Deeper into the thickets we ran in the dark of the night, the dry bristly twigs and branches scratched my legs and thighs in all directions. Sometimes Clarke would let out a yelp from the sharp pain and Thomas only made grunting noises. If it were not for the prosthetics all over my body I would have been complaining more than Clarke was. Occasionally, roars of anguish bellow could be heard from behind us but none of us turned to face the direction it was coming from. Dead leaves and sticks snapped and crunched underfoot beneath our weight as we thrusted our legs as fast as they could take us. Up ahead, Thomas stopped at a clearing and he looked around before turning back to face me.

“Where do we go now?” He exclaimed.

“Just keep going, we have plenty of ground to cover!”

We continued to run in the opening which had seemed like a bad idea but we had no other place to go after we had cleared the dense bushland, eventually we were starting to tire out. Clarke suggested we take a breather when we came to a grassy hill which he fell to his knees before face planting himself in the crisp green grass. Thomas then did the same shortly after and planted his rump on the slope facing the way we came before I too sat down. The clouds above us had grown thick to block out any of the stars or moonlight but it was close enough to the ground to reflect the spotlights that were on us mere moments ago. Occasionally we heard the chorus of pained roars and yells coming from the Barrier but it seemed as though no one came after us.

Strange, why aren’t they coming for us? We must be easy pickings to them or something.

“Holy shit, how did you do that!?” Clarke said while panting heavily.

Thomas rolled on to his side and faced him when he spoke. “ A couple weeks back, that pale idiot waltzed into our clinic and asked for a neural coprocessor. Instead, Mikey and I swapped out the one he wanted with a faulty processor that have been known for… shall we say, mind blowing experiences?”

Thomas grinned. He looked so stupid as though he was proud of his ridiculous dad joke.

“Oh, c’mon!” he exclaimed after a brief moment of silence, flicking his wrist on my arm. “That was solid gold.”

“Was it though?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

The three of us rested against our backpacks for another minute before Thomas stood up and brushed the blades of grass off him and then walked up the hill we were on. I followed him to the top of the hill where he had stopped at its peak. It felt like we stood on the edge of abyss, nothing but inky blackness before us in its nihilistic defiance

“So Michael, where are we going?” He asked me.

“Well first we need to get through the Elixia forest and then we need to somehow get through the Great Mountain Range or the Great Divide as it used to be known.”

“And the Cauldron is just after those mountains?” Clarke spoke up from behind me.

“Oh, no. Sorry. No, after the mountains we gotta cross the Soulfire Desert and then we end up near the Cauldron.

“Well, how long will that take us?” Clarke whinged.

“A week… maybe two?”

Silence fell on our group, not even the roars from the Barrier were being shouted anymore. To me it felt like time itself stopped and I was the only thing still moving. Thomas was the first to speak up and suggest we keep moving until we come across some place to rest for the night which Clarke and I agreed. After climbing back down from our green hill we continued walking aimlessly in the dark. I took point and guided the others using my night vision mode which only highlighted the grassy field ahead of us. After what had felt like an hour of slowly walking, I spotted in the distance a faint outline of trees. I led the group towards it and nearly ten minutes later we arrived at the edge of a forest. It was surprisingly quiet; no wind was making the leaves and branches rustle and no insects or birds chirped their nightly tunes. I found a suitable place for us to rest against the base of a towering Denga tree which had its exposed roots raised high enough to hide us from any outsiders.

Thomas suggested we place our bags in front of us to further obstruct ourselves even further than we did. One by one we started leaning against each other and let sleep consume me.

Soon I found myself in our old apartment; its familiar beige walls glowed from the sunset and all I could smell was my mother’s cooking of beef mince and grounded turmeric which told me she was preparing her specialty dish. The scent was so strong that I could taste it in the air. It felt strange how badly I wanted to eat, soon all my thoughts focused on how much I wanted to eat that meal. I was sitting at the table eagerly waiting for her to bring the pot over to which she called out it was ready. She set the pot down on a thick, wooden chopping board that had been carefully placed on the table to prevent the wooden surface from being damaged. I turned to face my mum to say my thanks for the meal but what I saw froze me. Her whole face looked deathly pale, her eyes were bloodshot, hair was messy and she had dark bags under her eyes; She looked back at me as if nothing was wrong but to me she looked all kinds of wrong, enough to make me suddenly lose my hunger.

