Martin was vaguely aware he was probably in shock. He felt numb, with a hint of dread. Even the bullet wound didn't produce much pain, mostly a rhythmic pounding under the pressure.

He was going to die, and he knew it. There was no way he was going to walk out of this alive. The dreadful part was waiting for it to happen.

He could make it quicker. It would be simple to rise to his feet and announce his presence, rather than waiting for them to find him. Not that he intended to. Despite his death sentence, he still clung on to a sliver of hope. Maybe, just maybe, they would fail to find him.

The chances of that happening were slim, though. He didn't dare take a look, but he could hear them. Sense them.

Heavy steps.

Screams, cries, begs for mercy.

A gunshot, maybe two.

More steps.

More deaths.

Methodical murder in progress.

With every death, the feeling of panic in the room was gradually replaced with the confidence and even impatience from the killers. Maybe one of them felt a bit conflicted, but that was about it.

The steps were moving towards his less than ideal hiding place: a potted palm tree. A big pot, but not large enough for a grown man to fully hide behind. His time was up. It was almost a relief.

Almost.

He had never been a very religious person. His parents had tried, and mostly failed, to make a good Christian out of him. It worked well enough when he was a child. During his teen years, the interest in religion had gradually eroded. The fear of Hell had slowed down, but not stopped, his descent into atheism. Not that he ever fully renounced his belief. He just wound up in a state of “maybe there’s a God, but it doesn’t really impact my life.”

For the first time in fifty three years, he folded his hands and prayed whole-heartedly. Not for himself; not even in his wildest dreams could he imagine that some divine intervention would save his life here. No, he prayed for his daughters. They were more or less adults now, Elizabeth at 22 and Emily at 19. Competent enough to manage on their own. He prayed that these suit-dressed gun-men, whoever they were, would not go after his family next. Or Linda. Or anyone else he knew, for that matter. As much as he disagreed with his ex-wife, he certainly didn’t wish this upon her, either. ‘Please. I beg of you. Amen,’ he finished.

The steps had reached him. It was time to meet his end with dignity. He wouldn’t beg for his life. He would look at the gun barrel and accept his fate. Hopefully without flinching.

Wait, what? He couldn’t be entirely sure, but it sounded like the steps moved past his hiding place?

“Wait, I think I sense one,” he heard a voice, causing all the steps to stop.

‘Please, dear God, don’t find me, don’t find me, don’t find me,’ Martin repeated in his head. Suddenly, faced with the hope of survival, the thought of unflinchingly meeting his death didn’t seem quite as tempting anymore.

The silence dragged on for a few seconds. Martin could hear nothing apart from his pounding heart and praying in his head.

“No, probably a fucking cat or something,” the voice said. It sounded irritated. “The cowardly cunt under the couch is real enough. And the fuggly rich bitch over there is just pretending to be dead.”

Other voices acknowledged the message. The steps moved away from him, shortly followed by more cries and gunshots. After what felt like an eternity, he heard the steps leaving the room, and the door closing. Even through the closed door, he could hear the occasional scream and gunshot.

What just happened? Had someone upstairs heard his prayer? He'd never in his adult life felt less sure about his mostly atheistic beliefs. Something he'd have to ponder later.

Right now, he had to figure out what to do next. Should he get up from his hiding place or stay put? The hitmen had gone, but maybe they’d check the room once more. What was the best course of action?

He looked down. As far as he could tell, he had managed to stop the bleeding. However, since he had found no exit wound, the bullet was still lodged in his stomach. How dangerous was that? It was on his lower left, so at least not his liver. Somewhere in his guts, probably? He couldn't recall what else was there. How high up were the kidneys?

Normally, he'd look up questions like that on his cell phone. That option was currently unavailable, for multiple reasons. First, he didn't want to do anything that might bring attention to himself. Second, his cell phone was currently being used as compress on his wound. If he tried to remove it now, he risked restarting the bleeding.

He decided that his safest bet right now was to sit tight and wait. Besides, you weren’t supposed to move patients with internal bleeding unnecessarily, right? At some point, the police would come and check and find him and everything would be fine.

Reasonably fine.

The next ten minutes were mental torture. There was the occasional muffled sound from outside the room. He was empathetic to the others' fates, yet helpless to do anything. If he could tune out everything, he would have. Shield himself from the mental anguish. As a distraction, he mentally hummed melodies he knew and improvised additional instruments and tracks into it. Into the silence of the mansion, a house of death, interrupted occasionally by further gunfire.

Finally, there was only silence. But were they really gone? While he couldn’t sense them, that was hardly any guarantee. He certainly wasn’t going to walk around and check. With nothing better to do, his thoughts went to what had just occurred.

His first and foremost question was 'Why had these hitmen been so hell-bent on killing every single last person at the party?'

The sheer scale of this atrocity! There was the occasional news about a mass shooting, often in a school or a religious gathering place, but this was in a class of its own. There had been more than a hundred people here, counting only the guests. Then there were the hosts, the staff and the orchestra, the latter of which Martin was a part of. The hosts and the guests all belonged to high society. Who would want all of them dead? Probably a lot of less fortunate people, but who could afford to do this and get away with it?

