Catherine's Plea

Christ, have I lost my nerve? It's been said that the way to win a war is to abandon all your moral principles more quickly than the enemy. I have tried my best to prove that isn't true. Even in such desperate circumstances, I believed we could still fight with dignity and live with pride. But now I realize that I only thought that way because I wasn't yet desperate enough. Peggy has been eaten. And so has Ben. Not by the beasts, or the Deviants... it was those bandits at the camp below the cliff. I naively thought that the winter and the ever-increasing Stardust pollution would force them to surrender, or flee somewhere far away and never bother our little sanctuary again. But... It wasn't until dawn when the deadly silence at the farm was noticed by the others. Screams echoed throughout the town, and that was when we learned that Peggy and Ben had been killed and eaten on the spot. There was a time I shut myself in, barricaded the door, and #[k=b25]locked all my gear in a chest upstairs#[k]. I just curled up there in the quiet, hoping those bandits would get what's coming to them. James wanted to execute the bandits we've been holding captive by the same bloody means, then storm their camp to avenge their deaths. Most people supported him. But I... God... Give me courage...