The trek back was definitely less noisy after being exposed to the group and their shoot-first tactics. They were quick to slink back into the forest after the agreement that was, at best ambiguously, reached. It was simple enough. Silver wanted to reach the botanical gardens but it required a meet up between Skull and Ghost. Two big shot chiefs locked in a room. That’ll go well.

I sigh. No….Ghost doesn’t seem backward in bowing his head to Skull if it meant getting what he wants.

What he wants…

I had to stop a smirk from reaching my lips. I’m becoming arrogant. How would I know? Who knows what we want? Grabbing at the darkness and pretending what we find is what we desire? It’s laughable. No…we want everything to go back. Reverse everything. Turn it back and redo our last moments. Forever stuck in the curse of hindsight. If I could redo it, I would have at least punched some people on the way out to this death sentence of a fucking moon. Ah…does anyone even miss me? What a selfish and stupid pining wish. Surfacing in the background were faces I’d rather forget, because I am most certain they’re doing their best to forget mine.

I shake myself of the brutal thoughts. Ah I need distraction…

I look over to the others who were probably relieved that they didn’t get the worst outcome. Dark Sol was probably close to becoming leaderless. Again.

Moon must have seen me staring as she blankly barks a, “What?”

I was silent for a time before the name fell out of my mouth, “Val.”

A ghost of hurt, longing and bitterness glazes across her face, almost as if the mask dropped for an instant. But it was back just as quickly.

“Valkyrie,” Reaper states, almost emotionless, “was our previous leader. She was Liam’s older sister and…” the sentence dies.

Only for Moon to pick it back up with a voice lost in harsh fragments of the past. “She was my girlfriend.”

Ah. There it is.

It’s fallen into place with a click in my head. Valkyrie. Moon’s lover and the leader…the idol that she constantly looks up to and inevitably compares herself to. I had a lot of assumptions I wanted to confirm but they would not be appropriate questions to ask her. Especially in front of others. Valkyrie would have been fierce, confident and a hard act to follow. But that doesn’t explain everything.

“Can I ask what happened?” I’m an insensitive prick. I have a guess at what it might be…The one inescapable fate that lies ahead of us…

“Bonesdust…” Reaper started.

My first assumption was confirmed.

“But…it didn’t kill her outright like everyone else,” Moon recalls harshly, her voice almost cracking under the strain of remembering.

I’ve heard rumours that the disease now attacks slower but I’ve never been able to confirm that. But now I want to understand why it’s now a slow, gradual death. At least with the previous adults it was instant. Painless. I think it’s because we are gradually aging, gradually turning into “adults”. Adults were already adults when the pandemic spread. But I can only leave it as speculation for now.

“She pretended that she was fine. But…” Moon grits her teeth as she persisted in telling me, “other groups heard rumours. So, they attacked. Raided our territory. Necrosis wasn’t of much help at the time either. Skull was struggling for power. And then…someone killed her. They shot her point blank. We don’t even know who it was. They got her alone…”

So her limited time was cut even shorter. I was kind of speechless…more at the fact that Moon was so willing to recall it at me. “I’m sorry,” was my measly offer. Worse, she would have had to have relived the trauma when Ghost pulled out the gun on her.

She shakes her head as a tear escapes and she tries to wipe it away, “It’s fine. I think she would have enjoyed meeting you.”

No one really knows that for certain, but I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. Instead I think I’ll buy the lie.

The topic completely killed any positive emotions left in them and I was stuck with the silence again. I want to ask more but at the same time, I think I’ve done enough damage for one day.

The silence became heavier as the day started to end as we move through the dead city. Every noise made me twitch and alert for anything to jump out at me as we got back to their base with dusk completely setting in. The rain even came back heavily just as we got onto their street and we came through the front doors looking like drowned rats in the dark. I ignored the looks I got and headed straight for Liam, finding him playing a card game with Poppy in some candlelight.

Poppy bolts up in surprise when she saw me, her eyes widening before she ran out of the room in a hurry.

Good to know I have such a positive effect on kids.

“You look miserable,” Liam smiles up at me.

I let out a breath, “Has anything happened?”

“I really suck at card games.”

I’ll take it that it was ‘quiet and nothing particularly bad has happened to Liam in the last twelve hours’. I let out a breath. Maybe I should check his vitals and the wound…

Instead I felt something soft touch my hand and I look down to see a towel and Poppy attached to it. I take it with a mumbled thanks, realising that I was literally dripping water onto the floor. I dropped my bag and coat off, finding that my shirt was at least still ok… only slightly damp. But my jeans were soaked through and the cold hit me all at once. I ran a hand through my sopping hair to pull it out of my face.

“Oh is this a strip-show?” Echo’s voice behind me made me groan.

I just wanna go to bed. I close my eyes and try to swallow my irritation before running the towel over my face. I walk over to Liam to check his vitals and his leg. It seems they’ve already cleaned and redressed it. Luckily there was no sign of infection and he seems ok, for now.

“Nothing bad’s happened,” Liam seems to be trying to reassure me.

“Well…that’s for Moon to decide,” Echo oh so cryptically adds.