“What’s wrong?” she asked sweetly, I didn’t even know where to begin telling her what’s wrong.

Then her eyes widened, her jaw went slack and a strange light green glow was on her face while slowly taking a step back. I was about to ask her what’s wrong when I saw my arms and the familiar glowing patterns. Slowly they pulsed first by going dull then letting out a bright flare of its blue-green hue which my panicked state of mind had me trying to brush it off my arms to no avail. Whatever it was, it was glowing on my skin as though the patterns were a part of me. I felt my heart rate go up when I heard knocking coming from the front door, I couldn’t risk someone discovering me like this. Suddenly a loud crash and the sound of wood splintering into thousands of pieces broke through the silence, I turned to see where it had come from only to see Xareith, the right side of his face was covered in raw burn marks and his once pristine hair was now ruined by the damage we had inflicted upon him. He carried that ornate spear he always had on him, pointed toward me as he charged. There was nothing I could do as it felt like time slowed to a crawl and I was left a mere observer to events happening with no power to change the outcome. As soon as I felt the spear tip pierce through my gut I heard him whisper that strange word again; Daa’quardo. Feeling the cold steely kiss of his blade sent paralysing pain throughout my body before suddenly waking up with a sharp gasp for air. Ever since the invasion and occupation, all I could ever dream about was death and destruction. That was whenever my dreams were coherent enough to not be a discordant mess of colours and memory flashes.

When I opened my eyes, I was greeted by a blinding glare until I remembered to turn off my night vision mode. After I had done so, my eyes adjusted to the lower light conditions to show me a lush rainforest with towering trees and a canopy that seemed impossibly high letting small rays of sunshine peek through to hit the forest floor. The tree trunk that sheltered us with its enormous wide roots was covered in patches of damp dark green moss. At least that explained why it felt unusually soft to sleep against. Insects chirped alongside the occasional enchanting tune of a songbird. I took a deep breath in and felt my lungs fill with warm unpolluted air that seemed to have a sweetness to it. All around me the natural beauty radiated with a positive glow that I hadn’t felt back home, for the first time in my life it felt like I had my first breath of real air that wasn’t processed for me to breathe.

Clarke was the first to stir from his sleep. His head was resting on Thomas’s shoulder, drool leaking from his mouth.

Man, he is gonna be pissed when he wakes up.

The old man shook his head to wake himself up, then placed his hand on his mouth to inspect the drool before flicking his wrist to get it off. Thomas woke up next, groaning and mumbling something to himself. After getting up on his feet he noticed the dribble on his shirt, groaning in frustration. “Who the fuck drooled on me!?”

Hearing the way Thomas say that, I couldn’t help myself from giggling at his misfortune. He heard me giggle and looked towards me with a frustrated expression. “Fucking hell, Michael. You did this?!”

“No, no” I said while giggling. “It was Clarke, he was on your shoulder.” I pointed a finger toward the old man who held his hands in a what-did-I-do-wrong manner. Thomas threw his head in Clarke’s direction and saw the remnants of the dribble still lingering in the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, you friggin’ animal!” Shouted Thomas.

Admittedly I couldn’t help but find myself laughing at his misfortune. Thomas shot a disapproving glare towards me that only served to make it even more funny.

“C’mon, we gotta get moving. Grab your bags and let's find our way out of here.”

Thomas took the lead; Clarke was the next to follow him and I took the rear while holding my submachine gun in my hands. Throwing our legs over large fallen trunks, leaf litter crunching underneath our feet and our guns held close to our chests. I thought about what we must have looked like, being in the rainforest turning our heads to every rustle in the canopy above us as birds flew from branch to branch carrying twigs for their nests or feeding their chicks. It reminded me of that old wartime movie from a few decades ago about guerrilla fighters taking on the superior U.N.S.K armies.

