Tonight. 8pm EST. We have to go back. The promise has been made. We said we would go back to Redfall in the fall to see if it's good now. Is it good now??? Who knows. Find out tonight only on twitch.tv/gameslinetv your line for games.
Adaptation of: Mahō Shōjo Ikusei Keikaku (魔法少女育成計画 “Magical Girl Raising Project”) (2012) seinen Light novel by Asari Endō, illustrated by Maruino and Mahō Shōjo Ikusei Keikaku: Episodes (魔法少女育成計画: Episodes “Magical Girl Raising Project: Episodes”) (2013) by the same authors.
Genre: Dark fantasy, Magical girl, Survival action
Directed by: Hashimoto Hiroyuki
Written by: Yoshioka Takao
Studio: Lerche
Original run: October 1, 2016 – December 17, 2016
Episodes: 12
WARNINGS: There’s murder, some of it a bit goreyish even though they don’t really show much. There are also child abuse and child molestation as well as bullying, violence and manipulation.
The plot in short: Himekawa Koyuki, who really loves Magical Girls, enjoys playing to the RPG ‘Magical Girl Raising Project’, an app for cell phones. Only ‘Magical Girl Raising Project’ isn’t just a game and, after a while, she’s contacted by the game mascot character, Fav, that tells her she’s been chosen to become a REAL Magical Girl. Koyuki starts her life as a Magical Girl trying to help as much people as she can and also gets to know the other Magical Girls of the city. When they learn a 16th Magical Girl will join them though, Fav announces them there are too many Magical Girl and they’re going to half them. At first the elimination process seems simple and painless but then it turns out the eliminated girls will die as Magical Girls are pinned one against the other in some sort of Battle Royal in which only one is meant to survive.
HOW DID I STUMBLE INTO IT
I’ve heard it being mentioned by @silvermoon424, got curious and decided to try it out.
THINGS YOU MIGHT WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE TACKLING THIS
I’ll reference “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” anime (2011) and ”Mahō Shōjo Site” manga (2013–2019) and anime (2017-2018) as terms of comparison. Also mentions of “Ō-sama Game” cell phone novel (2009-2015) (BTW, if you’re interested there are also a manga, an anime and a movie transposition of it).
MY TWO CENTS ON IT
THE SHORT VERSION… or what I can tell you about this while trying to keep spoilers at the very bare minimum.
Opening & ending: The opening is kind of spoilerish, as some images and the lyrics hint of what it will happen. The opening song, “Sakebe” (叫べ ‘Shout’) by Numakura Manami, is nice but the matching between the song and the images is nothing exceptional, more of a following of characters than anything else so as to help us remember them all (they’re 17). To make up for the opening being spoilerish, the ending is soothing and misleadingly optimistic. Again it’s pretty and, despite it too being used to show the Magical Girls one after the other I like the idea moving it more, with Snow White holding a tiny sprout that keeps on growing and the Magical Girls apparently sleeping peacefully. The ending song “Dreamcatcher” by Nano is completely in English and also nice.
The plot: The plot is… “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” meets “Ō-sama Game” but there’s no virus involved, the Magical Girls don’t belong all to the same class but are picked up at random and here we don’t need the girls to turn into Witches/Monster because half of them are conveniently jerks (when not outright criminals) willing to murder the other girls to survive. Also there’s not time travel involved. So, although it introduces new elements, differently from “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” it doesn’t shine for its originality. I don’t mean it’s something you can’t enjoy, I was definitely hooked and the series manages to pull some surprise moves… but the ending feels a lot less satisfactory than “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” where there’s a strong message of hope. On the other side is not purely a pain feast like “Mahō Shōjo Site” and its plot is more solid. Also, it can be that in the adaptation process from Light Novel to Anime things were transposed in a rushing manner, though as I’m not familiar with the original novel I can’t say for sure.
The Magical Girls: They’re 16… which for 12 episodes is waaay too much. For comparison “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” has 5 for the same number of episodes which gives it the time to focus on them as characters. In this series too many of them aren’t developed at all, their back story felt just too rushed so that it’s hard to emotionally connect with them all, never mentioning that some seem jerks for no reason at all, their back story merely an addendum not an explanation which add something to the character to the point we could just skip it. Again this can be a problem of adapting the visual novel as the anime simplified a lot the Magical Girls stories. It doesn’t mean all the Magical Girls aren’t developed or unlikable, some are better developed and some are pretty likable but they’re a minority on 16 characters.
The side characters: They’re basically nonexistent, more mob characters than anything else because we simply have too much main chara to give them a chance to be developed.
The Mascot Character: Fav is… Kyubey… only less intriguing character wise.
The visual: The character design is pretty, the chat-room scenes in which all the characters appear in chibi form are very cute...
...the backgrounds are nicely done with some scenery I really loved...
...the Magical Girls costumes have some interesting ideas behind them… though some seem to be done for male viewing pleasure.
The BGM: It’s definitely not bad. Some BGM kind of reminds me of a video game musical background which is kind of fitting as the series is tied to a game of the same name, others are pretty nice if not memorable and you might enjoy hearing them more than once. Overall Iga Takurō did a nice work.
Overall: It can hook you and it can feel enjoyable but… it’s nothing revolutionary, to me it felt inferior to “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica”, even if superior to “Mahō Shōjo Site”. I get the feeling though, if they had more episodes to develop the characters, it could have been better.
THE LONG VERSION… or what I loved and hated about this in random order with, of course, TONS OF SPOILERS.
One of the thing that didn’t quite impress me positively is how much it resembles “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” yet it fails to live up to its same standard.
“Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” was surprising, you get into it thinking it’s going to be cute, and, even if the starting scene is Walpurgisnacht, it all seems a bad dream Madoka had and Walpurgisnacht wasn’t at its worst yet so you can think Madoka will have a premonition dream and that she’ll ultimately save the day… when what we were seeing was instead one of Homura’s previous loops.
“Mahō Shōjo Ikusei Keikaku” also start with a tragedy of the past, the one that drove Cranberry to become the person it is…
...and you can even mistake it for foreshadowing of the future… but there’s no clever scene that make it seems as if it was a dream and it’s clear even if the girl involved kill the monster, the slaughtered girls won’t come back to life. Plus, if you re-watch the scene you can very well realize it’s Cranberry and not Snow Hime the one involved and since she grins this foreshadows she’s evil and aware of the situation the Magical Girls will end up into.
