"Smash it! Smash everything!"
"This place is closed. Pry it open and drag out everyone inside."
Before long, the iron door was smashed open. A group rushed inside and dragged out a young married couple hiding in the house. After a savage beating with clubs, the man was left barely alive. The woman wailed beside him and was slapped several times, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
Thirteenth Street.
Nearly every shop along both sides of the street had been smashed to pieces. The road was packed with roughly one or two hundred people. Most held machetes, iron rods, or baseball bats. Some were still wrecking storefronts, while others looted anything useful.
Chaos. Utter chaos.
In the middle of the street, a crowd had gathered around a bald, heavily bearded man holding a little girl. She looked three or four years old. He held her aloft with one hand as she bawled her eyes out, while a vicious grin covered his bearded face.
"Let Nini go! Please, let her go!"
"She doesn't understand anything. She's just a child!"
Nearby, a young woman was pinned beneath people's feet. Watching her daughter being held captive, she pleaded desperately.
A mother's instincts urged her to protect her daughter, but several heavy feet were pressing down on her, leaving her unable to move. All she could do was beg, hoping these people might show mercy and spare her daughter.
The bearded man gritted his teeth. "This woman's husband works at the Academy of Sciences. Some kind of expert, they said. A die-hard Earth Faction supporter. Pah! He almost got us all killed."
Hearing that, the woman wailed, "I'll listen to you! I'll join the Spaceship Faction! Please let my daughter go!"
"Heh heh. You can come over, but this little bastard can't