I throw a look at her, “What did you do to their base?” For Ghost to already put her on the naughty list…and she caught on instantly.

She shrugs, “I redecorated. Reorganised. Reconfigured. Revitalised. Refreshed it.”

“You mean, you decided to swap everything around and hid things around the place. Again.” Liam translated.

“Potato -potahto. If you ask me, it was better when I left.”

You know what. If she managed to piss of ‘Cat’. I’ll live with this.

“So how was the trip? Did they take a shine to you?” Echo went to pull on my face but I avoid her by stepping back and away from her grasp.

“Ask Moon,” I respond back.

“No fun.”

Not the first time I’ve been told that. I shrug back at her. “I’m not here to be your pet.”

“Stop harassing him,” Meifeng wasn’t far away as she elegantly took centre stage while walking through the door. “Honestly, Echo. I get that you’re having fun, but everyone’s exhausted from today.”

Echo drops her lip into a pout for a second but then hides it away when Moon walks through the door.

Moon had taken the time to change out of her wet gear and even undid the tight braids in her hair. If fell in wet tangled, untameable curls around her face and down her back. She actually looked her age. It also looked better than the usually tight braids pinned against her skull.

I felt like they were about to do some sort of debriefing of this lot.

I’m gonna skip.

I looked around for my coat and bag but saw them gone. Must have been Poppy again. But she was no where to be found for me to give another thanks.

“I’m gonna go to bed. Call me if Liam needs anything,” I state while heading for my room.

Moon looks at me like she wanted to say something but instead nods easily enough.

Meifeng just smiles her Snow-White smile at me, “Thank you for the help as always.”

I just state my goodnight and trudged back to the stairs. I found my room open and my stuff already hanging up, trying to dry. I had to thank Poppy the next time I saw her. But for now I just had enough energy to chuck my clothes off on to the ground and swapping them for the nearest clean ones. I then collapse on the bed without thought, or care, about anything.

Luckily, I was tired enough that I didn’t need to worry about thinking and just accepted the murky depths of sleep.

I woke feeling heavy and hungry. The rain was still falling outside. I groan as I try to move from my bed and felt that it was eerily quiet. I could see that nothing in my room was disturbed, except for the plate of fruit left on the desk. I devour the two oranges and a pear before walking out the door with the last pear, munching on it while I go down the stairs. I could just make out a soft audible rabble. Talking…but lots of it like a crowd and it was getting louder the further down I went.

I notice that a few people were headed towards the reception area at the bottom of the stairs, where Liam was housed. My curiosity immediately took hold as I quickened my pace and the noise got a little louder until I walked into the area and immediately found the nearest dark corner. I watch this sudden mass of people that half of which I’ve never really seen before.

There was a decent number here. I started counting. There were over thirty people living here in this hotel who were part of Dark Sol. They ranged in age between toddler through to eighteen in appearance.

I saw Moon standing out in front of the group, and the crowd just fell into silence almost immediately.

Her voice was clear and calm, “A small group that you aren’t familiar with might approach us within the next few days. I’ve offered to help them find their feet before they disappear into the mountains. I’m not asking you to give up our supplies. We’re simply letting them look around for anything useful. They’ve assured me that they aren’t after our stuff without equal trade.”

You hope. It’s sounds so idyllic and naïve. Not like she had a gun pointed at her face only hours ago by said group that she’s ‘helping find their feet’. It’s ludicrous how easy she wanted to extend help to them despite the way they set up and handled the ordeal. In fact, I’d say if the girl Silver wasn’t involved…We would not be standing here right now…Which meant that she was hanging on blind faith in Ghost to keep his word, which was downright stupid. And dangerous.

“Since they’re going to be moving around, I am going to have to involve Skull so that he doesn’t think that we’re trying anything ‘funny’.”

And to involve Skull with the politicking meant that she knew that. But it’s still so stupid. She was a rare breed of stupid that needed to help others. Albeit abrasively.

“Does anyone know where to find him?”

Echo immediately chirps up while everyone else either rolls their eyes at her boundless energy or were unwilling to even think about going after Necrosis, “Oh! Oh! Pick me! I’ll find him in a heartbeat.” Her arms failing about as she headed to the front of the room from God knows where she was hiding.

“Thanks Echo,” Moon sighs at her. She then looks over to another raised hand in the crowd, “And Jaguar. Are you sure?”

Jaguar simply nods. Another two also raised their hands to go along on this trip to find him.

“We’ll need to set up a meeting with him as soon as possible. So as soon as you’re ready…” she didn’t need to continue. The drop off caused some people to begin muttering to each other. I could pick up a few bits and pieces of the different whispers. Most of them were not happy about any of it but also just shrugged and accepted it.

“There’s one other thing.” Moon stops the noise with a screeching halt. “Something’s going on with Pyros. I’m going to ask everyone to narrow their wanderings down from the outer regions until we know what they’re up to…and…Bailey’s been sighted in the city again.”

Great. From what Reaper’s explained to me, ‘crazy, egotistical and power-hungry’ doesn’t even begin to describe her.