External (Book 1&2)

Book 2|Chapter 8

|Tensions Rising|

"Well, we won." I say, breaking the silence with a slight amused tone in my voice. I try to lighten the tone of our walk since we are stressed and overwhelmed by the past couple of days.

"I don't think the bet matters now." Cayden says, rolling his eyes. "We lost our home anyways."

"How did the fire start?" William questions after Cayden's words remind him of the fire. Cayden looks over at Marcus with a grimace.

"Yeah, we don't know." Marcus answers for him with a pained look. "I was in the cabin when it started, taking a nap before I would have to go on watch. It was nearing sundown so Cayden had just started the fire for dinner."

"It was the normal fire. No bigger, no smaller." Cayden says with a shrug.

"It took a while for any of us to even notice that the cabin had caught fire. When I smelled smoke, I had assumed it was just the fire. It wasn't until it became extremely warm in the cabin that I realized." Marcus continues. As he speaks I realize how sore his voice sounds. "I tried to grab everything I could, but a lot of it was lost."

"Yeah we have a fraction of our food supply left." Lily points out, her voice still shaky from the earlier events. Her cheek has already began bruising as well as Cayden's. Sabrina is by far the worst though. She holds her ribs as she walks. Her eye has a dark circle surrounding it, her lip is split, and bruising covers her beat face. I bite the inside of my cheek when I glance at her. Could we have moved faster to avoid that?

Yes. Of course we could've.

But we didn't and now Sabrina is in pain. Thankfully, her supply of pain medications and other medical supplies were spared by the raging fire. Sabrina keeps her bag on her person always, not parting from it for a single second. While it's a little strange and slightly possessive, it has payed out here.

"Do we have enough to make it to headquarters?" William asks Lily.

"We have enough for each of us to have two meals a day for maybe-." She pauses trying to do the math inside her head. "Maybe four-five days?"

"That's not a lot." William says. He rubs his eyes as he talks in frustration.

"It's enough though. To make it to headquarters." I say, looking at the bright side. William doesn't respond though, just keeps walking with his eyes focused on the path in front of him.

We are all following Caleb who is leading us through the forest and towards headquarters with only a map and compass. Finding something like this is going to prove to be insanely hard. Knowing how difficult the facility is to find, how much more difficult can it get? It must be harder to find if this is the main base for their whole organization.

I am broken out of my chain of thought as snow begins to fall once again over our heads. The temperatures over these past two weeks have declined rapidly, but other than the cold, snow is actually something I do enjoy. It's gorgeous to watch and makes the walk much more enjoyable. A faint smile raises on my lips and I watch as snow falls onto Cayden's hair in front of me.

We walk for hours, but soon enough, the snow becomes overbearing. Several inches of snow covers the ground making every step an extraneous task. The clouds above are so thick that a dim shadow now casts down upon us, the sunlight barely being able to shine through. The gradual darkness is worrying because without the sunlight, will the creatures come out? Would it matter that it is still daytime?

I push my unnecessary worries to the back of my head. We will cross that bridge if it comes. Emphasis on the if. 

"We need to find somewhere to stay." Marcus yells out to grab all of our attention. "The snow is too thick."