Then in “Mahō Shōjo Ikusei Keikaku” we continue with the girls being turned into Magical Girls by a cute Mascot Character who doesn’t tell them he plans to set them one against the other until only one will survive. However between Fav and Kyubey, Fav is a random jerk without backstory while Kyubey is a self serving alien with a completely different mindset, set of values and inability to feel emotions EXACTLY BECAUSE HE’S AN ALIEN. Kyubey is a monster, but he’s not one because he’s a jerk, just because he’s incapable to realize what he does is terrible, and this is due to him being an alien unable to see things in a human perspective. And what makes him even more interesting is how Kyubey doesn’t lie, he just hides crucial details while Fav is a huge liar. Even when Kyubey wants to trigger Madoka’s transformation in a Magical Girl, that’s just because it would be useful. Fav goes against the instructions he had, even going so far as to file false reports because he enjoys seeing the girls murdering each other. Why does he? Because he’s a jerk, plain and simple, with no backstory nor explanation for why he wants to see the Magical Girls die. The only time he seems to have a reason beyond the evulz is when he sets up Swim Swim and Ripple because he wishes for neither to be his master.
However, truth to be told, the characterization of way too many characters is lacking, and if this is due to the adaptation into anime or the original material. Credits when it’s due the anime tried to give additional info about the characters by adapting also the “Episodes” tales but it’s often not enough to give a good feeling of who are the characters.
It’s noteworthy that the Magical Girls, more than for their everyday persona are known for their Magical Girl name. Even in the heroine’s case it’s easier to call and identify her as Snow Hime than as Koyuki.
So let’s look a bit more into the characters and how some of them are not characterized or characterized in a way that makes hard to connect with them.
Calamity Mary, who’s an evil version of Mami from “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” (from her weapons of choice down to the fact she is a senior who taught to other Magical Girls) with the look of Takano Miyo from “Higurashi no naku koro ni” is just this, an evil version of Mami. Even her backstory doesn’t explain her or makes her interesting. As a normal person she was a 39-year old drunkard wife who abused her little daughter until her husband found out and dumper her. As a Magical Girl she helps criminals, keeps on drinking, bullies the new recruits. Basically it seems she was glad to become a Magical Girl only to get a chance to break them and all she seems to teach them is “Don’t cross Calamity Mary. Don’t cause troubles for me. And don’t tick me off” and she abuses them to drive her point. When she decides she’ll fight Ripple, she forces her to fight by shooting at innocent people. So yeah, she’s painted like a villain but beyond that? Who’s Calamity Mary/Yamamoto Naoko? Why did she started drinking? Why did she develop such a mentality? I’m not saying they should give an explanation so as to excuse her behavior because that’s inexcusable but they could have given us an origin story. Instead her sidestory merely tell us she was villainous also prior to turn a Magical Girl but, back then, she had no power.
Even if tamer than Calamity Mary, the Peaky Angels also are merely villains whose unique character trait is being identical twins in look and in character. Because being a twin is a character trait and identical twins also share personality. The twins are vain and have no hesitation in sacrificing people for themselves. Now yes, there’s plenty of people who would sacrifice someone in order to survive but there’s generally some hesitation at play because murdering someone is not something that comes so natural. The same doesn’t apply for the twins.
The same goes for Magicaloid 44 who’s selfish and greedy and has no qualms on allying with Calamity Mary or trying to kill Snow White… and when she kills Hardgore Alice instead she claims she felt nothing at all.
We move then to another villain, Ruler. They gave her a backstory that could be even good… but she’s not really consistent as a character and her backstory is messy as well. We see as a student she was the best one… but she is not happy to be praised by her classmates and believes everyone is an idiot. Why? Who knows. She’s then an office lady trying to propose an improvement plan but her boss only wants her to serve coffee and do copies. This time, when her boss refuses to listen her out, it makes sense she thinks he’s an idiot and we can even empathize with her because that’s unfair… but the story isn’t really focused on making her a victim, more on pointing out how fastidious is her character as she looks down on everyone. It’s as if it’s on her that lies the blame for having been dismissed in such way by her boss… and as she becomes a Magical Girl her traits worsen as it turns out not all as not only she looks down on everyone but wants to rule people. When she’s humiliated by Calamity Mary she choose weak willed people who would be her meat shields and whom she verbally abuses and she’s the one who comes up with a plan to steal all of Snow White’s candies so that she’ll die and again, she feels nothing at the through. So she’s a villain... though Tama and Swim Swim seem to disagree, Tama being positively impressed because, after forcing on her a set of rules, volunteered to explain them to her, while Swim Swim seems to think she would care for them when they were just an usable commodity.
We move to Swim Swim who… I’m not sure what’s Swim Swim problem. She’s actually 7 years old girl who, first, wanted to be a princess’ retainer (and therefore blindly and passively obeyed to Ruler) then Nemurin makes the mistake of telling her she could become a princess herself so she kills Ruler and takes her place. She remembers everything Ruler says and quotes it, modeling her behavior on her words, as if she didn’t have a mind of her own. However she is instead pretty clever as her plan to kill Ruler and her following plans as well as how she uses her powers in the fights are one of the most interesting parts of the anime if not, plot wise, the most interesting. So it really makes no sense someone capable to come up with such plans is this dull and emotionless kid who seems to have no personal ideas about how a ruler has to be and with no backstory whatsoever beyond wanting to be a princess can come up with such plans. Her blind obedience to Ruler’s word lead her to kill Tama after the latter just saved her life because Tama saw her human form. What’s the point of Swim Swim really? That children can be easily shaped by what they hear other people say because she blindly follows Ruler’s teaching and she murders Ruler because Nemurin told her she could become a princess? This doesn’t really explain Swim Swim’s ease in killing. If Nemurin hadn’t told her such words, Swim Swim would have just murdered Snow White by stealing all her candies as per Ruler order with no hesitation. Or the point of her being a child is merely that Cranberry will hesitate when realizing so and Ripple will feel bad for having killed her? Whatever.
Basically this group is a group of people who’re not normal, completely deranged killers. They kill with too much ease, without a second though and with the minimal push. Yes, their life is in danger but they aren’t torn over the idea of killing someone, they’re just ‘fine, let’s do it, where’s the problem?’
I know everyone is wondering why I’m not talking about Cranberry who also seems to be here solely for the evultz… but actually Cranberry was meant an emotional backstory that lead her to become a killer in a logical way… only it’s not really shown/explained beyond the fact she was the only Magical Girl to survive and so she grew a craving for fighting strong enemies to the point she’s actually the one who organized this game which goes against the rules of the World of Magic so she can kill strong opponents and Fav can have fun. Actually it seems Cranberry was originally meant to also have a not Magical Girl design but, ultimately, it was cut and so Cranberry solely exists as Cranberry.