Later that day when the sun reached its zenith, we began to feel the full force of its heat baking us in the forest like a humid powered microwave. Clarke, Thomas and myself were covered in sweat, our clothes had been glued to our bodies and it wasn’t long before we could smell our own pits. Thomas walked toward a large tree that looked similar to the one we slept against this morning.

“God, its so hot!” Clarke whinged.

“We know! We can feel it too.” Thomas shouted.

Above us we heard a flock of birds fly away in fright from Thomas’s raised voice.

“Come on, you two. We are deep in enemy territory; we cannot keep our voices up without giving away our position.” I said to them, they both looked at me before looking towards each other with looks of agreement. Clarke scoffed then took another sip from his bottle.

Shortly we packed up our stuff and continued our trek through the rainforest without further complaints from my travelling companions. Whilst I found the sounds of crunching leaf litter mixed with the loud, raucous chorus of a nearby flock of Laughing birds to be quite relaxing, I did find the silence from my brother and Clarke to be awkward, I wanted to talk to them about anything, the sudden quietness felt unnatural and that I needed to rectify it.

“So… Uhh, Clarke?” I said uncertainly.

“What is it Michael?” He turned his head around without stopping.

“So umm, do you like any movies?” Dammit, why did I choose that of all things to say? It sounds as though I am pretending this is normal. But at least it made Clarke put his eyes forward while he thought of his answer for a moment, then he said. “My favourite film most definitely has to be the Moon Front trilogy. Honestly, the first movie had the best soundtrack, the second one had the better action scenes and the third was written perfectly in my opinion.”

“Really?” Thomas said, intrigued. “First one was perfect, second one was alright and third was meh.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“How dare you, the third film ties up all the loose ends. Commander Rokov finally gets married and retires, Tech Sergeant Chen gets command of the Horizon base and karma finally catches up with that traitorous bitch, Holly.”

“Yeah, that’s what did it for me. That scene of her getting blown out into space was just brutal.”

“What about you, Michael? Which film do you like the most?”

Suddenly my mind went blank and my gaze drifted towards the forest floor as I continued my trek. Damn, it was a good trilogy of films. Moon Front trilogy was very popular for its political commentary mixed with well-written story telling. I still remember the first time I watched in the apartment’s living room; Clarke was right, the film did have the best soundtrack as I summoned the memory of the first time I saw that scene in the first act where the space shuttle approached Lua’s orbital station. The music swelled with a strange mix of vocals and tribal instruments which then simmered down to a group of cellos and violins. The strange mixture of sounds mixed with unusual camera angles to me created a feeling of awe and wonder that I felt when I saw that Shuttle dock with the mysteriously quiet station.

“I agree with Thomas; the first one was the best.”

He let out a triumphant hah.

Just then, when Thomas’s voice carried through the forest, I heard the sharp sound of a twig snapping from behind. My heart rate spiked and I spun around to see what was behind us but instead I saw nothing but the dense trees and brush. After performing a quick scan with my eyes, I assumed it was just some wild animal nearby that got scared of the noise we were making. So, I ran to catch up with the duo who were unaware of my lagging absence. I re-joined the group just in time as Clarke was asking me about my favourite movie.

“Well, if I had to pick it would be The Monster of Arreos… Bradley Ibanez’s acting was superb! Not to mention I liked the design of the monster, it’s a giant lizard that can stomp on cities, what’s not to like?”

Afterwards we continued to walk in silence. Chirps and the distinctive calls of birds in the branches high above us mixed with the droning of insects created a calming ambience. Our footfalls crunching along the dead dry leaves that permeated the forest floor echoed off the trees among the silence. Thomas suddenly stopped dead in his tracks causing Clarke to walk into him before holding up his fingers raised, signalling us to stop.

