The day would turn out to be quite a long one, despite the initial celebration. They went on to hunt another three wolves, each encounter just as carefully watched over as the first.

By the time the sun was sinking beyond the mountains, there were four mutilated wolf carcasses lying on the wooden sled they had produced to make carrying the heavy bodies easier. Of course, Greg could probably have made a better one in a heartbeat, but the old man wasn’t one to give them help that they “didn’t need”.

They took turns carrying the load in teams of four, switching out every thirty minutes to prevent fatigue. John was in the third shift, along with Lydia, Andrea and Ronnie.

“There must be an easier way to do this,” Ronnie groaned as they took a step uphill in tandem. “I mean, human ingenuity is – limitless. Maybe,” he stopped talking and gasped. “Maybe we can, I dunno, add a floating function to it?”

“Dream on!” Lydia replied whilst John was busy muttering profanities. “As if we could afFORD” her words turned a pitch higher as the trampled earth beneath her gave in and she slipped.

Their advance ground to a halt in an instant as the remaining three strained to stay standing under the weight of both Lydia and their cargo. John stopped and stared at his downed comrade, his face reddening under both his exasperation and physical strain.

“Lydia!” he hissed.

“Yelling at me won’t make me go faster you butthead!” she shouted back whilst wiping the dirt on her hands off on her armour.

“You can wipe that shit off later!”

Lydia’s face contorted into a disgusted grimace as she wiped the last remnants of clumped soil off. “Eww, don’t say that. What if there’s actual poo on it?” She stopped and stared at her hands.

Ronnie sighed, whilst Andrea looked supremely at ease with the rope in her hands. “Could we move forwards now? Please? The others are waiting for us,” he said.

All around them, their classmates had come to a stop, too. They stared in the innocent yet blatant way only children could pull off without seeming rude. Greg and Franziska had also stopped and stared in the same manner.

Ignoring the crowd, John did a double take when he realized how remarkably relaxed the other two looked. How come it seemed like they didn’t feel any sort of strain?

“Aether, you buffoon. Your body isn’t quite what it used to be, what with…”

Toning out the rest of the voice like he had once again become used to doing, John increased the trickle coming from his core until the strain felt negligible. It never ceased to amaze him just how much of a difference a simple application of aether could make.

He checked his aether generation, grimacing when he noticed that it had come to a standstill. ‘Yeah, hard physical labour is still the way to go.’

Lydia, whose cheeks had turned red at some point John must have missed, quickly finished wiping off grime caking her hands and they resumed their arduous journey.

The return trip seemed to stretch on forever, and what felt like days later the last vestiges of light vanished beyond tall treetops. Greg and Franziska took out torches and lighted them when it became too dark to see the path they walked on, handing one to every second person.

The torches could only illuminate so much, however, leaving much beyond a small range completely dark. The fire danced with the winds, shifting left and right with every step taken whilst shadows moved to and fro, hiding things that stayed just out of their vision.

The children closed their ranks and formed a perimeter around the sled, watching the forest for beasts despite the rational impossibility of that happening under the watch of their elderly teacher. It was at this point, with a torch in one hand and his halberd in the other, that John realized just how dark a place could get.

Be it on New Pandora or even on the star ships he served on, it never became truly dark. There was always a light around, somewhere in the vicinity, banishing the shadows with bright and efficient rays.

In this forest, however, everything beyond a few dozen metres might as well not have existed. He knew there had to be something there, sure, but his eyes saw nothing but a gaping darkness, so deep it felt like he was staring into a bottomless abyss.

John sighed, then shook his head. He was far too old to fear something like the dark. It was probably just his tired mind playing tricks on him.

The wind picked up, rustling leaves and creaking branches.

“Behind you!”

From the corner of his eyes, John saw Greg pulling out a spear that glinted silver under the pale moonlight and shooting it at him. His heart leapt in his chest, and time slowed to a crawl. He wanted to react, to dodge, to do something, but found his body too slow for his racing mind. Helpless, he could only watch as a silver blur raced past him, barely missing his head by a few centimetres before embedding itself into something behind him.

John stumbled forward, almost tripping on his own feet as he fought to keep his footing and composure.

A terrible shriek banished whatever words had been stuck in his throat, and he whipped his head around to see a dark silhouette burst through a bush behind him. John tossed the torch aside and gripped his halberd with both hands, stabbing at it to hit his foe before it could get to him.