Better fleshed out are instead the not evil characters albeit even here the work is still not great.
They however manage to come out as more likable and relatable.
We start with Nemurin, who’s the first to die. Nemurin is immediately likable and, since she has a minor role, she doesn’t need huge explanations on who she is, what really matter is she’s likable because, even though we, like Snow White, hardly know her, we feel bad when she dies.
Tama is the only person in Ruler’s group who’s not a natural born killer but actually a kind person. Her reaction to death is natural, she cries and is troubled, but she’s weak willed so she doesn’t dare to oppose to others. Her backstory explains nothing beyond confirming that she’s not smart and kind. She’s still likable and caring and I love how, despite being scared she attacks Cranberry to protect Swim Swim and nobody, not even the viewers at first realize that the small scratch she does to her will, due to Tama’s powers, kill Cranberry in a rather gruesome way so this surprise was very well delivered.
Sister Nana & Weiss Winterprison are, in real life a couple and I love how casual the story is with the fact they’re a lesbian couple. Nobody remarks on it, it’s presented as perfectly normal and they’re sweet and happy together and this is really good. However the story does something odd here as it pushes on Sister Nana the burden of trying to solve things pacifically, without killing anyone, while Snow White just torments herself on how Magical Girls shouldn’t be like this. In a way it makes sense, Sister Nana is older than Snow White so for Snow White to be traumatized and feel lost is more logical… but at the same time Sister Nana seems more naïve than her age would require. Also, her idea of Winterprison having to be her ideal prince by being stronger than her and protecting her kind of gets in the way of her supposedly philanthropic character as she basically tricks Winterprison into becoming a magical girl by making her play the game over and over and even giving her magical token which, she believes, will help her lover become a Magical Girl. It seems in the novel she was a lot less philanthropic and more obsessed with playing damsel in distress so her efforts to find a solution were more putting herself in danger so Winterprison could save her. The anime did good trying to suppress this part, even if it came out in the side story they animated as Sister Nana looks more likable if she’s just a well meaning person. On the other side the idea she hung herself over Winterprison’s death comes out as less strong since, although Winterprison died to protect her, in the anime she went there with good intentions and not merely to play damsel in distress. Winterprison… well, she’s a cool fighter but feels kind of similar to Swim Swim in the sense she seems to exist only for Sister Nana, accompanying her, protecting her and, fundamentally, doing what she wants even if she doesn’t trust other Magical Girls.
Top Speed is one of the most likable characters. They tried to flesh her out and one feels for her when she dies but the fact she was pregnant was so easy to guess despite the anime trying to hold this detail secret as long as possible that it feels weird Ripple didn’t figure it out. Still, I love Top Speed, her kind and motherly attitude toward other girls, how she tries to smooth out things, how she accepts Ripple despite her poor abilities at socializing, her slightly tomboyish behavior.
La Pucelle is… kind of a male version of Sayaka, with her knight theme and her ideals and how she protects Snow White, although her look kind of remind me of Altria Pendragon from “Fate/Grand Order” only her clothes are now more revealing. She’s also, same as Sayaka, forced to face how not all the Magical Girls hold her beliefs for noble fights and such when fighting Cranberry. Cranberry though, it’s not Kyoko but much more murderous and there’s no Homura to save La Pucelle so she dies. Now… there are plenty of things that are very likable about La Pucelle. What I’m not overly fond of is how La Pucelle is used to make a gender division. Magical Girls can only be… well, girls, there’s no space for Magical Boys so, in order for Sōta to become one, he has to turn into a female when he transforms. It’s something that could open up a lot of interesting discussions on how gender expectations are unfair (or could be presented as Sōta wanting to be female, identifying himself as female) but the anime doesn’t really explore it, probably also because there’s really no time for it. No one questions the fact that they could have Magical Boys as well, and often the story seems more focused on the ideal of being a Magical Girl than on what’s behind it. I still loved La Pucelle/Sōta too, they were a great friend to Snow Hime and their death is painful.
We move to Ripple who the opening takes pain to hint being relevant and connected to Koyuki… though we never will see it in the series (except a bit at the end) because this is something that’s meant to happen in future light novels in which the two will partner. Still this foreshadow Ripple will survive. Now… they tried giving a backstory to Ripple, but her backstory is so rushed for a character who’s actually pretty relevant that it feels more like they were going for the Tsundere type and weren’t really interested in what made her as such (and her Magical Girl uniform seems more drawn for male viewers benefits than anything else). Although Ripple isn’t bad as a character, in terms of likability she’s completely overshadowed by Top Speed, exactly because they overdo the Tsundere girl type as if this was all there is to her.
Snow White is, supposedly, the main character. She’s very likable and I love how hard she tries to help common people but, despite being the main character she’s nowhere as fleshed out as Madoka (she has a family and friends but we only catch a glimpse of them) and, what’s more, ultimately she doesn’t manage to save a single Magical Girl. It’s not that she doesn’t save anyone, as Calamity Mary is wrecking havoc on the city in order to fight Ripple, it’s Snow White who tries to help the common people, which is great… but her will to help the common people kind of clashes with how she does nothing to help her fellow Magical Girls. When the whole thing ‘who has less candies will die’ started, I was expecting her to think she could share all her candies with the other so no one would be at the bottom as everyone would have the same amount of candies… instead she’s just tormented but agrees with La Pucelle all she can do is to try to survive and this will go on through all the story. Even at the end she’s unable to stop the fight between Swim Swim and Ripple. The story seems to imply Ripple woke up due to her rabbit’s foot but that’s a purely lucky chance caused by her rabbit’s foot which she couldn’t predict. When she tries to destroy the Master terminal she tries to do it by hitting with her hands until they bleed… completely overlooking there’s a weapon near her she can use. Her actions are more moved out of revenge, she’s trying to get Fav in troubles than to protect other people as there are supposedly no more Magical Girls. So… she’s the ideal Magical Girl who helps common people but can’t do anything when other Magical Girls are involved.
Now… if you’re going to tell me Madoka can’t do anything too, think twice. Although she decided to become a Magical Girl only at the end of the series, through the series Madoka was constantly out to try to help others, episode 1 has her trying to save Kyubey, in episode 2 she goes fight witches with Mami and Sayaka, in episode 3 decides to become a magical girl to help Mami, in episode 4, despite now knowing how dangerous it could be, she follows Hitomi when she realizes the latter has a Witch’s kiss and tries to stop a group suicide and so on… while Snow White… she in this battle royale she’s stuck in a completely passive role for what regards the other Magical Girls. We know she helps common people but we only see it being done when Calamity Mary starts targeting random people and, again, she doesn’t try to stop Calamity Mary. Now, it seems all this was to break her so that in other Light Novels she’s more interesting but, for the sake of this anime, she comes out as contradictory.