“What is it?” I asked in a hushed tone.

But he shushed me. His eyes scanned the clearing we were in and seemed to be focused heavily on something, I couldn’t sense anything around us while I scanned the area we had just passed through only moments before with my eyes and gun. Nothing revealed itself to me among the trees, even after zooming in as far as my prosthetics could allow without losing its quality I was given nothing to see beyond the natural landscape.

“I hear something.” Thomas spoke softly.

“Is it a Dragon?”

“No, no. it's not a Dragon. It sounds like… water?”

“There’s a dragon in the water?” Clarke asked.

“Its not a dragon, dumbass!” he shouted.

The noise sent an unseen flock of birds flying away scared.

“I think it might be a waterfall. Follow me.”

Thomas shifted direction and walked to the right of the clearing. It wasn’t long before I too, could hear the sound of water trickling. The gentle trickling grew louder with each step we took. Just ahead of us beyond the tree line I saw a river stream gently bubbling from a short drop that provided the river with its water. The soft trickling from the waterfall only added to the calming ambience in addition to the birdsong surrounding us. The water looked so clean that I could easily see the smooth oval shaped stones that lined the bottom of the river. After kneeling down at the river’s edge and placing one of my prosthetic arms into the water to pick up one of the stone I was greeted with a gentle cooling sensation provided to me by the sensors in my arm telling me the water was reasonably cool. I let the rock slip between my fingers and watched it hit the others before thrusting my arm back towards my face, dousing it with the cool water and letting out a sigh of relief.

“Oh my gods, this is so refreshing!” I exclaimed to no one in particular.

Clarke knelt down next to me at the edge of the river and cupped his hands, bringing it up to his face then sipped on the water that was captured. He too let out a satisfied sigh before pressing his face against his hands which had splashed the water all over him and dripped on his clothes.

“Ohh, you got no idea how great this feels!” Clarke shouted.

Thomas soon approached the waterfall and he too tentatively cupped his hands before extending them out to the falling water. Then he froze, pulled his hands back in and threw a glare towards Clarke and myself.

“Wait! How do we know this water is safe for drinking? There could be parasites or something.”

“what!?” I said with shock and confusion.

“You know, parasites and insect eggs in the water.” Thomas explained. “We gotta boil the water to purify it.”

“With what?”

“I don’t know, Clarke. Do we have a burner and a kettle or something?”

Suddenly my hands flew all over my body, checking my pockets to see if I had anything even resembling what Thomas described. Then I shrugged my backpack off my shoulders to inspect the contents… spare clothes, books, ration bars, some antibiotics, extra ammunition magazines… oh crap.

I was beginning to panic, without thinking I threw my head into the opening to inspect the interior while Clarke had taken his bag off his back and started searching the contents of his bag too. After pulling my head out from the zipper I immediately looked to Thomas who was still standing tall over us with his arms crossed while his gun hung idly from his side.

“I don’t have anything.”

“Me neither!” Clarke added.

My brother looked away; his eyes filled with discontent while he shook his head disappointingly. He groaned, taking a few steps away from the small waterfall.

“Never mind,” he started speaking. “Whether or not we do, we are going to run out of clean water eventually. C’mon, cool yourselves quickly and let’s go!”

For the next hour being in that cool, freshwater river was all I could think about. Its stream of perpetually sustained water cooled us down. In fact, I wanted to stroll back to the river and simply drift in it and let it take me. But I couldn’t let a fantasy, even a very real one distract me from maintaining my guard. After we left the river, I could have sworn something just downstream from us, something moved in the corner of my eye. I couldn’t quite explain it but I heard rustling among the bushes a stone’s throw away. Periodically I would check the area behind us to make sure we weren’t being followed.

My suspicions only increased when I performed a visual check shortly after we had left the river and I caught a glimpse of a flash of something moving fast. I was on high alert when I saw it, so I stood still while I zoomed in on where I thought I saw it, hoping to catch another glimpse of whatever it was peering out of cover. Nothing did reveal itself.