He needn’t have bothered. Another blur shot past him and turned the silhouette into pink mush. It splattered onto the nearby vegetation with a disgusting squelch.

Now truly dumbfounded, John froze. He blinked once, twice and then thrice in rapid succession before lowering his weapon. “What the fuck?”, he said to no one in particular.

A hand settled upon his shoulder. He looked up and saw Franziska, who was doing a bad job at faking a reassuring smile “Sorry for that. I… was just testing to see how you would react.” She scratched her helmet and looked at the forest around them. His heart racing, John followed her eyes, but realised that he had let his torch fall when he saw even less than what he had gotten used to. He picked it up and his vision improved just the tiniest bit – the surroundings were already as bright as they could get due to numerous torches nearby – but it was far from enough to see clearly.

He breathed deeply. In, and out. Franziska wasn’t saying anything. He looked up, seeing her focused expression as she scanned the forest with aether senses.

“Don’t worry John,” Greg said from the other side. John didn’t even start at the sudden appearances of the old man anymore. He simply turned his head around to stare at the old man “You weren’t in real danger for a single moment back there. I was just testing my new assistant.” The grizzled teacher smiled down at him.

Absently noting that his teacher’s white hair was turning orange under the torchlight, John wondered whether these teachers really believed their acting could fool even the kids they were. It may have been to make him feel safer, but what if some of the children lost their respect for them?

He glanced at the splattered remains of his mysterious attacker. It was easy to forget that the teachers in this world tended to wield powers commanded far more respect than a simple degree from college.

“How safe are we then?” he asked before wrinkling his nose. The smell of guts, blood and hints of things he didn’t want to think about was starting to spread already.

“Very. Trust your teacher, lad. It is my duty to keep you safe whilst you are still young and vulnerable.” He then mumbled something under his breath that John didn’t quite catch, but he figured it wasn’t directed at him anyways. It was probably just swearing at the youth these days. He could certainly understand where he was coming from.

A dark marble levitated out of a pile of pink goop and landed in Franziska’s palm. She washed it off with a splash of conjured water and inspected it for a moment. Finding nothing wrong with it, she turned around and gently pressed the warm object into John’s hand. “See this as my apology for scaring you like that,” she said, quickly passing him and motioning for the procession to continue their march. Her footsteps then slowed, and she then fell back until they were shoulder to shoulder once again. “You can use it by popping it into your mouth. Don’t forget to wash it before consumption,” she added before once again walking to the head of the formation.

Rolling his eyes, John glanced at the dark orb before tucking it into a pocket. Inspecting his spoils of war could wait until it was safe enough to do so. He scanned the shifting shadows once more, failing to discover anything but plays of light. Why had the marble not notified him when the beast had snuck up on them? If their lives really were linked, then it would be in its best interests to keep both of them as hale and healthy as possible.

He waited for a response, but none came. “What? Too embarrassed to answer?”

A disembodied sigh rang through his mind. “I didn’t manage to spot the bloody thing myself, okay? I think not even your teacher did, hence the hasty reaction once it jumped out of the bush.” It paused, perhaps to gather its thoughts. “Listen, this is not normal. Something is going on here, and it’s driving me nuts.”

“Okay…”

“Don’t let your guard down. I think we aren’t quite as welcome here as I thought we were.”

“Wait! Didn’t you tell me that there wasn’t some cosmic force chasing you around?”

Another period of silence. “There wasn’t back then. I think whoever’s interfering isn’t sure of our identity yet, otherwise some extraordinarily stealthy animals would be the least of our problems. It would be best to lay low for now.”

“And how am I supposed to do that? It’s not like I was going out of my way to show my otherworldly knowledge off until now? Hell, I’m a kid in an institution that trains orphans! I can’t get much more lowkey than this!”

“I know! Damnit, okay. How about this: I’m going to focus on trying to make us as unassuming as possible to whatever is keeping an eye on us. Your aether generation is going to be halved, but I think it’s a pretty good alternative to losing your life.”

Gritting his teeth, John nodded. Halving his aether generation was no small matter. It would throw a wench in quite a few goals he had set himself, but goals could be pushed back, personal deadlines extended. So long as he lived, there was hope.