Last I’ve left Hardgore Alice, another child who, however, this time is on the good side. Sort of because Hardgore Alice has no problems whatsoever in killing Magicaloid 44 with a single blow and is on the good side solely because she’s devoted to Snow Hime as Snow Hime helped her. For her huge tie with Snow Hime (she even constructed her Magical Girl look thinking at how it would match well with Snow Hime) she kind of resemble Homura, albeit she has no romantic feelings for her. On the other side Hardgore Alice has a backstory that’s emotional and makes you empathize with her so a bit of her obsession is understandable. I mean, she was basically on the verge of suicide and Snow Hime gave a sense to her life. It’s natural she would cling to her and I love how what actually Snow White did to earn her loyalty was such a minor thing like returning her keys.
Whatever, this is the whole cast, a cast that could have been amazing if it only was characterized more. Instead there’s a huge focus on their Magical Girls identities (it’s rather hard to remember their human names) and their behavior isn’t really something that seems normal due to how some find easy to kill people for no reason.
The story also seems more focused on ‘how a Magical Girl should be’ than on everything else, Snow White arguing that Magical Girls shouldn’t be like that when it’s people who just shouldn’t go around kill people or how Magical Girls should help people or have a certain character without really discussing how those can be general concepts.
I mean, you don’t need to be a Magical Girl to return a key to a little kid or help an old lady.
Overall “Mahō Shōjo Ikusei Keikaku” isn’t trying to make any deep statement coming to resemble more than “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” the story of “Ō-sama Game”.
It’s a battle royale with no savior (to be honest in “Ō-sama Game” the main character tries hard to save the others… it’s just he fails…) and battles are the really good part. They are good, the strategies Swim Swim comes up with to murder the other Magical Girls are surprising… even though the series made overly clear girls were going to die (in “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” you keep on expecting you’ll manage to save them) and even foreshadows which girl will die by giving you her backstory prior to her death.
It’s nothing deep but it’s not even a pain fest like “Mahō Shōjo Site” in which all the characters were EXTREMELY unlucky girls with extreme levels of abuse who were horribly exploited and put into much harsher conditions… and, since the characters aren’t really well fleshed out, their deaths too don’t feel as deeply moving as the ones in “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” so if you like the idea of people trapped in a death game and Magical Girls you might enjoy this one. I would be lying if I were to say it didn’t hook me up as ultimately I ended binge watching it and if you’re not familiar with “Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica” and/or “Ō-sama Game” it can feel pretty new… but, despite having lot of potential, it’s not something so deep it’ll make people feel taking a lot of time discussing. Pity, because it really had potential.
To make up for the flaws of this series I’ve heard the following volumes of the light novel are much better so maybe, part of the problems are just this was kind of a test work for the author and that he learnt to improve his own work after writing this one… and since the anime had to cover this part it ended up including its weak points too.
There had been no sequels to this anime for years though, which leaves me with the impressions they don’t plan to make one.
And now let's end this with an AMV about this series I recommend watching Believer
If you thought I would be unconscious for long after the car crash and miss out on all the action, you would be wrong. Not that I had any choice in the matter. Cannot have been more than a minute of involuntary la-la land. Maybe even only a matter of seconds.
My ears were ringing. Rocco and D were out cold in their seats, maybe dead. Bullets buzzed and whirred past the car’s wreckage, some of them thunked as our metal coffin swallowed them and shook. My trembling hand crawled towards the button to release my seatbelt, but I froze.
Dressed in a suit and mirroring sunglasses, and carrying a machine gun, one of the bodybuilder-shaped guards at the gate crept around Rocco’s totaled car, constantly hunched over. He inched closer towards the passenger side, studying the two men in the front seats to see if they were dead.
And he was going to make sure of that. He raised his gun and aimed at D.
I didn’t even know if D was still alive. I wasn’t thinking. I grabbed the gun near my lap and pointed it at the guard. Pulled the trigger before he could react to my sudden burst of motion.
My gun belched out bullets in a steady stream and I lost control over the weapon despite holding it in both hands, punching a snaking line of holes through the car’s side and bent roof. I had shot a pistol for the first time last night, but this was my first to pull the trigger on a fully automatic weapon.
I just sprayed bullets all over the place and even though he was practically standing right next to us, I think I missed most of those shots. Even so, I hit more than enough to splatter his blood all over the place.
Not a vampire. Not a slime-monster. Just a man. He almost comically flailed his arms around like a cartoon character from all the shots that did, in fact, leave tiny holes in his chest and blow out his back, following on the heels of the dome of his skull exploding, and his dead body flopping to the ground.
I had no time to marvel at the sheer ridiculousness, to register any of the pain that wracked my body, or to let it sink in that I had, beyond a shadow of a doubt, just killed a man.
There was no time to think. I did not have space for thoughts. I wasn’t even capable of that, I was just operating on pure instinct, my mind swimming in a sea of hurt and confusion.
At the last second, I spotted another guard nearby, readying to shoot Rocco and me the same way I had just killed the other guy.
My gun spat more bullets first, he had banked too much on waiting and the element of surprise. Sounded like it was a million miles away because the car crash had almost entirely deafened me somehow, so the weapon came across as neighbors letting off firecrackers, or like several rapid-fire lashes of a whip.
To be fully honest with you, I hit myself in the face with the small machine gun, that’s just how much it kicked back. I also miraculously did not hit the guy at all. He had been too cautious, ducked for cover and the shots only tore away the side off a huge stone vase, showering him with shreds of decorative foliage.
When he twitched and fired a burst of shots my way, I did not even duck. I just clamped my eyes shut and wondrously did not get hit and I pulled the trigger again and the rest of my shots littered him with half a dozen bullets. He slapped backwards into the sandstone wall and left a streak of blood where he slid down into sitting, where his head slumped down against his chest.
Unlike Rocco had said, judging by the carnage my bullets wrought, these guys were not wearing any body armor.
Only seconds later did I release the trigger, realizing my machine gun was empty.
I scrambled around, looking for anything I could use to reload the gun. Then I remembered how, unlike these street gang members I had tagged along with, I was the dummy who hadn’t thought to snatch up any spare magazines from the trunk when I had had a chance.
Look, I played Call of Duty on Nintendo as a kid, or whatever. It was just not the kind of thing I had occupied my mind with. Also, my brain was somehow stupidly sill imagining how I had missed my shift at the gas station and my former boss was probably, right now, cursing my name and unborn offspring, oblivious to me being in the company of a street gang and in the middle of a gunfight.
