"What are you looking at?" Red asked as she fiddled with their one bag of supplies. She checked the straps to make sure they don't lose this pack too. "You've been staring into space for a long time."

"I don't really know either," Yunkef muttered. He pointed out towards the rock pillars. "Do you see those rocks? They seem to form a circle, and they slant sort of inwards, towards where we came from."

Red looked out to where he was pointing. "I guess they do. Why, is it important?"

"I think it is. The path we're going on slopes so much from here that it's going to be a climb so high up."

"Yunkef, do you have any experience with heights?"

"I climbed the watchtower at the Settlement once."

"I'm going to take that as a no."

Once the group felt themselves to be fully rested and ready, they set off down a rough, rocky path that led towards another series of rock pillars that formed an arch shape with the pathway between them. As they trudged on with Anre and Ice leading the way, Yunkef walked beside Red.

"I forgot to ask you, are you okay?" he said softly.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, because of Cross..." he trailed off.

Red took a deep breath, steeling herself as she stared at her feet, focusing on taking one step after another. "What can I do about it? There's no body to bury, no time to mourn. There isn’t anything for me to do but this, continue where we left off." she angrily wiped at her eyes. "Then maybe what happened to him won't be for nothing."

Yunkef was silent for a while as they walked, knowing there wasn't much he could say to comfort Red. He simply walked on beside her in understanding silence, close enough for her to know he's there, but not intruding on her space.

It was after a while of walking at an incline when their legs began to burn from the effort. Anre waved at the two to call for a halt and led them off the path towards an alcove. He took a chunk of dried glowbeast meat from Red's pack and tossed it towards Ice, who snapped it up eagerly.

"You know, I've been thinking." Anre started slowly. "When you said you met Lady Black before, where was it?"

"I ran into a cave to hide from beasts," Yunkef answered simply.

"And then she appeared again in the cave behind the darkness-touched camp, right? Have you ever seen what she looks like?"

"Well..." Yunkef thought about it. "No, I've never seen her, but the darkness feels thicker and darker when she's there. I can't see a thing, but I do hear her laughing."

"Why does she only appear in caves?"

"In caves?"

"Think about it. If she's the absolute power in the darkness, how come she doesn't just teleport over here and mess with us? Why does it have to be caves?"

Yunkef shushed Anre, tensing and looking around urgently. "Well don't just say that! What if she could do that and just doesn't want to?"

The wild-man shook his head. "No, I don't think that's it. There's gotta be a reason for it, we just don't know what."

"No, no, I think you're onto something, Anre." Red mused as she hiked her bag higher on her back and got ready to resume the trek. "There's a reason for everything, and we just have to find it. But first thing's first guys, we need to find the key to all this."

"What Night sent us to look for." Yunkef finished. He took in a deep breath and started back up the rough path of jagged rocks.

The path was hardly a path at all, with all the stones in the way. There were parts that were almost impassable due to boulders that had rolled their way down the slope, forcing the group to cautiously squeeze themselves between a rock and the towering pillars that seemed ready to topple over at any moment. Their journey was more difficult with the increasing incline, and Yunkef began to lag behind. He trudged along as best as he could, staring at his feet in an effort to push them one foot in front of the other, rock after rock. His muscles screamed in agony, and his lungs burned from the effort yet they could not go back. Panting and light-headed from the climb, Yunkef was about to call for another break to let him catch his breath when he looked up and almost slammed into Red.

Red stood stock still, perplexed and squinting up the slope. Her pale hair clung to her face with sweat that she roughly moved aside.

"Red? Are you okay?" Yunkef asked, panting. He doubled over with hands on his knees as he wheezed, trying to catch his breath. "Why did you stop?"

"Yun...kef?" she said haltingly.

"Yes?"

"Yun. Kef." Red said again, unsure as if the sound of her friend's name was foreign on her tongue.

"Yes, Red?" he asked again patiently.

"No, I'm not talking to you," Red explained. She raised a hand and pointed to something up the slope. "Doesn't that have your name?"

Bewildered, Yunkef followed Red's gaze. Higher up the slope and some distance away from the group was a large rectangular container made of long rusted metal, the same as what Red and Cross had at their homestead. Painted on the side of it was a word with long faded letters in blue paint on now rusted white. UN CEF.

"Yunkef." the boy said, perplexed. "That is my name!"

"Is that your naming sign, all the way out here, or was there another one of these Old World leftovers closer to your Settlement?" Anre asked.

"I don't know, I've never seen my naming sign. My parents died before they could tell me how they got my name."

"Well, that old thing might have something in it, so I saw we go over there and take a look," Anre said and set off the path they were going without another word, with Ice in tow. He chuckled to himself. "Take a look."

Yunkef shared a glance at Red, who looked more excited than he did to see the container.

"Come on!" she said, nudging him. "Don't you want to see if your naming sign holds some secrets?"

