by the bloodstains, a farmer on his way to work in the fields had been shot dead halfway there.
Oliver's hands trembled as he picked up a shard of tile from the ground. It was covered in blood, and a tiny fingerprint remained on it.
His eyes were bloodshot as he turned to look at the soccer field drawn in the sand. When those drug traffickers had rushed into the village, the children had just finished marking out the field and were about to start playing. They had not even had time to put down the tiles they had used to draw the lines before they were shot dead.
Arthur picked up the bloodstained soccer ball from the ground. His lips were pressed tightly together, as though he were struggling to suppress his grief and rage.
Hal jumped down from the roof, his voice low. "Let's get out of here first. The reporters will be here soon, and we can't let them photograph us."
"No, we have to see if there are any survivors. Maybe... maybe..." Oliver clenched his fists. He still held onto the last trace of hope, but in the end, he followed Hal's instructions and began walking out of the village.
There were no forests or mountains here,