Anyway, they never run out of ammo in the movies. But this wasn’t a movie, and I had.
I pulled out the big fuck-off hunting knife. My hands trembled and I figured I was more likely to trip and fall onto my own blade and kill myself, so I dropped the knife and settled on carrying the smoking machine gun. Also, because holding an empty gun as a threat was still better than bringing a knife to a gunfight and getting shot on the spot like an idiot. I still retained a sliver of sense, I guess.
The door on one side of the backseat would not open, jammed by the car’s deformed frame. The other door refused to budge as well. Leaning either way hurt like hell, the crash had really tossed me around like a plastic doll in a blender and now I finally knew what people meant when they said they felt like they had been hit by a truck.
D groaned and stirred on the passenger seat. Rocco also twitched and muttered something incomprehensible.
Thank goodness. They had survived.
The click of D’s seatbelt’s lock releasing inspired me to do the same, I had forgotten completely about that.
I flinched as some bullets hit the front of Rocco’s muscle car. The shooting outside had never stopped. The car’s hood, folded and arching up from where the front of the vehicle had rammed into the gate, caused those shots to spark and rebound away from us.
Only now did I smell burnt rubber and smoldering plastic. I retched.
Rocco stuttered out a string of curses in Spanish, followed by a growl in which anger eclipsed a pained groan.
More shots went back and forth past Rocco’s car. I peeked out over the edge. Smoke obscured my vision. Also, the sting of blood running down the side of my head, clouding my sight and making me wince.
Several of the gang’s vehicles were stopped on the driveway leading up from the bridge onto Bateson’s mansion grounds. They had taken cover behind their trucks and cars and were exchanging shots with some people behind the broken gate.
Rocco’s car had failed to bust through the entrance of Bateson’s walls completely, but the gate had been bent as badly as it had compressed his car into an accordion shape. Seeing its sorry condition drove home to me just how our prolonged living bordered on a miracle.
And then it dawned on me again that I had just killed two men. These were all human beings.
The gang, Bateson’s mansion guards, me; we were all humans. As far as I could tell right now. I wondered if the vampires and slime-things got off on knowing how many humans murdered each other every day. Or maybe they disliked that because we were food?
I kicked out the window on the side. Sounds more badass than it was, because the crash had dislodged it for the most part, and it did not shatter into a thousand pieces—it popped out like a cheap plastic lid and bounced around on the asphalt.
D crawled out of the passenger seat window before I got out the back. He was stumbling around in a daze and dropped to his knees behind a pile of rubble, stonework that had been torn from the mansion’s outer wall. He coughed and spat a wad of blood.
Rocco followed suit and I heard him yelp in pain as he landed on the ground, collapsing. Once he was back up, he was limping inside the mansion garden where he fell again, tumbling and rolling right behind a long planter. Devil’s luck was on his side because every stray bullet narrowly missed him.
Survival instincts give you wings you never thought you had before. Crawling underneath a staccato of gunfire that could have easily blown my brains out, I grabbed one of the machine guns from the guards I had just shot dead.
The rest of Rocco’s gang was closing in on the breached gate. The mansion’s guards and guests—one of them was in flip-flops and shorts and a garish Hawaiian shirt—were backing away towards doors into the big building, moving from cover to cover behind overturned garden tables and easy chairs, ducking here, tripping there, retreating from this mad assault, returning occasional potshots. Two of them gunned from behind marble pillars. Others dove into the darkness of the house behind bullet-resistant glass that had already ensnared several bullets, pockmarked with nasty white marks and spiderwebs of cracks.
One of the guards in the garden barked orders at the others but I could not make any sense of it, even though it was in English. Then half his head exploded in a surge of blood, painting bright white flagstones in a deep crimson, and leaking into a bright blue swimming pool next to him.
One of the gang closed in with a big machine gun, sticking its muzzle through the bars of the gate and plopping it down on a bipod. A belt of bullets was fed into one side of the gun and a rain of metal casings started flying out the other side in a steady stream while he peppered the entire garden area with endless amounts of bullets. Palm trees shook, their trunks getting shredded to bits.
This drove one half of the remaining mansion crowd into the building. The other half was cut down wherever they stood or cowered. One of them even used his buddy as a human shield only to eat several bullets before he could cross the distance from idyllic grassy lawn to marble stair banisters, the hail of gunfire ripping both of their bodies apart.
Reduced to a miserable heap of near-dead meat, that man continued to crawl. A sharp crack later, and someone from the gang had ended him with a single shot from a rifle.
A final guard left outside alone popped out of cover to shoot at our machine-gun-wielding guy, but Rocco stumbled right up in his face and blasted him with his short double-barreled shotgun. I’m not kidding when I say this guard’s chest and head were turned into a fine red mist. The rest of his body teetered over the edge of the pool and fell in with a big splash, the water now muddied with growing spills of blood and floating brain matter.
Roc tripped and fell behind another planter and no second too soon as some of the guard goons shot from a second-story window at him. Soil from the planter exploded and showered Rocco with dirt, but he stayed unshot.
The rest of the gang closed in further and started filing through the gate whenever the gunfire lulled. Baby Joker lobbed a hand grenade up into that same window to take the heat off Roc.
Yes, a hand grenade.
Just before I could wonder why it didn’t blow, a thunderclap ripped through the air and debris rained down from a gaping hole where that window used to be, a cloud of smoke billowing out from its shadows and someone in there screaming bloody murder for far too long after the blast.
A hand grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me along while I scrambled and struggled to get back up onto my feet. I could barely stand and only understood with delay that it was D who dragged me behind the massive wall surrounding Bateson’s mansion. I slipped and tripped through the bushes there, banging my already sore shoulder against solid wall. I did not even have the energy to yelp out in pain.
He shot me a glance but did not dwell on how bad I must have looked. I had no idea what shape I was in, but the way his brow furrowed meant that I must have been looking bad.
Which was almost funny because the green bandana around the lower half of his face was stained red, drenched by blood flowing from a head injury of his own. And he kept his left eye screwed shut like he had something stuck in there.
I’m pretty sure that all three of us who had crashed into the gate were concussed, but I did not have the luxury of such clarity at the time being. D and I both rounded the corner while Boombox and Funboy pushed through the gate with blazing guns.
D fired bursts from his AK-47, Rocco was hunched behind the planter fumbling with shells to reload his shotgun, and the whole gang fanned out through the garden, occupying cover behind the same variety of obstruction that our enemies had just been using less than a minute ago.
Though the shootout continued, the frequency of guns cranking out bullets thinned out.
