<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4040FF"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;">Alice Green</span><br/><span style="font-size: 120%; line-height: 116%;">'The Huntress'</span></span></div><br/><div style="text-align: justify;">Alice smiled when Peter said she was a tough cookie. That indeed she was. Alice had not gotten to where she was by being soft. And she had this inner need to show everyone that she was tough, that she could have been a miner had she decided to be one. Of course, Alice wasn't so sure about it now. But she was just getting started, maybe if she had started sooner, she could have gotten used to the job.<br/><br/>Accepting the nutrition pack and the water, Alice opened the pack and started eating, delighted to have found some pretty great cheese. Her attention was on Peter's words, and she didn't interrupt him while he spoke.<br/><br/>Only after he finished, and with some time to reflect, did Alice finally open her mouth.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #4040FF">"You weren't an idiot, Peter. You were young, maybe immature, and had not come from a mining background. If you had, you would know not everything was as fine as it looked. But who knows. Our boys - from mining families - now what it's like, and they still go."</span></span><br/><br/>She took a swig of water and continued, her face and voice really serious.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #4040FF">"I wish there had been one like you around my father and my brother", she murmured. "They both died, in different ways, because there wasn't."</span></span><br/><br/>Alice took a deep breath before explaining.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #4040FF">"My dad never believed in doing drugs to survive. He had seen too many guys fry their brains because the guys selling cared only about profit. So he decided he wouldn't. Then there was an accident in the mining planet where he worked. I believe it was something similar to the one that happened to you. He was at the end of his shift, but he couldn't say no to a call for help. So he went with the others, to drill and pull rock away, hoping that someone was still alive. They weren't. Once they were done and my father saw all those bodies, he simply dropped dead on the spot. His heart couldn't..."</span></span><br/><br/>Alice stopped and left the story unfinished. That was clearly hard.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #4040FF">"My brother was another case. He did drugs. More than he should have. And of course, someone was making money, so the guy kept on selling until his brain had the planning capacity of a loaf of bread. He worked with explosions. One day, as it was inevitable, he miscalculated the amount and position of the explosives. They recovered his mangled body and brought it back so we could give him a decent burial. It was... the worst thing I have even seen. I still dream of him some times."</span></span><br/><br/>Alice ran both hands on her dirty face.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #4040FF">"I'm sorry. I don't even know why I'm sitting here, telling you all of that."</span></span></div>