He only dearly hoped that the marble wouldn’t fuck up and kill them all.

The campfire cracked and fizzed. John threw a branch in, watching it sizzle before catching fire. Half a metre above, the skinned and marinated carcass of a wolf slowly rotated as it was grilled. It was almost done, and the smell wafting out from it was making his stomach rumble. Totally worth the boring and monotone work of endlessly turning the wooden stake it hung upon.

He licked his lips, doing his best to suppress the hunger that was starting to overwhelm his rationality. His last meal had been half a day ago – far too long for a growing boy. Next to him, Jessica’s stomach rumbled whilst she was whispering about something to Lydia. They giggled, probably about something inane as preteen girls were prone to doing. Ronnie and Logan were glaring at each other, and John was too busy ravenously staring at the delicious roasting meat to bother striking up a conversation.

The entire plaza in the middle of their outpost was covered in similar campfires, with the children of the Golden Gate taking up half of it whilst the soldiers were roasting their own animals on the other half.

The other two groups, who hadn’t been impeded by numerous sneak attacks, had arrived long before them and were already in the process of setting up their fires by the time they dragged their exhausted bodies back to the walled outpost.

Perhaps the only benefit of those attacks was the abundance of free meat they brought with them. It allowed them to have one and a half carcasses per camp, with the rest being confiscated by Greg and Franziska, who had formed their own campfire with the other four teachers.

The six adults took turns patrolling through the encampment, with the other five staying behind to drink and joke around with the soldiers they were sitting close to.

Arduous minutes passed until Greg walked by and gave them the okay to eat.

As fast as his body could go without aether reinforcement, John grabbed the already prepared knife from the cloth next to him and began slicing a leg off. The meat was tough and sinewy, and he had to use all his strength and non-existent expertise in wolf anatomy to sever it.

He took his meaty prize with both hands and brought it to his nose, fully taking in the intoxicating aroma of herbs and meat. Sweet, delicious meat.

Unlike the other four John knew better than to rip into it straight away and waited a few agonizing moments until it had cooled to a comfortable temperature. After a few careful tests with his lower lip, he deemed it ripe for eating.

He tore into it with grace and manners befitting an adult of his mental age.

Objectively seen, it wasn’t the tastiest piece of meat he’d ever had. In his glory days, genetically modified and chemically treated meat that pushed the boundaries of the human palate had been part of his daily routine. This meat, on the other hand, was sinewy, stringy, tough and came with the faint aftertaste of blood.

Bu perhaps it was the fact that his body had gone so long without meat, perhaps simply the inordinate hunger that had been gnawing at his insides for the past few hours, but at that moment-

It tasted like a piece of heaven.

The next half an hour turned into a meat-filled blur. By the time he finished off the last easily accessible strip of meat, John’s belly was already bulging. He sighed with all the satisfaction a good meal could bring and leaned back on his chair. Angling his neck up, he looked at the square-shaped slice of the starry sky that wasn’t blocked out by humongous stone walls.

Though the moons weren’t visible, the carpet of star twinkled and shined vividly all the more so. With a smile on his lips, he closed his eyes and just enjoyed the moment. A breeze would have been perfect, but that would have meant giving up the protection of the thick walls around him.

Fortunately, no one was hurt today, aside from a kid or two that got scratched by falling on their faces. Nothing a quick application of salves and bandages couldn’t fix.

The short moment of peace was broken by Ronnie burping some marching song he had picked up at Camp Verdant. John opened his eyes only to roll them, which only intensified when Logan joined in. Not wanting to be outdone, Lydia and Jessica entered with simultaneous burps. The eyerolling turned into a sigh as they started competing over who could burp the loudest and clearest.

Unsurprisingly, Ronnie came out as the winner, erupting with a belch that was loud enough to turn a few heads from the other groups. He stemmed his hands on his hips and laughed boisterously. “That makes two hundred and forty-six to two hundred and forty for me! Take that Jessica!”

The girl in question rolled her eyes and blew her bangs up with a sigh. “I’m still in the lead dumbass! Don’t even dream of catching up!”

Logan nudged John, leaning over conspiratorially as he watched them bicker. “How long has this been going on?” he asked in a whisper.

“Ever since Camp Verdant,” John whispered back. “They’ve been at this ridiculous game for months now.”