Making sense of the gun I had just appropriated from a guard, I took a moment to appreciate how I, the gas station attendant and frozen food packing factory worker with zero fighting experience, was somehow still alive. One guy from Rocco’s gang—Nice Guy Eddie—had been gunned down, his body sprawled out near the cavalcade now blocking the only road in and out of Bateson’s private peninsula mansion.
Compared to the six dead men in the garden who had worked for the syndicate boss, and countless injured mooks who had fled inside, we were doing surprisingly well. It may sound callous to you—and trust me, it is. In the moment, though, there is a form of insanity that overtakes you. No room left for empathy.
The haunting silence comes way later.
Rest in peace, Eddie.
Empathy has this weird habit of staying far away when you’re hurting all over and anybody could kill you at any moment. There is only one type of clarity you’ll find in a such situation, and that’s the sense that you’re living on very little borrowed time.
Not only the initial car crash and the ongoing bedlam of constant gunfire deafened me, but the sheer pulse of my heartbeat throbbing in my ears.
It was kill or be killed.
D looked as dizzy as I felt when he lurched forward. He ducked down beside me, yanked the magazine out of his rifle, and replaced it with another from a pocket of his baggy jeans. Every one of his motions displayed something disoriented, disjointed, like he had to concentrate more than usual to do any of those things without dropping face-down into the dirt.
Homeschool and Poison approached the veranda entrance into the mansion. Marble pillars sculpted to look like elongated bare-breasted women blocked a barrage of bullets aimed at them as they cowered behind their narrow cover, and dust and stone chunks rained upon them. They returned blind shots around the pillars, and a burst of automatic fire winged Poison’s arm.
He yelled in pain and stayed behind cover and another burst provoked him into deliberately diving back down the steps. He rolled at the bottom and tried to get back up, but then a shot from a mansion window blew half his neck away.
Poison gripped his neck—but trying to stop that kind of bleeding with your bare hands was like trying to stop the ocean’s tide with a fork. He crumpled onto the ground and continued to twitch, and our foes showed no mercy, no final shot following to put him out of his misery.
He bled out and my animal instincts made me want so badly to help him, but the terror was stronger and held me back. That, and glimpsing the glint of guns and sunglasses of goons peering out from other windows and a balcony along the mansion’s walls. All open space of the garden grounds had turned into a kill zone.
Rest in peace, Poison.
The shooting stopped altogether.
Rocco shouted from his cover.
“Yo, you motherfuckers are all human!”
He clapped his shotgun shut. “I'mma give you this warnin’ once, and once only. We just wanna bust a cap up yo’ boss’s Eastern European ass! You back down and run away now, and you getta live another day to spend your pay!”
Some man with a southern drawl inside the building shouted back, “We ain’t pussies! Fuck you!”
D fiddled around with something from his other pocket and put his rifle down. Before I knew it, he had swiveled and hurled a grenade straight across the garden and into the darkness of the veranda door, right where the reply had come from.
The grenade clapped as it bounced and disappeared. I flinched half a second before this one blew, only heard the thunderclap after. Somewhere, someone’s shoes crunched on broken glass. Somewhere else, someone inside the mansion was whimpering and groaning in audible agony. I silenced my brain from painting the picture of what the pocket-sized bomb had just done to that man, shoving this all into convenient little drawers of Us and Them.
That’s how your brain works in these situations. Hell, even outside these situations.
It’s always Us and Them. It’s that simplification we sometimes need to just function. When the outcome of every split second decides your ongoing survival, that whole “shades of gray” and internal debating about morality starts looking like a bunch of fancy fairy tale bullshit, falling away quickly in favor of knowing who has got your back, and who you need to keep your eyes on.
Murmurs erupted inside the mansion. People shifted nervously. One of the bodies of the people on the lawn I had thought dead twitched, twisted, tried to crawl, but just whimpered, begging for his mother. That may sound more absurd than it is until you witness such a thing, and it is much more unsettling than you might imagine. Any rescue by ambulance would be far too late for his bullet-riddled body, but he would still take forever to kick the bucket.
This grown man, this hired gun, pleading to see his momma. It haunts me till this day.
“A'ight, you motherfuckers,” Rocco shouted again, a wicked, toothy grin plastering his face—and his teeth were clearly bloodied. “You got yo’ warnin’! We are gonna rip yo'—”
“Enough,” interrupted a voice from inside. A woman’s voice.
It had to have been her. Head honcho syndicate lady herself.
Even Rocco froze mid-sentence. His grin, however, widened. His eyes glinted. But for now, he remained silent.
Eastern European accent. Same voice as the one on the phone speaker who had called Roc last night. Not suicidal enough to show her face—though I don’t think vampires really feared bullets. Boss Bateson called out from inside the mansion, “You may not have realized it yet Mister Rocco. But this is a thing from chess. A stalemate. You come inside; you die. We go outside; we die. I believe this is a misunderstanding we can clear up, and we—”
“Shut the fuck up, puta! You Dracula motherfucker! You tryin’ to negotiate with us now? Fuck you. You callin’ me last night, tryin’ to call the shots? What was it you said, again?”
“I—”
“You said we are nothin’! You said you eat us for breakfast, remember? Now you wanna talk like we’re equals? Fuck you. The moment you opened yo’ stupid fuckin’ mouth, you’re already showin yo’ weakness. The name is Loco Rocco, bitch! You better remember it for the little time you have left on this motherfuckin’ planet!”
We had eye contact. Staying behind his cover while he hurled his profanities, Roc was grinning at me all the while.
I was staring into the face of insanity.
There was no response from Bateson. I was stunned. I imagine she was, too. This big crime syndicate boss from overseas—a vampire, no less—was being told off by some lowly street thug. The more I mull it over, I really think I would have been as speechless as she was.
No witty retort, no condescending reply, no glib insult rendered in that thick accent. Not even murmurs of them plotting inside on how to retaliate.
As much as Rocco continued to grow on me in a weird way—as much as I respected him—I now learned to fear him.
Unlike the slime-monsters, or the vampires, Rocco was always “only” human. And there was a darkness in his soul, lurking behind those sparkling, bright brown eyes of his.
That hungry void. Something that yearned for the screaming abyss. Something that embraced chaos.
It was the first time I realized just how dangerous he was.
Or to be more poetic about things—these monsters probably thought of us humans as mere insects. But they had kicked the hornet’s nest that was Rocco and his gang.
“Regrettable,” Bateson finally answered. She yelled back, but I sensed the energy of a sigh riding on that single word. “We could have accomplished so much together, Mister Rocco. I could have turned you into a creature of the night, like myself. Unimaginable power. Your drive and my vampi—”
“Fuck that,” Rocco said. “You Dracula motherfuckers! You think yo’ so powerful? Then walk right on out here! Or you afraid of gettin’ barbecued in the sunlight? Fuck vampires. Vampires suck.”
Still. No answer.
“Yeah, puta! We all thought so!”
Rocco bellowed with sadistic laughter. When he calmed, he silently mouthed something in our direction. He waved a hand, keeping it low, so only we could see it, communicating from cover to cover.
I had no clue what the hell he meant. D got it, though, because he nodded in response to his leader. D withdrew, ducking down, stumbling away in a zigzag from the mansion’s gate.
Nobody shot at him.
I panicked and followed. My legs wobbled, I wondered how dumb I looked and how much dumber I’d look if I got shot in the back now like a chump.
But nobody shot at me either.
“Alright, Mister Rocco,” Bateson said. The way she oozed out the words was dripping with contempt, and she put great emphasis on not using his street name. “You gave them one last chance, and now I will give you your last chance. You can run away like those zbabělci, your chickenshit friends there, or—”
She continued talking, but D and I had run too far out of range to really hear the exact words of their exchange. Boombox would later fill me in on the rest. Bateson was just slapping her metaphorical dick on the table to compare sizes with Rocco’s. Not worth repeating, really. I’m not going to glorify this vampire bitch. Suffice to say, she was stalling. Just like Roc.
Meanwhile, D and I retreated to the pickup truck that Baby Joker had driven over the bridge to this shootout.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but I could not see cop cars anywhere yet. I figured they would be here for us, soon, and wondered if that meant we would be sandwiched in between vampire lady and her hired guns, and the slime-monsters posing as police officers. This may have been a fight between two criminal factions, and the slimes and the vampires were not on the same side, but there was no way our urban skirmish had not attracted the attention of the force, and no way in hell that either side would spare us any chance at living.
D ripped a tarp off a pile of gear stowed on Baby Joker’s truck, revealing the “Star Wars gun” in all its shiny glory. Some undefinable piece of sophisticated high-tech machinery that could emit arcs of lightning, powerful enough to paralyze a vampire to the point where you could safely stake them through the heart.
D grunted as he climbed onto the bed of the truck, picked up and put on a welding mask, and hoisted the Star Wars gun up while I clambered up after him, helping him sling and click shut a strap over his shoulder to help him lug the massive weight and keep it in place, the device hanging by his hip. His back was clearly arched against the strain from gravity’s merciless pull on this ridiculous weapon.
We gave the paved path a wide berth and returned to the mansion wall at the busted gate. The engine of Rocco’s totaled car was still smoking. Once Rocco spotted us coming, his eyes glinted once more with sadistic glee.
He shouted, “You bitch made a fatal mistake, yo!”
No reply from inside the mansion.
“You gave us a weapon that can cook a vampire, eh? That’s pretty cool! You wanna find out wit’ us what else it can cook?”
He nodded to D. D nodded in return. I cowered deeper down behind the wall, sensing what was about to unfold.
D flapped down the welding mask’s visor, stepped out from behind the wall, and I closed my eyes. Electricity crackled and the Star Wars gun emitted that strange, revolving, droning hum. Once more, just being in its vicinity made my teeth hurt and all hairs stand on end.
I dared to peek when the noise spiraled down, instantly regretting it as D unleashed another arc of lightning, raking the outside wall of the mansion with it. The bright blue light just streaked across the garden, making everybody else in the gang flinch and curl up behind their cover.
Surfaces of glass glowed where lightning had sliced across it, molten and deforming rapidly before our eyes. Other parts of the building’s facade had caught fire, flames licked from wooden shutters, palm trees in the garden had been set ablaze, and shadows of figures inside the building darted deeper inside, accompanied by hectic yells and shouts.
D continued to zap more arcs of lightning at Bateson’s villa and then the shooting started again. I ducked ineffectively after a bullet already whizzed past me. I tried hissing at D to stop and follow, but it only came out as an unintelligible croaking noise from my throat.
He flinched when some bullets nearly hit him as well. The droning hum ceased abruptly, and the Star Wars gun still crackled with energy around its rectangular front as he stopped discharging bolts from the sci-fi weapon.
Hoarsely, I yelled at him, “Oh, come the fuck on!”
Luckily, he reacted to that. D stumbled towards me and tripped and fell past me, thudding onto the ground with the weird weapon clanking as he tumbled out of the way of another bullet hail sent in our general direction. The thick mansion wall absorbed all the bullets.
A lot of bullets.
The shooting had returned to full force, the gang was returning fire at Bateson’s crew, and the original chaos continued.
All my fear, indecision, and paralysis had come full circle, but what bubbled to the surface of my consciousness now was something new.
I took charge.
As soon as I stopped hearing the chunks getting blown out of the wall behind us, I stepped out into the open, and let the stolen automatic rifle in my hands do the talking. I made sure to aim high enough that I wouldn’t accidentally hit anybody in the gang in their backs and pulled the trigger.
The bruises and blue spots I got from this stunt would reflect the persistent pain in my arm, shoulder, and chest for days to come as the weapon kicked and bucked around in my hands like one of those rodeo machines. That, or my arms had turned into jelly. Both were equally likely at this point. It really wasn’t as easy as the movies made it look, but it must have looked convincing enough.
I sprayed the mansion with bullets, wildly blazing away. Pausing between the salvos, I yelled. I had wanted to spout out some cool one-liner like some action hero, but it was just some awkward yell, and my voice even broke halfway through. Embarrassing. Then I continued with the rapid fire, forcing some goons into cover inside the burning building.
To be honest, it wasn’t just my shooting that did that. Bateson’s mansion was on fire. D’s use of the Star Wars gun had lit up the entire north wall of the place and her goons were scattering outside, braving the bullet storm that Rocco and his gang relentlessly unleashed at them alongside myself, only haphazardly shooting back to buy some space for them to escape.
The battle was over.
Kind of.
When my replacement rifle had run out of ammo and I was still yelling, D tugged at my shoulder and stumbled away with me in retreat. The rest of the gang was also making their way back to the cars.
Police sirens had drawn even closer. Probably also ambulances and fire trucks.
An engine growled—not among the gang’s cavalcade but echoing from a small dock jutting out from the mansion’s west side. Bateson’s bodyguards were fleeing to a motorized yacht over there.
Four of the beefcake jerks were carrying what I can only describe to have been a coffin—sleek, white, with a gilded trim that lined its sides. These guys were lugging the big and cumbersome thing towards the luxury boat.
I wanted to call out to the others that this was it.
Our chance to end Bateson.
