We had been on the road for quite a few hours, or at least I was assuming as much. When we had left the fortress, apparently the sun was just coming up, and now it was just starting to lower from its zenith. It took me a better portion of the day for my eyes to become accustomed to the light. This seemed to be a far more traumatic event than anything else that had happened all day, and that was actually scaring me. However, it seemed like I wasn’t the only one trying to rest. Besides the occasional stop to change drivers and stretch legs, it seemed like everyone in Mag’s group was trying to rest up as well. Although the carriage was shaking quite a lot on this road, it wasn’t exactly an uncomfortable ride. At least not for us. Eliquis on the other hand, seemed like she was suffering the whole way.

“From the looks of things, we will be going our separate ways tomorrow morning,” Raven broke the silence. “We’ll be making camp soon, and after everyone rests up, you’ll have to find your own way.”

“Is there any chance you might have a map or some sort of information on where we can go to survive?” I asked knowing better than to expect anything crucial.

“A map?” Raven seemed to play with the thought for a bit before looking in Ayesha’s direction, who was sitting next to me.

“We don’t have one on hand, but I should be able to draw one in the dirt later. Where we’re going to be camping should also be a good enough landmark for the map.”

“Thanks,” I smiled wryly. It was better than nothing.

“Does that mean me too?” Eliquis finally spoke up.

“Ah,” Raven seemed to be looking for a way to put it gently, but there was no way to actually express ‘we’re going to dump you somewhere random’ nicely and eventually she settled for, “yeah.”

At this response Eliquis looked down, and then at me. Her amber eyes tried burrowing into me, as if she was attempting to ask a question. Honestly, I was confused and looked at everyone else in the carriage who were just wearing difficult expressions. When I looked back at Eliquis, her eyes seemed like they were digging even deeper for an answer to an unspoken question.

“What?

“Are you leaving too?”

Oh, that’s a difficult question, and I folded my arms thinking about how to answer that question. “Well, I guess I would have to leave wherever they dropped us off if I want to survive.”

“What about me?”

I shrugged at her question. “We can try seeing if someone in a village is able to keep an eye on you, I guess. But other than that, I think you should answer that question.”

Eliquis looked down at the floor of the carriage for a while before looking up at me again with more questions. “Who are you?”

“That’s... a good question,” I scratched the back of my head trying to rack my brain for a minute. “I’m not sure myself. Guess you can just call me Garem.”

“Are you heading home?”

“All of these difficult questions,” I looked away from Eliquis and stared into nothing for a few seconds, trying to collect my thoughts. “I don’t have a home.”

“Oh,” Eliquis looked back to the floor, and we both fell into silence for the next few hours until the carriage came to a stop.

The Carriage pulled onto a barely visible path and came to a stop. We all got out and then the horse was guided by Raven a little bit deeper into the woods, followed by Julia. The carriage itself was being covered by Ayesha, while Mag just carried out some simple supplies in a sack, and Strider left the area to go scout. And all of this was done without any type of communication at all. They were all in perfect sync. Myself and Eliquis just stood off to the side and waited for Mag to grab everything she wanted and then followed her to where Raven and Julia were headed.

It was only about a fifteen minute walk, but we came to a clearing that was actually well hidden. Up until I rounded past the tree after Mag, I wouldn’t have even been able to know that this was here. I looked around carefully and noticed that this area was well cleared out, and there seemed to be a similar path in the opposite direction of where we just came from, marked by a strange blue stone on the ground.

Oh, that’s how they know where they’re going, I thought to myself.

The clearing itself wasn’t all that big. Probably about a ten meter diameter, but it offered plenty of shelter and had a premade fire pit that was dug out, as well as three makeshift tents that were half inside of a massive tree trunk. Mag went towards one of the tents, the one farthest from the entrance we came from and began setting it up, while Julius started gathering firewood out from another hollowed out tree that I somehow missed. Then Raven walked up to me and Eliquis who were dumbstruck by the already prepared camp.

“You two will be using that tent right there. I’m not really expecting anything to happen but, behave yourself,” Raven gave me a look that almost made me wet myself.

I thought only Mag was the devil, but I was wrong. I tried to calm myself as I nodded and backed away from her. Unfortunately, I backed into Ayesha, who was coming back from hiding the carriage. I stiffened in response, hoping that she wasn’t cut from the same cloth as the other two.

“Don’t worry kid, I don’t think I will be needing to kill you today,” Ayesha responded as she stepped around me and went into the same tent as Mag, who was just coming out of it.

“Make yourselves at home, I guess,” Mag said, giving me a single courteous glance, before going into the woods.

I sat down outside of the tent I was assigned to and took off the cloak and swords strapped to my back, and put them on my lap. I leaned against the tree, trying to process the day's events, unable to understand anything that had happened to me.

“What’s wrong Garem?” Eliquis asked while tilting her head slightly to her left.

I eyed her while trying to come up with a proper response, but just shrugged. She sat quietly watching me as I closed my eyes trying to process my current situation. We might be fed tonight, but afterwards we are on our own. It seems that whoever these people are frequent this campsite, so we won’t be able to have shelter after tonight. So as far as food and shelter goes, I will have to figure something out starting tomorrow morning. Fortunately, I have weapons, but when it comes to hunting traps and ranged weapons would be better, since prey doesn’t actually come close to humans. Actually, why do I even know that? Nevermind, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore. Focus. Food, shelter, water. Those are the three things I will need to figure out by tomorrow night, so for tonight I should try to gather some information about the area.

Suddenly feeling a presence other than Eliquis near me, I suddenly opened my eyes to see Ayesha squatting with her back to me. Curious, I leaned my body to the left to see what she was doing. It looked like she was drawing in the dirt- oh, the map. I quickly got up and took a knee next to her to get a better view of the map.

“Pay close attention and memorize this, because I’m going to erase it afterwards,” she said, then started using her stick to point to different things on the map. “This is the road through the woods that we were following, and this is where our current campsite is. This campsite will be destroyed tomorrow night, so I wouldn’t suggest staying here. If you travel northwest, past that blue rock over there, you’ll eventually come to a stream. I would suggest going upriver from there up to here. This is the point where all the animals and monsters tend to gather around for water, so it’s definitely cleaner if you go further upstream from here. But, this point has some unique rocks, so it’s a good landmark. You following?”

I nodded as I paid close attention to the map she was pointing at. She was only focusing on the bottom left hand corner of the map so far, which meant there was a lot in between here and wherever else she thought it was important for us to take note of.

“From the point of the rocks, you can cross the river if you’re careful. And across the river there’s only animal paths, but all of the hunters in the area use them to track their prey, so as long as you keep the sun to your right during the day and to the left during the evening, you’ll come to a village around here. They’re not exactly friendly, but they're not outright vicious either. If possible, I would suggest negotiating for a place to live there. If that seems impossible, past the village is a strange area. There’s not a lot of monsters before the woods, but the land isn’t the best. So it’s a relatively safe area to make a temporary campsite. But unlike these woods, the woods past there are dangerous. You won’t find anyone willing to help you if you go in there. But people also won’t follow you if you do go in there. Other than that, if you follow this road, eventually you’ll get to a city. It’s not as big as the capital, but it’s big enough. I would suggest earning some money before you even attempt to go there, though.”

“What’s this area down here?” I pointed to the south east according to the map.

“It's a prairie on the edge of the desert. A few theanthropos live there. It’s only on the map as a reference point of going too far in this direction. They don’t take kindly to humans, so I would suggest going in the opposite direction. I’m not even sure how they would feel about Eliquis since she’s not exactly human either.” Hearing that made me glance over at Eliquis. If there’s even a chance at them taking her in, it might be good to explore that option, but if it’s a fifty-fifty, I may as well do things with a higher chance of success.

I took in all the information Ayesha gave me, making sure I fully memorized the map and then nodded to Ayesha, who somehow made a powerful gust of wind with the flick of her wrist. All of the dirt that she drew in dispersed around the campsite instantly. What was that?

“Magic,” Ayesha said with a grin on her face. I guess the question was written on my face.

After Ayesha left, I took all of my weapons out of their scabbards to examine them properly. They weren’t incredibly sharp, but they would be able to kill properly. However, there was no way I would be able to use them indefinitely. Blood will eventually rust the blades as long as I didn’t have anything to treat them with.

Eliquis sat quietly and watched me inspect every piece of equipment I brought with us with a puzzled look on her face. But I ignored her. I was actually starting to feel irritated at the way she was watching everything I do, however Mag came to my rescue by handing us some sort of lizard on a stick that was roasted over the fire. Not realizing how hungry I was until that moment, I ended up eating the entire thing without tasting it. I was surprised at myself. Mag stood there silently for a moment looking at both of us, before saying one final thing to us.

“You have six hours to sleep. We’ll be packing up after that, so make sure to sleep soon.”

It took me a whole minute to process that. They were planning to be back on the road well before the sun came up and whoever they left behind at the fortress would be coming here to destroy the camp sometime tomorrow. I quickly and carefully put away the weapons in their scabbards and went into the tent they said we could use for the night. I was actually surprised to find how spacious it was. From my two seconds of looking around, it seemed about two meters wide and six meters long. More than enough room for two people in here. Plus, there seems to be a bunch of blankets folded neatly at the back of the tent, so I didn’t hesitate at all to remove two of them. I laid one out and folded it up, to use as my bed, and then I laid my newly obtained cloak (courtesy of the guards that were killed) on the ground and laid my weapons down on it. Then I laid down on the blanket and covered myself with the other blanket. All things considered, it seems that I was unable to process how much my body was exhausted. Between how hungry, thirsty and tired I was, apparently I had been through a lot, but my mind kept telling me that I hadn’t been through much at all. It was really confusing, but eventually these thoughts questioning the exhaustion of my body put me to sleep rather quickly.

I awoke suddenly and stilled my breath to pay close attention to my surroundings. I could faintly hear the crackling of fire and knew that at least one person was awake guarding the area. Other than that, I couldn’t hear anything out of place. However, I did feel something that wasn’t where it should be and I turned my head to face it.

Apparently I had turned on my left side while I was sleeping, and now Eliquis was nuzzled along my back. As I was about to tell her to go somewhere else, I noticed something out of place on her face, and decided not to do anything. A single tear lingered just beneath her eye. Poor kid, I thought to myself ironically seeing how I was one myself. Careful not to wake Eliquis, I shifted to a slightly more comfortable position and fell back asleep.

I walked over the corpses of children, and examined them one by one. Their faces I didn’t recognize, but somehow I knew that I had once known them. Images began to flash through my mind of how they used to smile thinking about the future and what they would be like when they grew up. Their laughter from a distant memory shook my mind, bringing forth an unfathomable rage. One by one, I reached around each of their faces, pulling off their masks, and putting it in a backpack. One by one, I called out their names, reminding myself of how I failed to protect them.

Eventually, I made my way to a corpse that was in between two police officers I had just killed. As I looked at her face, I realized how much it no longer resembled her. Most of the left side of her face was torn to pieces from the shotgun that was in one of the officers cold, stiff hands. But still, I knelt next to her and let a few tears drop on the remains of her face, as I whispered an apology to myself. Visions of her encouraging me to keep moving forward and not to hang myself flashed through my mind. Her smiles always healed me, and even now it started to quell the rage that had built up. But those memories only lasted a few seconds. Life has never been so kind enough to give me enough happy memories to not lash out in rage. So I vowed to myself to do to them what they did to us.

I stood up, giving Vanessa one final look, before reaching in my bag and pulling out a canister of diesel oil. She was the only corpse among the eighty or so children that didn’t have a mask. She didn’t need one- she wasn’t one of us. Never was, never will be. But the least I can do is give her a proper send off. Not like anyone else would. They’ll just do what they always do with us; pile us up in a ditch and then cover it up. Then pave a road over it or something. I sighed at the thought and then dumped the oil all over her, tossing the can at one of the officers. I pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket, put one from the pack in my mouth and then lit it with a zippo lighter. Then I tossed the zippo on Vanessa’s corpse and walked away. Although I had some sort of feeling for her that I didn’t understand, the smell of burning flesh and hair was rough. I’ve smelt it enough in the past few years burning my friends’ corpses. I didn’t need to stand around this one to know what it would smell like.

I took one final glance around the park. This is my fault. I should’ve known better than to trust the police. I mean, when have they ever helped us? I continued to berate myself as I walked to a car and hopped into the back seat. The man in the driver seat didn’t say a word. He just glanced at me from his rear view mirror, and started to drive off. We were both in the same position. We trusted the people who were supposed to protect us, and because of that, they killed our friends. No more hesitation, I vowed to myself. Trust no one and kill everyone who gets too close.

I opened my eyes and sat up. I put my hand on my head and tried to think back to that dream. But my thoughts were broken by Raven entering the tent and motioning with her head that it was time for us to leave. I stood up, and kicked Eliquis’s leg with my foot, jolting her awake. Then swiftly left the tent before she could piece together the events playing out, making sure to grab my cloak and weapons on the way.

Standing outside, I stretched and took a deep breath. The air was cool and crisp, but felt nice on the lungs. The ground was cold enough on my bare feet that it hurt. But the pain reminded me that I was still alive and good to go. I may not understand these questions piling up, but what I did know was that right now, my body was functioning properly enough for me to find a way to survive, so I can figure these questions out later.

Eliquis peeked her head out gingerly before actually coming out. The scene reminded me of her mental state. She was still scared and had no idea who to trust, since every person who was involved with saving her, was leaving one by one. I felt bad for her, but I also reminded myself firmly that she wasn’t going to be my problem forever. I had no means to take care of her, and when the time came I would make sure she understood that.

Eliquis and I began walking to the path on the other side of the campsite from where we came from. I made note to take a good look at the blue stone, and memorized its features before continuing forward, but Raven called out to us one last time.

“If we happen to meet again, it better not be as our enemies. We won’t be able to show mercy to those in our way.”

I turned around and smiled. It was a genuine smile, which even surprised myself, but somehow her words made me feel comfortable. Like there were people who valued life exactly the same as me out there, and Raven was one of them.

“Well, how can we be against you if we don’t know you?” I reminded her, before taking off down the trail, with Eliquis following closely behind.