“C’mon, Mikey.” I whispered to myself. “Don’t go crazy yet. Not yet.”

After a while, Thomas took a step back and let me lead the group. My first instinct was to stop and pull my book on the Cauldron out of my bag and use the picture for references. The quick stop was a welcome one after our faces dripped with sweat from the afternoon heat and the humid climate in the forest. Until I saw the artistic interpretation of the land between Balko and the Cauldron once again, I believed that it was more straight forward until I closely examined the painstakingly detailed drawing and saw something.

“I don’t fucking believe it!” I mumbled to myself.

The waterfall we had crossed earlier was shown in the depiction. Moreover, the river snaked its way through the rainforest and led to the base of the mountains we needed to cross. I followed the depiction using my finger to trace it and saw where we might have been in relation to the map. Thomas and Clarke came up behind me as I heard the footfalls thump behind me to see what it was.

“Guys, take a look at this” I said, holding up the book which Thomas not-so-subtly yanked out of my hands.

“What, what am I looking at?” He asked impatiently.

I rolled my eyes at him before jamming my finger on the page where the river we had crossed was.

“Doesn’t this river look a bit familiar to you?” I jabbed my finger at the depiction as I spoke.

“No.”

“No.” Clarke responded.

After groaning in frustration I explained to the duo my suspicions about our location and how we can get to the mountains faster. Both men seemed to be deeply in thought while staring at the picture; Thomas rotated the book around as though seeing it from a different angle would change things. Clarke stammered as he was about to say something before going completely silent, perhaps he was going to create a counter argument but didn’t find any.

“How… How do you even know this is the same river?” Thomas asked. “There could be a dozen others just ahead and many that are probably larger and more significant than the one we passed.”

“I know it’s a longshot,” After grabbing the book of him and re-examined the picture for landmarks I pressed my finger once more then showed it Thomas and Clarke. “Here! There’s a pond or a small lake or something upstream from the river. Could be a day or two depending where we are, but here’s my proposal: we follow the river, upstream and see if we can at least get our bearings. If not then we’ll do it your way and find another way to the mountains.”

Thomas looked thoughtful for a moment. During that time, its passage had seemingly slowed even further than the neural processor could do. I thought to myself that perhaps I was risking too big a gamble on this. What would I know after all? No human has ever ventured this far in decades. Maybe even centuries. While Thomas looked at the book his available hand went to his chin and started stroking it thoughtfully.

“Alright then,” he sighed defeatedly. “Since this is your idea; you take us back to the river, Michael and lets hope that you are right about this.” Forcefully shoving the book into my chest.

The fuck is up with him?

Roughly what felt like less than an hour later we went back on any progress we had made since the river. While in the lead, I thought that maybe this would give me a better chance to see if we were being followed but alas I was relieved to know that we were not followed after passing the area I thought I saw something and seeing no evidence to be found. Through a small clearing in the forest, I could spot the babbling brook we stopped at just ahead. Soon the gentle sound of the water lapping over rock croppings could be heard as we approached it. I looked to my right where the water was going to see if there was anything that could be used as a landmark. Nothing. I turned my head to the left and began marching towards the creek’s source. No trees or overhead branches blocked the sunlight over the water channel, the sun started to fall and paint the sky a bright orange that shimmered in the water as though it was made out of liquid gold. My eyes were squinted to reduce the amount of light coming in, but it was too bright for me to handle. The walk along the creek felt like hours went by until I thought of an idea to pass the time.

“So, Clarke, lemme ask you a question.” I asked.

“Shoot.”

“What’s the best part of your job? Being a politician, I mean… Aside from the money or the fame.” I clarified.”