Martin and his crew were just collateral. This was supposed to be another cushy job; the live orchestra playing background music while the guests mingled and discussed the latest trends or whatever the figurative aristocracy talked about. He loved jobs like these; well-paying with the freedom to choose their own repertoire as long as it did not disturb anyone. They had been about half-way through the night when the assassins arrived. Or whatever they really were.

As far as he could tell, the hitmen had opened fire the moment they entered the ball room. Predictably, the room had erupted into chaos. Everyone panicked and ran to avoid getting shot, Martin included. He had a blurry memory of pushing through a door along with a dozen other people, only to find more gunfire at the end of the corridor. A group of refugees including himself had found a large dining hall, only to learn that there were no places to run. They had scrambled to find hiding places in the room.

The potted plant had been the least worst hiding place left. It wasn’t until he sat down that he noticed he’d caught a stray bullet along the way. He had felt something sting, but between all the adrenaline and crashing into panicked people it had not occurred to him that he had been shot. Fortunately, he had time enough to apply first aid before the first hitmen entered the room.

Why hadn’t the police arrived yet? It felt like an eternity since the world went mad. He realized he really had no idea how long said eternity was. It must have been at least half an hour, right?

The mansion was isolated enough from the closest neighbor that it was possible no one outside the place had heard the guns. But with so many people here, someone must have called the police, right? Probably dozens of people. There had been minutes before the first assassin had entered the dining hall.

Maybe these assassins had somehow jammed the cell phone signals or something? The assassins had not seemed stressed or in any particular hurry at all. The closest feeling he had picked up was impatience. The only way that could make sense was if they knew the police weren't going to show up.

Maybe they had the police in their pockets? That was a very scary thought. But it wouldn’t explain everything. A lot of the people here would have called friends or family, which would spread the word quickly. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise him if a lot of them had posted it on Twitter as it happened.

Martin’s internal ramblings were interrupted by his nose. He picked up something… smoke? There were also sounds he might associate with burning. Were they torching the place down? Fuck. It made sense. He had to get out now.

Struggling to his feet against the complaints of his numb legs, he almost fainted right away. Probably not a good idea to stand up quickly. His shaky feet took him towards the back door. He peeked through the opening to find a wall of heat crashing into him. The fire was in the process of claiming the kitchen.

He considered trying the other door, but decided there was probably a fire on that side too. There was still a path through the kitchen that did not involve literally jumping through fire. He covered his mouth with a nearby towel, ducked his head down and moved as quickly as he could. Despite not even touching the flames, the heat seared his uncovered skin. The wound on his stomach complained with pangs of pain for each step.

The door opened into a short corridor which was blessedly free of fire so far. Martin checked each door. Fire, dead end... Yes! An office with a window. He closed the door behind him and looked outside.

The mansion was located on a hill, facing a spectacular view of a lake with the spires of the city in the distance. Behind the mansion there was a beautiful garden built in stairs on the hill, followed by the forest behind the last fence. The window was facing the garden, which right now was flickering with light from the burning house. Martin could see a suit-clad woman standing in the garden, a short distance away. She seemed to be watching the back exit, not the windows. It was easy to tell this was no mere bystander, not least from the submachine gun in her hands.

While it might be risky to get past her, it was undoubtedly more dangerous to stay in a house that would soon be a pile of smoking rubble. Martin had to take the chance, and hope for the best.

The sound of the window creaking open was thankfully drowned by the fires. Martin carefully climbed out, and dropped about a meter to the ground. Despite his best efforts to land gracefully, his wound hit him with a nauseating amount of pain. He stumbled forward, in a hurry to find something to hide behind.

At that point, the guard turned to look in his direction. Martin panicked, filled with thoughts of his imminent death. There was no way he could outrun the guard, much less her bullets. He stopped like a deer in the headlights.

To Martin’s surprise, the guard turned back to the door again. Had she somehow failed to spot him because of the flickering lights from the fire? He had no clue, nor was he going to stay here and figure it out. With careful steps, he made it to the closest brush, and followed along with it until he found an entrance to the garden proper.

It took him five minutes to get through the garden. The pain made him unable to run, and he was feeling light-headed enough that he feared fainting at any moment. Fortunately the gate to the forest was not locked. There was no way he could climb the fence in his current state.

The trees calmed his beating heart somewhat. Plenty of places to hide. He found a slight overlook and sat down to catch his breath. The height allowed him a good look at the mansion without exposing himself. The sight was unnerving.

There were no less than three police cars there, and two fire trucks. The firemen had already started deploying, but didn't actually try to put out the fire. They seemed to only prevent the fire from spreading. The building was already a blazing inferno.

The shocking part was the interaction between the police officers and the suit-clad hitmen. They were… talking with each other. Discussing in a civil manner. At least two police officers and one of the hitmen. The other suit-clad men were standing nearby, several of them carrying visible guns. The very people that had just entered the building and murdered a hundred people were casually chilling out next to the police.

Martin felt another wave of terror hit him, to the point that it made him want to throw up. His half-formulated plan had been to get out and report everything to the police. Now that option was off the table. He had no way of knowing the extent of the relationship between the police and the assassins. The only part he was certain about was that he had good reasons to fear what might happen should he reveal himself.

For now, all he could do was run. No reason to make big plans before he was sure he would survive the night. He got to his feet again and disappeared into the forest.