From the journal of Marie Costa, June 27

June 27, 2017

     It's been harder to deal with what we did than I thought it was going to be. We killed people. Yes, we had to do it to stay alive because they would've found us eventually. We caught their first scout, but we don't know if we would have been able to keep catching them. One would've made it back with information on us at some point, so we had to take them out.

     We did what had to be done, but when I close my eyes I, I see the faces of the people I shot. Well, the ones I could see, anyway. I shot at the RV's with everyone else, so I know I had to have killed some of those women and kids. I can see the faces of the women dead on the floor of the RV I went in. They were young and had probably been pretty before their were taken by those men.

     I spent last night wondering if I'm still a good person, or if what we did makes me evil. I'd always thought that there was nothing that could make me kill someone, anyone. But now, I know that I can do it and I have done it. I even helped torture a man to get information on the people we killed. I helped hold him down while Richard put needles under his nails, then ripped them off. I held him down while he was given hundreds of small cuts. I held Marco down while other things, things I won't write down because I want to forget them, were done to him. And then, we used that information to go kill his whole group. I helped shoot and kill them, lots of them. Was what we did evil but not us, because it was necessary for us to live? If those people had found us, they would have killed or men and enslaved our women. Does that mean what we did is OK?

     I know everyone who was there is having an issue with what we did. I hope that makes us good people, since it bothered us. The truck we brought all the supplies we got in town back in had just sat in the yard and no one had gone through it since we brought it back. Today, I went over, opened the back and started taking stuff out of the back. I separated the food, ammo and other stuff into piles and put the backpacks to the side to go through at the end. Others came over and started to help me unload the truck. It was a little therapeutic for me and I hope for the others, to get the truck cleaned out. Then I went back to the backpacks. The first one had ammo and a couple of pistol, the second one had clothes in it, and the third one had canned food in it. That's the one I found the letter in.

     I had to read it twice before it really sunk in. This letter was from one of the women in the RV. She wanted to die and would've been glad to know we killed her. Did that make what we did less evil? I had hoped that those men hadn't raped the kids, but knowing that they had, I would kill them all again in the blink of an eye. They weren't human anymore, they were animals. Rabid animals, that needed to be put out of their misery.

     From what Melanie had written, these men had already gone to the dark side way back at the beginning. They didn't even wait for everything to really fall apart before they starting killing and raping and doing whatever they wanted. Yeah, including raping kids if that's your thing. Sick bastards.

     I'm still bothered by what I did. But knowing more about their group from one of their victims viewpoints, well, it kinda makes it easier to deal with. Knowing I put the captive women out of their pain and misery. Well, at least the ones who hadn't started spying for the men. Those women should have suffered more for turning on other women in the same horrible situation as they were. They should have stuck together and helped each other, as much as possible, but instead, some of them spied on the others for a few creature comforts, an extra blanket or more clothes or food.As a writer and artist, I appreciate any readers and their comments.

     Well, it's going to take me while to come to terms with everything that's happened. I know I'll have nightmares for a while, I already have, every night since the ambush. But that makes me feel like I'm still human and still a good person. I know now that I'll do anything to keep our group safe. And I'm going to be OK with it, at least, I hope I will be, someday.

As a writer and artist, I appreciate any readers and their comments. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. Please, come read the other blog I write for our artisan collective, Raven's Castle Creations, on our website at www.ravencastlecreations.com. It includes posts on art, the mythology of symbols we use in our art, history and more! Also, come see the art we produce in our Etsy store at etsy.com/shop/RavenCastleCreations. Follow us on Twitter at @ravencastleart and on Facebook at @ravencastlecreations.