Without hesitation, Clarke immediately responded with. “Oh, that’s easy. It’s the travelling. Yeah, the travelling has to be the best part. Getting it for free on the Tax-payer’s dime is just a bonus. People just assume being a politician means sitting on your ass all day, having wall to wall meetings with your colleagues and discussing policies. However, when I first started working I got the privilege to do a lot of diplomatic work overseas. My first travel assignment was actually going to our Embassy in the Socialist Kulmar; I mean, say what you want about their aggression but those military parades are truly a special sight. Seeing those soldiers march in perfect formation was truly a feast for the eyes.”

“What was the most difficult thing you’ve done in your job? Aside from screwing the people over?” Thomas quipped.

Clarke let out a chuckle. “Probably had to be the time I had to settle a dispute on Lua.”

My feet suddenly went still. I turned around to face him and I found Thomas had a look of surprise equal to my own.

“You’ve been to Lua!?” We said in unison.

“Hell yeah. When we get back home, remind me to show you the pictures.”

“Tell us everything!” I turned around and resumed walking alongside the creek.

“Well, this was about ten or so years ago. So the Alliance of Liberal Nations had accused the U.N.S.K of testing weapons on the moon. The Kulmarins strongly denied these accusations and the A.L.N continued to press on.”

As Clarke spoke, something about what he said didn’t add up and so I began searching through my memories hoping to catch a glimpse of what it was that didn’t make sense to me. Finally I came across a memory of me riding in Thomas’s now ruined Nova car when suddenly it hit me.

“Hang on,” I interrupted. “But didn’t the radio say that a massive explosion went off on Lua, like over a month ago? So what’s there to accuse, there’s a brand new crater of evidence.”

“At the time they were accusations and rumours. Now? Not so much.”

“So how did you of all people get sent to Lua?” Thomas asked impolitely.

“Funny story,” Clarke chuckled. “So, because of the tense hostilities the two parties have, it was agreed I would go to Lua to investigate the moon base and see for myself what was going on and report back.”

“You went to Lua!? What was it like being on the moon? That low gravity, the barren landscape, being in space. Oh! That would have been a dream come true.” I said with excited energy.

“When I first set foot off that shuttle and actually stood on the surface of the moon. I couldn’t believe my own eyes. The whole place was spectacular in its own barren ways. The moon base however was far more austere and spartan in its interior design than you would think. Did you know that their beds don’t have any padding?”

I spun around once more to face Clarke while I shifted my gait to walk backwards. Comfortably confident that I wasn’t going to trip over or miss something from what I had seen. “What? Then how do they sleep? On the slats or…”

“Nope, their beds are basically little horizontal alcoves in the walls and they sleep on the metal with only a pillow for comfort.”

“Fucking hell, that’s gotta be uncomfortable.”

“I’ll say this, it would have been far worse were it not for the low gravity climate up there.”

I faced forward again after my foot got caught on something and momentarily made me think I was about to fall over. The setting sun bathed the rainforest in a vivid display of bright oranges and dark yellows that made it seem the trees were made out of gold. We continued to trek through the wilderness long after the sun had set and all that remained was pink and orange light that lingered in the sky. But still, I felt odd, I couldn’t shake the feeling something bad was going to happen when suddenly I heard a rustle of branches coming from our left in the forest. Without even thinking my arms raised my gun towards the source when I heard the rustling again but coming from behind us. But there was nothing there. Thomas and Clarke had raised their weapons and scanned the area for anything that would dare show itself to us when suddenly we heard the sharp crisp snap of a stick breaking from behind me and we instantaneously turned to face the source with our weapons primed and ready.

All three of us stood stiffly at the sight of the fragile looking creature. It held a bow and pulled tautly on the arrow while aiming at us with unflinching resolve. Actually, I think it was aiming at me. Her head was pointed upwards but her brown eyes were keenly kept on us, watching us for any sudden movements. But none of us stood down, we were stuck in a stalemate.

Hold on, she can only take on one of us before the other two mow her down.

“Hold it right there, humans. Not one step further!” She shouted.

I felt my fear grip on the submachinegun’s handle tighten, my pulse hastened and without meaning to I felt the buttstock of my gun force its way into my shoulder as the nozzle flashed.