Yunkef hesitated for a beat then shrugged. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check it out. What I'm scared of are beasts and darkness-touched, and as long as that thing doesn't have either of them, I'll go."

Red chuckled and grabbed Yunkef by the arm and pulled him towards the rusted structure.

It was a while more for them to pick their way across the rock and uneven, slanting terrain, but soon the structure bearing Yunkef's name was looming over him. While Red and Anre went ahead to explore the inside of the structure, Yunkef took his time circling its exterior. Gingerly, he laid a hand on the side of the rusted metal, looking up at the faded words. There seemed to be a gap or a faded letter in the painted word, but it was too far gone to be legible.

"What does this even mean?" Yunkef muttered to himself, part of him asking the paint itself for answers. Hardly anyone ever learned the true meaning of these Old World words; they were simply sounds to them, some inspiration for their identities in the darkness. Yunkef thought hard, but could not remember ever seeing his own naming sign before. Grass had his in his workshop, and Red and Cross had theirs painted on an old containment structure just like this. Anre never did explain his, Yunkef realized.

"Hey! Yunkef!" Anre's voice echoed out of the container. "Come look at this!"

Yunkef picked his way back to the structure's entrance quickly, moving over rocks and jagged bits of rusted metal that had fallen off the walls of the container. "I'm here, what is it?"

Anre held up an object like a small, flat chest with a hinge. It had a handle on one end and seemed to open into two sections. "There's lots of these in here."

"What are they?"

"No idea, but this part feels like a lock. Rusted through." Anre ran his hand around the edge of the object, finding a closed latch. He briefly fiddled with it and it came apart in his hand.

"There are tubes inside. With a thin stick...a needle?" Red remarked, lifting one of the tubes. They were long degraded, with the material brittle and falling apart once moved. Where there were once rows of plastic tubes and metal needles resting on a padded surface with indents to safely store them, there were now only shards. "Quite a lot of them, but they're all too old to be of use."

"If we could even figure out what they were used for," Yunkef said. He knelt by the object. "Looks like a case of some kind, storing these things. Well, whatever they were, we can't use them anymore. What else is in here?"

"A lot of these cases, mostly," Anre said. "Found them in these cabinet things, but everything is rusted." Ice huffed from further inside the container, so Anre got up to investigate. "There's more stuff back here but I don't know what anything is."

"What do you think, Yunkef?" Red asked as she closed the rusted case. The hinges fell off so she moved its separated halves to the side. "What do you think this thing was used for?"

"I don't really know. But I think there were good intentions here." Yunkef said. "Look at these cabinets. There are so many of these cases in them, and I assume there are more of these tubes inside. They feel important, don't you think? Like maybe the people of the Old World needed to get these things to large Settlements. Maybe hundreds of people!"

"You really think so?" Red mused. "Do you know a lot about the Old World?"

"Not really, I don't know any more than what Grass learned at my Settlement. He was obsessed with finding out how things worked in the Old World, and how they ran their lives. He even invented something, some contraption that would tell time and replace the glowbird crows."

"Really now? So you were studying Old World things from him?"

"More like with him, actually. I learned how to read from him."

"So he was your mentor, huh? Must have been nice to have a mentor."

"But you were able to read the naming sign painted to this thing! Who taught you that?"

"It wasn't Cross or my parents." A wry smile came onto Red's face. "Take a guess who it might be."

Yunkef's brows furrowed as he thought. "If not Cross or your parents, I can't think of anyone. Was it someone from your Settlement?"

Red shook her head. "It was Night. Remember, that old guide saved us from a ruined Settlement? Cross and I, we were too young to do much on our own. So Night essentially took us in and taught us everything we knew. How to hunt, how to craft, how to manage a home, and even how to read. I don't know how to write, but Night said at least I'd be able to read naming signs or Old World remnants if I came across any."

Before Yunkef could reply with his astonishment, Anre called from the back of the container. "I found bandages! They're dirty and covered in rust though. And frayed. And eaten by insects. What do you think, do I keep them?"

Yunkef glanced at Red who shooed him on. He picked his way through the messy interior of the container to catch up with Anre. "Bandages? They won't be of much use if they aren't clean."

"Well, it’s what I found." The wild-man continued. Ice sniffed around at a haphazard pile of various stuff that was thrown against the wall of the container and had settled there for a long time. "There are little packets here with bumps on them, more of the cases, these tube things, I think they held water. These round metal things." Anre took one in his hand and thumped it against the floor of the container. It was a little bigger than his palm, round, and had a label that was covered in dirt and peeling off.

"Looks sealed," Red remarked, crouching and taking the round object from Anre. She picked at its edge with a fingernail. "There might be something in here."

