It turned out our team came up third with a total of fifty points. We were just one point away from the second place, and three from the first. Which meant that no one got full marks. It was, however, surprising to hear the Japanese team took the first spot.

Wann was fuming and cursing out the old men who gave out the points, he called them incompetent and blind and other more creative words. Everything ended with Vertig smacking him across the head and silencing him, since he was being incredibly loud.

“You all did well,” said the professor as he looked us all over. “If you continue down this way, we might as well take the trophy back to Huntig.” The old man smiled. His eyes lingering on me for a short while.

I didn’t stay to hear any more bullshit and just scampered out into the coldness of the dusk. I wanted to go find Vince, but I couldn’t find his smell. Panic set into my head as fast as lightning and I bolted after the faint smell Miller left behind. I nearly slammed into the guy with my mind racing, heart beating out my rib-cage, palms sweaty and eyes wide in horror.

“Whoa,” Miller grabbed at me. “What’s the rush?”

“Vince?!”

“Oh, um, he went into the forest.” He waved towards the general direction of barely visible footprints. “He didn’t look so good, though. He okay?”

“He will be. Get back inside. Don’t let Wann give you bullshit. Just punch him good.”

I saw a glimpse of an awkward smile as I sped past him into the deeper part of the woods.

Vince was once again trying to take everything by himself and I was getting mad about it. Why wouldn’t he just rely on me a little bit? I could help him wait it out. Control it with my voice - it did have a bit of power over him.

As I was speeding past the tall, lean trees, for the first time I noticed how incredibly quiet it was. Safe the crunching of the snow under my feet, and the clamor back at the main camp, there was no other sound in the vicinity. There were no birds, even though I knew for a fact there was supposed to be some. The strangest thing was there were no animals. I knew they hunted out all the bears from the area, but they couldn’t have gotten rid of squirrels or foxes. And there were none. No smell, no sound. Not a peep. It made no sense. I mean, they could have been hiding given that my presence had that kind of effect on most mammals, but there literally was no smell of an animal. I had picked up on some strange smells before, but none of them seemed to belong to a furry forest dweller. The bears I could smell only because they leave a strong scent behind so the cubs could find the nest easier. But the other animals?

I nearly missed Vince thinking about the absence of smells and sounds. But a low grunt and a whine stopped me in my tracks. Vince was grabbing at one of the birch trees, trying to contain the growl from escaping. The tree was young, lean, fragile under the heavy force of his clutches. I could see tears gleaming on his face, the moonlight giving enough light to make it glimmer in a wet radiant way a stream does at clear nights.

As he felt me approaching, he tried to get away, as if he didn’t want me to see him this way. I could understand his feelings, no one wanted to be seen weak and vulnerable.

“Vince,” I approached him, my arms stretched out in defense and offering at the same time. He turned away. “Hey, I’m here. And I’m not leaving.”

“N-no...”

He really seemed to want to be left alone, but I did not want to leave him. Not when I could be near him, help him, at least to ease the pain.

“Don’t push me away.” I came closer and put my hand on his, still crushing the tree. “You don’t have to be alone anymore. I’m here.”

“Da-dangerous,” was all he could manage to say before a howl ripped out of his throat.

It was deafening, almost surreal. All I could have done at that moment was grab his head and try to muffle the sound with my belly. He ripped at me to make me let go, but I held on stifling the sound, even though it still was loud enough to get a reaction from all the hunters in the vicinity.

I could hear the commotion brew behind us and I had to do something to stop a disaster from happening. I grabbed his face, forced him to focus on my eyes, and with a firm, strong voice I ordered him to calm down. I couldn't order him to go to sleep for the risk of him losing himself in his unconsciousness was too high. My order managed to calm him enough for the howls to diminish into a whine. His eyes hid terror, agony. He seemed so small and weak at that moment.

I heard a party of maybe ten people approaching, and I had to act quickly if I wanted him to stay alive. I had to think fast, I couldn't just move recklessly with a mob of hunters on my tail.