Logan visibly recoiled. “What? This isn’t ridiculous, it’s brilliant! A sure-fire way to keep track of who’s better. It’s so good it could have come from me!”

“Hey! Hey guys!” Logan shouted. Upon getting their attention, he grinned and puffed his chest up. “I’ve got a brilliant idea. How about we all keep track of our victories and losses, in every game. Against everyone. That way we can determine who the absolute best among us is!”

“It won’t work,” Lydia interjected. “How are we supposed to keep track of every single game? What stops someone from simply lying about their victories?”

“Impossible! You can’t lie when your honour is on the line or the Beast Kings are going to get you!” Logan shot back.

“The Beast Kings are a myth Logan. My da once told me that if they truly existed, nothing would stop them from tearing the entire world apart,” Jessica said.

Logan snorted derisively. “Your dad must have lied to you then. They exist! I’m one thousand percent sure they do!”

The little girl crossed her arms and leaned back. “Yeah sure. I’d rather believe the sky is green than the bullshit you’re spouting day after day.”

Logan’s face ran beet-red as he pointed a finger at her, shouting, “It’s true! I’m saying the truth!” He accentuated every word with a swing of his hand. “I saw one with my own eyes you bitch! Why do you think I’m stuck here with a – a – an idiotic tomatohead like you?”

“I’d rather have my hair be the colour of tomatoes than piles birdshit!”

The surprisingly intimidating silhouette of Franziska appeared out of seemingly nowhere just as the others were getting ready to intervene. Her presence commanded attention, and the gentle smile on her face somehow only served to cause John’s hairs to stand on end.

“I think that’s enough for today,” she said before taking the two arguing children by their hands. They stopped instantly. “I’ll be taking them to bed first. Don’t let their quarrels ruin your mood and have fun tonight. Today’s been your first successful hunt, after all,” the woman added as she escorted the two sullen children back to their barracks.

John, Lydia and Ronnie watched her leave in silence. Only when they couldn’t make her out anymore did John say, “Do you believe they learn how to mysteriously appear wherever they’re needed at teacher’s school? It can’t be a coincidence that each and every one of them does that.”

Lydia giggled, to which Ronnie stared at her, aghast. “It wasn’t meant to be a joke,” he said.

“I know, but it’s still funny.” She was still giggling to herself over something even John didn’t find particularly funny whilst the two boys shared a bewildered look. When she finally stopped, Lydia wiped a tear off the corner of her eye and faced at them with an easy smile. “You know, sometimes I wonder what the adults are up to when they’re not with us. Training? Reading? Oh! Maybe they’re…secretly meeting each other when they think the others won’t notice!”

A strange realisation struck John at that moment: Lydia was perhaps the most childish child he had met so far. It was a most disconcerting fact to realise.

John strained his mind and tried to remember what little he knew of her. It was hard, because she was a small girl that he mostly only noticed because she was standing next to Jessica whenever she was causing trouble.

What stood out the most about her was probably her long hair. It had the colour of fallen autumn leaves, and there had yet to be a day where it wasn’t woven into a braid. Sometimes the designs were incredibly elaborate, no doubt requiring lots of time and effort to create and maintain.

Logan and some other boys took great joy in messing that very hair up, which was a cause for many conflicts between him and the many girls Lydia was friends with.

“…ouch! Be more careful with it!” the girl in question shouted. By the time John had gathered his thoughts, she and Ronnie had moved to the front of the sizzling meat. They were talking about things just quietly enough that John couldn’t hear them from his position. The boy was fiddling around with her hair, likely struggling if her occasional groans were any indication to his skill.

John closed his eyes with a smile on his lips. The sound of roaring fires and cracking wood took over his mind, accentuated by the low din of conversation. He listened to Ronnie and Lydia giggle about something he couldn’t be bothered to understand.

The campfire gave off the perfect amount of heat, just enough to warm him, but not enough to burn if exposed to it for too long. Occasionally, smacks and pieces of conversations drifted over, just low enough that he had to strain his ears to understand them. There was also laughter in the air. Lots and lots of it. Deep, adult laughter coming from the soldiers as well as the higher notes of the children. They were all enjoying this brief reprieve after a day of hard work, knowing in the back of their minds that another hard day, week or perhaps even month or year was awaiting them.

Nevertheless, it was a wonderfully peaceful night.