"Oh give it back, I have an idea." Anre held his hand out, and when Red put the object back in his hand, the wild-man whistled and held it out to Ice who, to Yunkef's horror, opened her mouth wide. The beast's mouth split at the sides and opened like a hinge, much wider than Yunkef was comfortable with. Her rows of sharp teeth came down on the object, puncturing its metal surface with ease. There was the sound of metal crumpling, then the hiss of escaping gas. The three started to gag.

"What is that smell?" Yunkef recoiled, covering his nose.

"Get rid of it! Get rid of it quick!" Red yelped and scrambled back from the beast.

Anre, gagging from the rotten stench bursting from the ruptured metal container, could only wave his hand. His beast threw her head back and swallowed the object with ease, and the stench was gone.

Red needed a moment to take in fresh air from outside the container. Meanwhile, Yunkef shook his head. "Let's not do that again. Don't touch the round things, they're not worth it."

"You don't have to tell me twice." Anre groaned. "I'll be smelling that in my nightmares!"

Unfortunately for the three, there wasn't much left to salvage inside the container bearing Yunkef's name. There were things still intact from the Old World, but neither of them knew what they were used for. Even if they did, everything was too old and degraded to really use.

"I was thinking, if this was closer to the Settlements and we had a lot of help, we might be able to use the container itself," Red said once the boys and the beast had left the container. "You know, like what Cross and I had back at our place."

"We would need a lot of people to move it to a Settlement though," Yunkef replied.

Anre shook his head and started back towards the path they were on before, keeping one hand on Ice to steady himself. "We're too far from a Settlement. If you wanted to use the container, it would have to be by starting a Settlement right here."

"Here?" Yunkef looked around. All around him were rocks and the uneven, sloping terrain. "Could you actually make a Settlement here? The ground is going up."

"Well, we're proof that you can live anywhere, right?" Anre shrugged. "I lived in a shack beside a cave. Red and Cross lived in the middle of nowhere."

"Yes we did, but we lived on flat ground with enough space for glowbirds and mushroom farming. You can't do that here." Red said with a decisive tone that brooked no argument.

Anre laughed in response. "Is that a challenge? I'm sure I could come up with something suitable if we had the time and dedication for it. What do you say? Would you try living here?"

"Personally, no," Yunkef said with a good-natured smile. "But I'd help anyone who wanted to. Starting a Settlement from scratch is hard enough; making one out here on these rocks would be next to impossible to do alone."

"I think it would be a nice challenge." Anre mused. "No one out here to bother you. No hunters chasing your beasts and killing them in their nests. Just some peace and quiet. Would take a lot of work to get a farm going and to find water though, but I think it's a fine tradeoff."

Yunkef shared a glance with Red as they walked. "Um, Anre? I don't think I've ever asked this before but..."

"Yeah?"

"How did you end up with beasts?"

The wild-man fell silent for a while, and the only sound made as they walked on was the crunching of loose stones under their feet and themselves panting breathlessly as they pushed their legs to carry them one step at a time ever further.

"I'm sure you know that someone who is born like me, someone who can't see, isn't much use in a Settlement," Anre said slowly, hesitantly. "I couldn't help farm, or hunt, or craft tools and weapons, or cook. I was willing to learn of course, but no one believed that I could learn how to do it."

"Anre, I'm sorry, you don't have to continue if you don't want to."

"No, it's fine. Might as well tell you guys right? You're all I have." Anre paused to gather his thoughts and continued. "My parents hung onto me and protected me as well as they could, but the Settlement leader forced them to give me up. I was very young, but I remember the sound of him storming into our tent, screaming that I was a burden to the Settlement since I couldn't grow up to work. My parents tried to fight back, but he was forceful. I don't remember much after that, except the loud roar of the vehicle's engines, people shouting. Then landing on hard ground. I'm pretty sure they drove me out into the wilds and left me somewhere."

"To die." Red finished softly. "Oh Anre, I'm so sorry."

"No, no, it's alright. After that, I heard beasts. Beasts all around me, snarling and growling, circling me. I remember crying, just crying, I was so scared. And then someone called them off with a soft voice and helped me up. They were nice, and their hands and wrists were thin."

"Was it Night?"

"Yeah, it was Night. Night stayed with me and spoke to the beasts, probably telling them that they could trust me. From there, Night provided what I needed and I spent more of my time getting to know the beasts instead of living in the shelter Night gave me. Then I learned how to do everything the Settlement thought I couldn't do on my own: farm, hunt, craft, cook. Except this time, I had beasts to help me instead of people. They were more my family than my parents ever were. Night was my guardian, but you know how that old guide is."

Red couldn’t help but chuckle. "Yeah, Night never stays in one place very long."

"Exactly. So while Night was gone, the beasts took care of me. Simple as that." Anre laughed his loud, boisterous laugh. "Isn't that right, Ice?"

The beast threw back her head with a snort that must have been a laugh.