I looked around, and the only way I could see was up. Into the trees. I tossed Vince onto my back and ran up one tree, kicking off of it to get a better jump into another tree. When I was high enough to get to the stronger branches, I jumped from one tree to another, trying to distance us from the spot where our tracks end. It was difficult to jump around with only one available hand, I almost dropped him a couple of times, but I managed to reach the edge of the fenced-off area. I landed back on the ground just behind the fence.

Vince looked betrayed, being dragged around like a rag doll, but he wouldn't say anything, not that he could at the moment. The fence was covered by some shrubs, which gave us some cover. I didn’t want to drag him further, it wasn’t just dangerous, but I was getting tired and sleepy. If I ran more, I wouldn’t be able to control Vince in the ragged state he was in.

I backed into the bush and held him in my lap, pressing him to my chest like a wounded child. He ripped into my jacket again, pricking my skin open, drawing blood out. It was fine, as long as he was fine, as long as he stayed the same. So long so he did not give in to the curse, I was more than happy to bear the pain, to be hurt by him.

I kept on holding him tightly, trying to soothe the pain with my voice, but all I could actually do was to make him distracted, occupied. His mind was probably racing and it needed to concentrate on something, and that something was my voice.

After a while, I started talking to him about what I could see around. It wasn’t much, but it had enough to distract him from the painful situation.

There were some more, but much thicker, trees growing out there. Birches, ashes, lindens, some young hazels, and lots of pine trees. There was much more shrubbery and it felt wild, untouched, undamaged. I told him how the treetops covered most of the sky so the moon was barely visible. Some of the trees still had some leaves hanging on by the last threads. I told him about the snow. So blindingly white and pure even in the night light. The snow out there had no blemishes, no prints or any proof of living things dwelling in the forest. And it was quiet once again.

I couldn’t hear the party anymore, their voices either couldn’t reach me or they stopped the hunt. Maybe they figured there were wolves out there and that was it. There could also be a possibility of them separating and moving silently, like on an actual hunt. In that case, we wouldn’t be so lucky as to be able to spend the night out here and return to the campsite as soon as the sun began to rise. In any case, I couldn’t give up on a lookout and go to sleep, so I braced myself, and carried on talking to Vince about the same trees and bushes I saw around.

By the time the sun started its advent to the sky, I was exhausted and stiff all over, and terrified because Vince was too quiet for someone who was supposed to be fighting excruciating pain.

“Don’t you think it’s too quiet here?” he whispered.

I looked at him in surprise, then I gathered it was probably because it was the second night of the full moon and it wasn’t as strong as the first night.

“I had thought so before,” I finally answered. “There are no birds. Not even crows, or owls.”

“You also said there were no prints on the snow.”

“Yeah...”

“Fey, we’re in a forest. Despite there being so much activity going on, there should be at least one or two foxes or rabbits.”

“Don’t look at me,” I scoffed lightly. “Animals might want to run from me, but not at this extent. You, on the other hand...”

“I’m not- I haven’t turned yet. And even if it was me, they would have started to run after it began...”

“Maybe they ran last night?”

“There was not so much snow to cover all the tracks. And it still doesn’t explain why there are no birds.”

“Right. Those fuckers aren’t afraid of anything,” I joked. He jabbed me to the ribs and whined in pain. “Yeah, maybe you should refrain from hard physical activities until your skin feels like your own?”

“Yeah,” he whimpered.

He looked defeated, drained and as exhausted as I felt. His eyes had dark blemishes under them, and on his pale face they stood out like bruises. We both had a rough night, but he had it much worse. Gathering some snow, I pressed it to his face, he sighed, but instead of removing the snow, he grabbed some more and pressed to the other eye.

After a while, I helped him to his feet and steadied him when he faltered. It still was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea he had been doing this alone for almost three years. If it was this painful after this long, how awful it must have been in the very beginning. I had to stop myself from thinking too much on it or I would have lost it there and went on a quest to end all of Moon Walkers. I would have done it, really, I would have.

“We should head back,” he said as he looked around.

“Yeah. Damn, the others will have questions to ask… Can I just punch them if anyone asks?”

He leveled me with a tired stare, “No.”

“Oh come on. Then what do we say?”

“You are a pretty good liar, so think of something.”

“Well, all I’m getting right now is that we were copulating. It would make most sense.”

We both looked equally shocked and disgusted at my own words. He scrunched his eyebrows, even his nose got all wrinkled. There was a whirlwind of different emotions brewing in his eyes, but he said nothing. He didn’t need to, I knew what I said, even though it made most sense, was a complete and utter bullshit. No one would believe me.

“You know what, I’ll just punch them,” I said with conviction and started to climb the fence to get back to the main camp.

“As I said, you cannot do that.” Vince struggled up the fence, almost fell off it, but managed to catch himself, and landed near me.

We walked back taking our time and trying to come up with a good enough reason for our absence. In the end we decided to go with one of my ideas and then just lined out some details, so the story would connect. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was the best at the time, so we just went with it. It also explained why my winter coat was ripped to the point where a little bit of patching up won’t do anymore. There was a breeze airing out the inside of the coat and I wasn’t pleased with it. Vince apologized and offered his own coat, but I refused. Swapping coats would just supply more evidence to my first idea and we both didn’t want it to be even considered by other people.

Vince gave up on the idea of going back to the supervisors’ hut since he looked completely out of sorts and disheveled. So he just walked with me back to our base where the four team members were supposed to be sleeping.

When we reached the mound of our base, it was strangely quiet. On top of there being no birds, I couldn’t hear the even and light breathing of sleeping individuals. There was no sound coming from the inside of our base’s burrow.

When I heard crunching snow behind us, it felt as if I was being hunted again. I made ready to pounce on whoever was trying to sneak up on us, but the moment I turned, Vince put out his arm to stop me from moving. The other arm was drawn in front of him, stopping Wann’s advance with the silver-bladed katana.

“Where the fuck have you two been?!” he demanded while sheathing his sword the moment the shock of seeing us wore off.

“Around,” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

The look Wann gave me screamed thousand of words at once, most of them would have been insults and some other choice words, if he actually spoke. He was about to take the sword out again.

Before long, the others showed up too, coming out of their defensive positions. The way they moved with caution and all tense made me wonder what got them in such a twist.

“What happened?” asked Vince before I could even open my mouth. “Why are you all ready for hunt?”

“You deaf or something,” snarled Wann.

“We all heard the howl last night,” intercepted Dark, clutching her bo staff tighter.

“Everyone went bat-shit crazy, went on a hunt,” supplied Miller. “No one actually found any tracks or anything, but no one actually went to sleep either.”

“Yeah, I saw the Peru team running around like two hours ago,” said Rodd with a huge yawn.

“So?” Wann insisted. “Where were you?”

I looked at Vince, he nodded.

“We heard the howl and went to check on it, too,” he said. “But just like everyone else, apparently, found nothing. And then we kind of got lost...”

“We wondered out the bounds. Reached the fence,” I said quickly, before Wann could start mocking us for our poor tracking skills, or their lack thereof. “I decided to go beyond the boundary and, you know, look around. Vince was against it, so we got into a fight, and we scuffled. Thus-” I gestured to our torn coats. “Found no wolves. Or foxes. Or birds. I suppose, you noticed the lack of forest sounds in this place?”

“What do you mean?” Dark looked around, crooning her head sideways to hear better.

Everyone shut up at that moment and actually listened. Besides our breathing and far off clamor of other teams, the forest was empty of sounds.

Wann furrowed his brow and strained some more, craning his neck to expose his right ear to more space. Rodd was doing the same, but less dramatic, though, after a while he just stopped listening and opted to stare at me. Miller and Dark looked seemingly confused. As if only now noticing such an important thing; like it was supposed to be obvious that the forest was missing something essential.

“We think,” started Vince,”something drove the animals and the birds away, but we couldn’t think of anything that could do such a thing.”

“What about her?” snarled Wann. “Don’t you think it was her?”

“I heard no birds the first day we came. I don’t have such a strong a presence as to drive animals away without actually being in the area for a while.”

“Maybe,” Dark quipped, “the organizers made them leave somehow, so they wouldn’t get in the way?”

“True, there were bears here before.”

“See,” Wann was ready to end the discussion. “These Germans wanted the forest clean. So they-”

“But the birds, Wann, the birds. Nothing man-made could keep them away,” I protested.

“They removed the prey, so they moved, too?” said Miller, unsure of himself.

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Wann raised his voice, ready to end the conversation. “We have three hours left. The next task will be a-announced at nine. Get some damned sleep, if you can.”

Everyone visibly deflated, relaxing their muscles, as if relieved something bad didn’t occur. The three got inside the base almost right away, Wann lingered by the entrance to stare at me and Vince, but mostly Vince. After a moment, he scoffed, shook his head and disappeared inside the entrance hole.

I glanced at Vince, his gaze was fixated at the spot Wann just stood at. His face was neutral, but I could see something unreadable in his eyes. I have not seen the emotion he was showing then; it looked like he was in pain, but also missing something, as if he was trying to reach out his hand, but was scared of it being burned. I’ve read about it somewhere, was it longing? I guessed he really wanted to get inside our base and catch some sleep.

“Why don’t you get in? I don’t think they would mind.”

“Did you just forget Argent?”

“Ignore him. If he says anything, I will kick him out. You deserve some rest.”

“It’s his base,” he refuted.

“It was my idea, so I keep the intellectual property rights to myself. He owns nothing,” I smiled.

He chuckled. His teeth showed clearly, I could swear his canines were longer than the last time I saw them.

“You took out the braces. Did anyone say anything?”

“Uh, Vertig asked where they went,” he answered scratching at the back of his head. “I said they broke in the fight the night your heart stopped.”

“But no one punched you,” I stated.

“But he doesn’t know that,” this time he smiled.

After a while we also crowded inside and huddled by the entrance, covered with my sleeping bag. We unzipped it to make it wide enough to cover us both. As Vince expected, Wann started bitching about him being inside, too. I shot him down immediately.

“If you like Vince so much that you’re scared of him, then leave. No one’s stopping you.”

The man sputtered as I caught him off guard, but said nothing safe for couple of insults to my intelligence and Vince’s facial features. At which the other man actually blushed, but tried to hide by clearing his throat and wrapping himself more into the makeshift blanket.

For a while the atmosphere was seeping with awkward silence which was sometimes rented by a clearing of someone's throat. I have been told I had no tact, and this just gave certain and undeniable proof of the fact. It was Dark who interrupted the silence and told us to just get some sleep. No one argued. Everyone, even Wann, snuggled up in their sleeping bags and soon the small space was filled with even light breathing of four individuals.

Neither Vince, nor I could manage to sleep. I was laying snug against the man’s chest, listening to his heart beat, feeling his abdomen lift and fall with every breath, but I knew he was not sleeping. He also knew I was awake, since he started drawing circles on my hand, in so doing he was trying to make me sleep. It was a habit of his, to rub circles somewhere on my body to soothe me into sleep.

I wanted to talk to him, still had a lot of things to say, but it was impossible, if I didn’t want to wake the others. So we both settled into the silence, him rubbing relaxing patterns on my hand, me stealing his body heat and giving him assurance he’s safe and everything was alright.

Apparently, at some point, I drifted into sleep.

One moment I was still listening to his rapid heartbeats, the other he was gently shaking me, Wann was screaming at the top of his lungs, and everyone else were scurrying around, getting ready for the day.

“Hey,” I uttered as I opened my eyes to his gentle, but tormented face.

“Morning.” He smiled.

He supported my back until I was on my feet, then I helped him to get up, too. The boy couldn’t stand up properly due to the roof of the base being too low for his tall stature. Whereas I barely had to nod my head and I could stand straight. It earned me a teasing for my short height, in turn earning him a jab to his ribs.

We came out the shelter bickering and teasing one another. We were only interrupted when Wann hurled a wet washcloth at my face and told me to wash up since I smelled like a wet dog. No one realized why I suddenly erupted into a fit of laughter, well, except, maybe Vince did. He was, after all, the wet dog Wann accused me of reeking.

Vince looked at me like a kicked puppy and I managed to subdue the fit, but it was still funny for some reason. Maybe the hopelessness of the situation made me laugh in hysteria over the fact that he was doomed to eventually turn and become the hunted rather than the hunter.

I grabbed the washcloth and soaked it in the warm water everyone else were using. I wiped my face, neck and hands. I was not planning on going deeper under my clothes, not in that kind of weather anyway. After all, the main campsite had functioning shower rooms, though the use of it was moderate and had a schedule. Today was not our day. And even if it was, I would rather be dirty and stink of a wet dog than let my guard down so much as to get naked in an area teeming with hunters. Especially when Albrecht was around. He would use the opportunity to render me defenseless, just because I was naked.

A whole different situation was going on with my winter coat. It was now torn in five places, and it was impossible not to notice it. It had tears by the ribs, both arms and in the stomach area. Basically it was useless. The chill had no problem getting inside and freezing my body to the bone. Vince must have noticed me shiver, since he basically tore off the worn-out coat and put his own on me.

“Zip up,” he said appraising me. “It might be a bit big, but it will do the job of keeping you warm,” he said with such a big grin, I wanted to deck him once.

“Are you sure you were not having sex?” asked Rodd.

Vince’s hands stopped mid-action while zipping up the coat. My eyes went wide and I glared at the young man; I think I felt myself growl, too. Vince started to blush, only it took a second and he was back to his normal pale-rosy color. He finished zipping me up and turned to Rodd.

“Yes. We are completely sure we were not having sex. Let me be completely straight with you, Seb, I am not,” he grinned.

The expression on Rodd’s face made everyone laugh, even Wann. It was uncommon to hear Vince talk about it so openly with others, but I supposed, after confirming it to me, he came to terms with it and admitted it to himself. No wonder, it was much easier to talk about these things to others when oneself was well acquainted and in terms with the situation. Before Vince met me, he wouldn’t admit it, but he was in denial about him liking boys.

“He would be much more interested in fornicating with you rather than me,” I supplied, and it earned me another wet washcloth smacked to my face.

“Enough fucking around,” commanded Wann. “We’ll be late for the next an-announcement.”

Vince glanced at his wristwatch and paled. He looked at me and bolted away, in the direction of the stage. He was late, that much was clear.

The team finished up on the morning routines and without any rush headed for the stage, too. I was lagging behind, as always, only this time I focused on the sounds. Maybe it really was Vince’s fault that all the birds and animals left, only they must have flown since there were no fresh paw prints. I couldn’t catch any sound coming from an animal, the forest was empty save for the hunters and me.

Before I even reached the crowd surrounding the stage, I could hear Michail’s sharp voice reprimanding someone. After getting closer, I realized that someone was Vince. Michail, surprise surprise not Vertig, was scolding the boy for being late and discarding his duties as the assistant instructor. He also expressed his regret for choosing Vince to come and was much disappointed in him for being such an irresponsible subordinate. I saw Vince take it in stride, with his head held high, no emotion showing on his face. The only thing giving away his grievances was clenched fists and tensed muscles. He apologized and swore the situation wouldn’t happen again.

“Of course it won’t happen again. The moment we’re back to Huntig, you can pack your bags and leave the academy, am I clear?”

Vince was stunned into silence, but couldn’t say anything back, because Albrecht started talking, and Michail just walked away.

The combat instructor joined Vertig on stage and reported the situation, the old man just nodded, but said nothing. I doubted, he would revoke the decision about Vince being sacked, but he wouldn’t be letting him go, not with the device in his heart which made Vince a leverage against me.

This time I was listening with one ear what the lunatic was spouting on the stage. He talked about the importance of tracking the prey, on how it is important to know how to look for something which does not want to be found. He elaborated on the importance of the skill set for recognizing different tracks, sounds and other signs of past happenings. He was droning on and on about the same thing in many different words and sentence variations.

“Now zen,” he said finally, “for today’s task, you vill all have to find one target.”

There were sounds of dissatisfaction and complaint, the crowd of eighty began to murmur about themselves.

“Now, now, hunters, calm yourselves. It vill be a race. A race against time, against your fellow hunters, and a race to find a hostage. Now, take notice, there are no real hostages for zis mission, vee just decided to kall zem so. Imagine zee situation ven a Kold Valker, Moon Valker or any ozer creature of zee night attacks a city, kills some, but also takes some wiz zem to zeir nest to feast on later. You, my friends, vill have to find zis so called nest. Zat ist all.”

Albrecht’s last words left the crowd even more confused than it already was. I for one, had no idea what he was talking about. Creatures of the night took no hostages. They hunted for then and there, the ‘hostage’ would only implicate the whole nest and expose its location to hunters. And no one was as stupid as Albrecht thought.

I looked around expecting for Vince to approach, but instead of the boy, a Japanese assistant instructor came to explain the mission in more detail, however, he was precise and to the point. Whereas Vince stalked to the Egypt team to explain the rules and the goals.

Basically, we had to work as a team to find the ‘nest’ the fastest. The guy explained we would be able to recognize the place right away, it was, as he said, impossible to confuse with any other structure in the fenced-off area. He assured us it was in the area which was surrounding us and it was inside the boundary of the fence. When we found it, he told us, to just bang the bell and the victory would be announced to everyone in the forest.

There were no clues, no tracks to follow, basically, we had to wander blind and hope to find something, we didn’t even know, what. There was also a possibility some teams had already found it prior to this day, since it was in the area from the very beginning.

Wann was beginning to lose his bearings when Dark shut him up. Loudly, surprising even the only Australian team participating in the convention.

“Please listen before you start losing it,” she told Wann. “The first night, after we set up our bases and after we all gathered in the dining hall, I heard the Tibetan team talking about a strange construction standing near the spot where they decided to set their own camp.”

“Since when do you know Ti-Tibetan?” Wann seemed genuinely surprised. And maybe amazed?

“Since I took Tibetan last semester. But that’s beside the point. They said there was a strange aura coming from the construction. As if there was something inside. They didn’t dare go, also it was encircled with a chain.”

“So, you mean to say, that thing might be the ‘nest’?” asked Miller.

“Yes. It’s all we’ve got at the moment, and it’s better than nothing, don’t you think?” she asked me.

“Do you know where they set up their camp?” asked Wann.

“… No,” came a weak answer.

“Damn it!”

“Hey,” I intercepted the curse onslaught. “We don’t need to know where their camp is. We just need to follow them, because they left like five minutes ago.”

Miller was ready to bounce, whereas Wann still looked dubiously at me.

“I will overtake them when we’re close, and I will ring that bell or whatever. Let’s just go,” I reassured Wann and bolted after the rest of the team which was already moving in the direction to the north. Dark was leading the way.

I caught up to the girl and fell into step beside her. She had a determined face on her and I believed she could lead us there with no problem at all. Dark lead us perfectly right behind the unsuspecting Tibetan team. They were not in any hurry, though, it seemed they were restless and wanted to get there faster, but at the same time they didn’t.

We were following the other team for at least five minutes when I realized we were not the only ones going that way. I heard many other footfalls following us from either side.

I motioned for others to continue on, while I fell back to look around. Wann grumbled not wanting to let me go on my own, but I told him to go for I would be there soon. While they marched on reluctantly, I circled back.