The man shivered and slowly stepped back into the crowd; he disappeared. The commotion was lifted and everyone's attention was now averted towards Karen.

Karen pocketed her warrant card and started to calm the citizens in an ordinary manner. The ongoing speech, by the representative, was still being broadcasted in the background but no one really paid any attention to him.

* * *

Moments later, Sam finished his breakfast and we began to head towards Karen. We walked side by side with Sam in the middle, but the people in the surrounding gave us twitching, empty stares. Sam glared back at them as Rose shifted her head avoiding direct eye contact.

We approached Karen and I spoke up. "Hi! Thanks for earlier."

"No worries. Polices are here to help and handle such things. By the way, is it true that he's your kid?" she said looking towards Sam.

"No," Sam said annoyingly. "And, I am NOT six years old." He crossed his arms and fiercely turned his head away from Karen.

"Ah... no, we coincidentally met him at-" Rose began to say but I interrupted her.

"Ah! Yes, we only met him around a week ago, he's lost and we are just taking care of him," I said.

Rose looked at me with a slightly confused expression.

"Is that so?" she rhetorically questioned looking towards Sam. She knelt down and said, "Where're your parents?"

"..."

Sam continued to ignore her and a moment later, she got up and looked towards me and Rose.

"So are you two... a couple?" she asked.

Rose's eyes widened a little as she looked down towards the ground; she held on to her left elbow with her right hand and blushed a little.

"No," I said.

"Ye-yeah..." she muttered.

"We met at the same time as we met Sam. We got here and took shelter like everyone else," I told Karen.

"Is that so?" she rhetorically questioned again. "Alright, alright. Don't look so stiff, hahaha" she laughed. "I'm just playing with you." She reached out for a handshake and said, "Well, I'm Karen. If there's anything you need, just look for me over at that building."

Karen pointed towards the opposite side of our building. It had a similar design but was relatively smaller than ours.

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I reached out and shook her hand. "Yes, we will. