Once it was clear we were not going to be attacked, we continued to walk slowly away from the city and as we did, we talked over the situation. I was hopeful the cultists would leave us alone, but the fact they continued to watch us from the city worried me to no end. This probably wasn’t going to be the end of our encounters with them.

I left the others whom were talking about the True Believers and moved to Jessica who was scouting at the front alone. She reached out an arm to support me as we walked side by side silently. It was an uncomfortable silence, and eventually I cracked. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“I don’t like this,” she said.

“Are we being followed?”

“That too,” she said, “but I meant the killing; the hurting people.” I didn’t really know how to respond to that. Were there any comforting words to give in this situation? I still had random moments when I remembered having to kill those two brothers, but I always tried to push those memories away, and if I did think about that fight… well I always justified it in my head. It was the only way to accept these actions: to remove emotion and rationalize.

“It was us or them,” I said. That was the only reality I could put forth. “Not fighting, not killing… would be the same as killing ourselves.”

She thought on my words for a moment, “I know, but I’m not sure I can get used to it.”

“I hope none of us get used to it.” Even as I said this, I had almost the opposite thought. It was scary the things humans could become used to doing, and killing wasn’t even the worst of them. “Can you still feel the cultists?” I changed the subject.

“They’re staying really far back so I can’t see how many, but there are definitely some people coming after us,” she revealed. “One of them can surely track or follow our positions in some way.” I turned my head and sure enough, hundreds of yards back, making no effort to conceal himself, a male figure in white clothing was on the road. We were still visible: only after getting out of sight would we know for sure if they would pursue further.

I would have loved to just tell Jessica to not worry and everything would be fine, but I really didn’t know that. We were being hunted like prey, and I couldn’t fight back at the moment. I had no abominations and just five skeleton warriors at my disposal. Not only that, my summoned undead didn’t function as efficiently versus other people as they did monsters.

“There are some houses ahead that we can use as cover. It should be obvious enough if they can continue to track us after we get off the highway,” I said. Once out of sight, they would need to close the distance quickly in order to not lose our trail.

I also just needed to lie down. The dizziness was growing overwhelming. My leg was burning and even through the healing of the Bandage there was no doubt I’d ripped the wound open. I could feel a moisture in my shoes, which soon revealed itself to be fresh blood leaking down my leg. This would leave a trail anyone could follow.

“Don’t move.” Jessica had followed my gaze and noticed the blood drenching my sock. She rushed to the others. I could barely hear what she was saying, but I could make out a few words, something about getting me to a bed. Alan and Lucas were on my side a moment later, basically dragging me through the field.

We stopped four houses in, which was a fair distance from the highway, given that each was separated by acres of land. The house we entered was abandoned, but still intact and in good shape. There were zombies roaming the far side of the field, but overall the density of monsters in this place was low. We would be safe from mobs for now, it was the humans we had to worry about.

I almost couldn’t react to being helped off my feet when we walked inside and slumped onto a couch. The sudden change in my positioning caused blood to rush to my head. My eyes could only focus on the ceiling as I landed. Thomas fumbled with my pants to pull them off as I grew more incoherent, “Wash it poishon?” I asked in a stupor.

“Turn him on his side.” Thomas’ voice was distant and distorted in my head. I was forced to close my eyes as dizziness assaulted me. I felt like I was on the ocean in rough seas, bobbing up and down as the nausea washed over me. My world was spinning, even my thoughts were spinning, and I felt that opening my eyes now would cause me to hurl.

My leg was numb, but I could feel the pressure of their touch, their grasping. A burning sensation had crawled even lower down now to my ankle. “There’s another wound,” Jessica said. I could feel them wiping my thigh with something, and then feeling returned to my leg for a brief moment.

An intense stabbing in my lower calf shocked the dizziness out of me, “AHH!” I yelled while involuntarily struggling to get away from the source of the pain.

“Hold him down!” Thomas yelled. I opened my eyes in time to see Alan and Richard pressing me into the couch. “It’ll be quick just hold him.” The pain rose and rose till it felt like someone was jabbing molten metal into my skin, and then it subsided as fast as it came.

I stared at the ceiling in relief, no doubt the result of a Bandage and some healing by Thomas. Richard and Alan backed away as Jessica sat down beside me. I felt her hand grasp mine, warm and alive. “You had another spike in your calf,” she explained, “Thomas had to pry it out of you.” I laid my head directly back and sighed. “That’s what you get for being shy and not taking your pants all the way off,” Jessica joked.

Her laughter put me at ease. “I didn’t think it was the right time to take it all off.”

“Behave yourself and rest,” she leaned over me with a smile. “We’re going to take turns on watch. Lucas and I will be first. You should try to sleep a bit. Don’t worry about anything—if anyone approaches I’ll tell you.”

Jessica was the person I trusted most in this world, and her assurance was all I needed. I was exhausted and my eyelids felt heavy.

When I opened my eyes again it was dark, and truthfully, I couldn’t even remember falling asleep. My gums were pasty and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. Even my lips were dry and cracked. I had lost a lot of blood and not eaten anything since then, no doubt leaving me hungry and dehydrated.

I leaned up in bed and let my vision correct itself. There was no electricity, and the only source of light was moonlight flickering through the half-opened shades. I opened my inventory and pulled a ration before stuffing it into my mouth.

We didn’t usually move at night as it was much more dangerous than travel during daylight hours. Monsters didn’t seem to have any issue seeing in the dark, which wasn’t the same for us. With that thought, I did recall having an ability that I had never fully experimented with.

Necrotic Vision allowed me to see a creature’s life force, and that included other people. Lucas was sleeping in the corner, completely engulfed in darkness, and yet an orange hue swirled around his frame. It was almost like he glowed in the dark. I could see him clearly as if it were day time.

As far as seeing enemies that were living, I’d not be ambushed in the dark. Traps and obstacles and pitfalls and anything that was inanimate… they were still threats. They meant it was still a risk to move at night, which was why I didn’t want to end up in a situation where we swapped our schedules. This was the exact issue I wanted to avoid after the miasma incident.

I could hear low talking upstairs. Judging by the fact that Lucas was sleeping, Jessica would be asleep too, with the others keeping watch. A few seconds later Richard stumbled down the steps and nearly broke his neck. It was hard to not fall over yourself in this darkness.

He walked to the blinds slowly and then tilted them lightly with his fingers. His eyes were focused as he scanned the outside and then he moved back a moment before exhaling loudly.

“Is everything alright?” I asked.

“Jesus!” Richard said, “you almost gave me a heart attack.” Via Necrotic Vision I could see him raise his hand to his chest and catch his breath. He calmed himself and continued, “Alan thinks he saw someone outside.”

“They followed us?” I asked.

“If Alan wasn’t seeing a ghost, then someone is out there.”

“What did Jessica say?”

“She went to sleep about an hour ago. We didn’t want to wake her.” I turned and dangled my legs off the bed. My right thigh was sore, but I reckoned that I could at least move on it for the time being. Running hard was probably not a good idea for recovery, though.

Richard came over as soon as he saw me starting to move, “Jessica warned me you would try something. She told me to tell you: ‘stay put or I’m gonna pull what’s left of your ear off.’”

I winced at the thought, she might just do it if I pushed her far enough. “Just help me upstairs,” I said, “I can move alright, just nothing strenuous.” He gave me a questioning look as if he should even bother listening to me.

“You know, she also said she’d pierce both my ears if I let you convince me.”

I couldn’t help but sigh in annoyance, “This isn’t the same. We could be in danger right now. If the cabin started to burn, you wouldn’t insist on keeping me in bed then, right?” I asked.

“Of course not.”

“Well, imagine the cabin is burning, because it very well could start soon if a pack of Religious arsonists are waiting outside.” It seemed he got the point pretty quickly; not that he was stupid, but it seemed Richard was good at taking orders. He did what he was told, but had the independence to decide when not listening was good.

He helped me to my feet and then I caught him feeling both of his ears in the darkness, “It’s gonna be fine,” I said. He didn’t respond, but his hands went to his side pretty quickly. He walked behind me while helping me to not fall on the staircase. I could see why he had tumbled earlier, there was barely enough space to put half your foot on each step, an absolute nightmare in the pitch dark.

Jessica, Thomas, Maria and Anna were each sleeping in a different corner of the room. Moonlight beamed through the only window and illuminated all but the corners, leaving them fully in the dark. Alan and Lucas were sitting on low chairs on either side of the window, just out of view from outside.

As soon as they saw me, both of them suddenly grabbed at their ears. I almost wanted to smack both of them for being silly, but Jessica could be convincing when she was mad. I brushed over their unusual behavior, “Where did you see them?” I asked Alan.

Unaided, I walked over until I could see out, without going into the patch of moonlight and Alan stood beside me. “Past the two buildings that way, right in between those three trees.” He pointed at an inconspicuous spot barely illuminated by the silver light.

My eyes scanned the area for at least a dozen seconds without coming up with anything. Then, about a dozen feet behind the trees, I saw the orange hue of life energy, picked out by Necrotic Vision. There were a series of low bushes, and the hue would occasionally show every time the wind howled. “Someone is watching us.”

“Wait, how can you be sure?” Lucas was skeptical as he had been when Alan had first claimed to have seen someone.

I explained Necrotic Vision, and then to further prove my point I gestured to each corner of the room: “Jessica. Maria. Thomas. Anna.” I picked out who was sleeping where.

“The watcher is ten feet back from where you showed me, among those bushes,” I pointed, but no one else could see what I was pointing at. The person in the dark was looking through the gaps in the bushes, essentially watching us from the darkness.

“Should we wake everyone else?” Lucas asked.

“What time is it?” I wasn’t expecting an accurate time, but it would be helpful to know if it had only recently got dark or if our group had slept for several hours.

“Probably eleven or twelve,” Alan replied.

“I don’t think they are in range of Jessica’s tracking ability, so waking her won’t change anything. Let the others sleep a bit more and we’ll leave in a few hours.” My idea was to time our move so that it would still be dark enough to escape, but then the sun would come up soon after we left: the best of both worlds. “Did either of you sleep yet?”

“I haven’t,” said Alan.

“You should try to get a few hours at least,” I said. He was the tank, and we couldn’t afford for him to be exhausted for the coming day. No one could afford to be exhausted in the face of deranged humans or vicious mobs. “Lucas and I should be enough up here; we have Richard downstairs too,” I added.

Alan was reluctant but eventually went downstairs and slept on the couch I had rested on earlier. “I said that to encourage him to sleep; but we need to be prepared to go at any moment.” I warned Lucas. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that our enemies attacked or burned the cabin to the ground to get us out. “If anything happens. I trust you to stay calm.”

He gave a firm nod and then focused his attention back outside.