Nobody else came to my cell for the rest of the day, and so I eventually laid down on the floor to get some sleep. It was very uncomfortable, but there was a blanket and pillow in there at least. Nobody had fed me yet, but I’d been able to drink because there was running water in the cell.

  I don’t think that I slept for long, but when I woke up I was wide awake anyways because thoughts were racing through my head pretty quickly and I was in panic mode.

  I wondered if I regretted what I’d done or not.

  I mean, if I could go back in time then would I have still killed the chief of police and Officer Toll like I’d done?

  I mean, maybe I should have only killed Officer Toll and left the chief of police alive…

  Regardless, it seemed that killing Officer Toll had obviously been more justified than killing the chief of police had been, but the chief of police destroying the evidence of Officer Toll’s murder was still something that was evil enough that I didn’t know if I was ever going to muster up much regret for having killed the chief of police.

  But didn’t that mean that something important inside of me was broken if I was willing to admit that I shouldn’t have killed the chief of police but I might not ever muster up much regret about it?

  I mean, a vigilante has to have a precise code that they are committed to not breaking, but hadn’t my very first act of vigilantism involved breaking any sort of code that I might come up with?

  After all, Officer Toll would surely fit a vigilante killer’s code, but a vigilante killer’s code would have to be pretty broad for it to allow killing the chief of police like I’d done.

  And did I even approve of vigilante killers at all?

  I mean, I opposed the death penalty!

  But I supposed that the death penalty was unnecessarily killing in cold blood, but a vigilante killer is killing when capturing and locking someone up for life isn’t possible, which meant that opposing killing someone who has a life in prison without the possibility of parole sentence didn’t necessarily mean opposing killing someone who doesn’t have a life in prison without the possibility of parole sentence but deserves to have a life in prison without the possibility of parole sentence.

  But, even then, did I ever truly approve of vigilante killing?

  And if I were to escape from the Ghasts then would I ever engage in vigilante killing again?

  These were kind of important questions for me to figure out very specific answers to, because the consequences of me not figuring out specific answers to them could end up being me killing more people without even having a firm ideological commitment to the idea that what I was doing was morally justifiable. And did I really want to be a serial killer? Because it was reasonable to think that I was going to be doing more killing if I were to encounter more situations like the one that I had faced the previous day.

  And I didn’t really like the idea of me killing any more people.

  Like, if I’d had a time machine I would’ve just gone back to before the chief of police had destroyed the body cam footage and I would’ve gotten myself a copy of the footage and posted it onto the internet so that the proof that Officer Toll had committed murder would have been seen by everyone and a trial and murder conviction would have almost certainly happened! Then I wouldn’t have killed anyone, the chief of police wouldn’t have destroyed all of the evidence, and the common folk would be safe from Officer Toll! That’s what I wished would have happened!

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  I didn’t want anybody to die!

  Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by a person approaching my cell.

  Like the last person, I didn’t remember ever having met this person before.

  The person gave me a blindfold and told me to either put it on or get shot.

  I put on the blindfold, and then the person tied my hands and then opened the cell door and led me away from the cell.

  We walked until we reached a car, and the person drove me for a while and then removed me from the car and then drove off without untying me or removing my blindfold.

  I quickly sat down and tried to untie myself so that I could remove the blindfold.

  I wasn’t having much luck, and I soon heard footsteps nearby and heard a person say, “Hey, officer! Why are you tied up like that?”

  “The Ghasts.” I answered, “Can you please untie me?”

  “Whaaaa???” the person exclaimed worriedly, “I thought that the Ghasts only operated in our rival’s city! What were they doing here!?! And, come to think of it, your police uniform is the one that police in our rival’s city wears too. What the f is going on?!?”

  Well, now I knew that the person who had driven me had driven me to another city, which was probably better for me I supposed.

  “I don’t know exactly why they did what they did,” I said, “but I could sure use some help getting untied and getting this blindfold removed.”

  “Right!” the person said, and she quickly got to work on untying me and removing my blindfold; and once she had finished untying me and removing my blindfold I thanked her and began walking away from her.

  “Wait!” she called out, and she hurriedly sped over to where I was walking, “Don’t I get an explanation about what’s going on? I mean, neither you nor the Ghasts are people who I would expect to be in this city, and I wanna know how you ended up tied up and blindfolded on this sidewalk if you don’t mind taking a minute to tell me about what happened.”

  “You’re better off not knowing,” I said; and then she noted that, “You’re city’s not in the direction that you’re walking in, and so you’re never gonna reach it at this rate. If you want, I can give you a ride back to your home.”

  “What I want is to walk by myself a bit to unwind,” I said, “and so can you please leave? I mean, I’m very thankful that you untied me and removed my blindfold, but this is the part of the story where we part ways, alright?”

  Then the woman threw her hands up in the air in defeat and said, “Whatever! I guess I’ll just have to call around and do internet searches to find out why a tied up police officer from a rival city was dropped off on the sidewalk by the Ghasts! Have it your way! Farewell, and thanks for nothing!” and she stormed off grumpily and was presumably going to do the calling and internet searching as soon as she got home or maybe even while she was on her way home if she had her phone on her.

  But then I wondered if maybe I would be better off going after her and giving her a fake explanation…

  I mean, if she were to do internet searches and calls then she’d probably figure out that I was probably the most wanted man in my city and she’d probably let the authorities know where I was, and I kinda needed to lay low and have my whereabouts be unknown if possible…

  And so I quickly chased after her and said, “Okay, fine, I guess you do deserve an explanation.” and she turned around happily at my words and said, “Very good!” and so the two of us sat down at a table that was near the sidewalk and I told her a very fictional story about how I’d ended up in her city.

  Once I’d completed my false tale, she said, “And so now you have to go far far away from your city because the Ghasts are after you? Well you should’ve told me that in the first place! I have today and tomorrow off from work, and so I can drive you a pretty long distance! It’d be beyond silly for you to walk!”

  “Trusting and driving strangers can be a risky thing to do,” I noted, “but I’m not going to say no to you helping me get as far away from the Ghasts as possible.”

  “Yeah, I guess it could be risky sometimes, but I get good vibes from you.” she said with a shrug, “And I’m the type who likes to help people escape from bad folks, and it doesn’t get much worse than having the Ghasts chasing after you!; and so, yeah, my car is just a short walk away from here, and so let’s head over to it and let’s get you as far away as possible from those horrific Ghasts!…”