But Rocco was one step ahead of me.
He had somehow gotten his hands on a tube-shaped thing.
His yell sounded more like a primal snarl, slicing through the cacophony of the shootout.
“Rest in pieces, puta!”
The tube-shaped thing on his shoulder, as I then realized, was a rocket launcher. Everybody ducked even if they were far away from the streaking smoke trail it left behind, the projectile flying across the mansion grounds and causing a fiery explosion to rock the motorboat. The coffin and its carriers were swallowed by the infernal blast, victims of the missile’s direct hit. Burning corpses turned up after the flames cleared and the coffin had been blown to smithereens.
Shouts everywhere, the gang retreating to their cars, the loud thud of D thunking down the Star Wars gun back onto the bed of the pickup truck, Rocco laughing maniacally as the pristine white motorized yacht—now scorched and blackened on one side—swerved out from the mansion’s private dock, and a fiery mayhem in which crooks were scrambling like ants in every direction was all that was left in the wake of his rocket blast.
Someone pulled me farther away—D, Boombox—I don’t know. Rocco wasn’t with us, D was right next to me, gripping my shoulder and casting concerned glances at me, but nervous and keeping his head on a swivel and a good eye on his six all the time.
Everything turned into a blur. Car engines roared. Police sirens wailed much louder, heralding the flashing red-and-blue lights as they neared.
As much of a blur it had been to ride down the bridge to the private peninsula mansion, it was brain soup to ride back the same way in a different vehicle. Like two different realities had collided. My head throbbed.
My heart raced.
Gasoline coursed through my veins, my whole body thrummed with the adrenaline, resonating with the growl of the pickup truck’s engine. Several of us bunched up on its back as we barreled off the private island, holding tight for every bump on the bridge that shook us like a samba shaker.
Police cars had pulled up to form a blockade at the end of the bridge, cutting us off. One of them yelled something at us through a megaphone. I couldn’t discern a damned thing of what he said, but the metallic twang and tone hinting at even worse violence made my blood run cold.
Dozens of people along the beach had stopped and started to gawk at this spectacle, witnessing thick black plumes of smoke rising from the burning mansion, forming this apocalyptic backdrop to a whole caravan of cars speeding away from it. The shaky video footage that someone caught from the beachside showed up on the evening news and framed it quite nicely. Seeing it now fills me with a weird sense of pride and PTSD, all lumped into one.
The gang shot first, blazing away, and forcing officers to duck into cover behind their car doors, some returning fire and others jumping out of the way at the last second. I braced myself for impact and D was almost thrown off the truck when it crashed through the blockade to the song of screeching steel and sparks flying everywhere—but I held his arm tight, and he held onto mine. One cop splashed into the water off the side of the bridge.
Our group had plowed through the blockade, but some of the police who had recovered turned around and started shooting at us. Our driver, Baby Joker, did not slow down. The gang’s cars rolled onwards for what some Channel Three journo would later describe as the most violent chase in the city’s history.
A sharp sting flared up in my belly region, making me gasp. I did not scream, maybe in part because the pain arrived with a weird, almost surreal delay. Or maybe because I did not have the energy for it anymore. Seeing all my blood on my own dirty hands made me want to throw up—or the surging waves of agony delivered that dizzying nausea.
Really hard to tell when you’re in the thick of things.
Gasping for air like a fish on land, the world spun around me at light speed, and the tunnel vision came even quicker. D shook my shoulders. Looked concerned in a way I had never seen his face twist before. He shouted at me.
“Kelly! Hold the fuck on!”
Weirdly, I fantasized about showing up to work and telling Clive that I quit and that he sucked as a manager. And calling him a sleazy little bitch to his face.
Crimson Muse Studio presents “THIS IS NOT OVER YET”, a relentless survival‑action anthology built around grit, determination, and cinematic last‑stand energy. Across ruined streets, abandoned safehouses, and war‑torn landscapes, a group of fierce women push forward against impossible odds. Each long clip delivers high‑intensity motion, dramatic standoffs, and the raw, defiant spirit that defines Crimson Muse’s most iconic releases.
Wrongful Death vs. Survival Claims: What Families Should Know
WRONGFUL DEATH VS. SURVIVAL CLAIMS: WHAT FAMILIES SHOULD KNOW
When a loved one dies due to someone else's negligence, families face both emotional grief and complex legal decisions. Understanding the difference between wrongful death claims and survival actions is a critical first step.
TWO DISTINCT LEGAL PATHS
- Wrongful death claims allow surviving family members to seek compensation for their own losses — such as loss of companionship, income, and services.
- Survival actions pursue damages the deceased could have claimed personally, including medical costs and pain and suffering before death.
Both types of claims require careful legal strategy and strong evidence.
WHY LEGAL REPRESENTATION MATTERS
Insurance companies routinely attempt to minimize payouts in death-related claims. An experienced attorney can counter those tactics by building a clear liability case and documenting the full financial and emotional impact on the family.
FINDING THE RIGHT ATTORNEY
Personal Injury Law Locator helps connect families with qualified personal injury attorneys across the country. Whether your case involves negotiating with insurers or pursuing emotional distress compensation, having the right legal advocate makes a meaningful difference in the outcome.
Navigating Wrongful Death Claims: First Actions & Key Tips
FACING A SUDDEN LOSS
A fatal accident leaves questions about bills, fault, and deadlines. The law lets certain relatives seek compensation, but the window is short.
WRONGFUL DEATH VS. SURVIVAL ACTION
Wrongful death focuses on the family’s loss: income, guidance, and the sheer absence of a loved one. A survival action continues the claim the person could have filed had they survived, covering pain, medical costs, and lost wages up to death. Filing both together often preserves every dollar of coverage.
WHY SPEED MATTERS
Most states give two years or less to sue. Evidence fades faster: dash-cams overwrite, skid marks vanish, hospital charts get “updated.” An attorney can send preservation letters within days and line up crash experts before stories change.
MAPPING LIABILITY
Car wrecks may involve:
- Driver’s auto policy
- Owner’s policy
- Employer or freight insurer for a truck
Medical errors add hospitals and device makers. A seasoned lawyer follows every policy to prevent blame-shifting.
CHOOSING COUNSEL
Look for:
- Documented fatal-case verdicts
- Clear fee explanations
- Ability to communicate in the way your family prefers
Early advice turns grief into a plan and keeps insurers from steering the conversation.
Far From Home’s Forever Skies is a survival-action game in which you play a scientist returning to an Earth that was destroyed by an ecological disaster. You will need to scavenge resources and face the dangers of the surface to search for viral pathogens in order to cure a mysterious illness.
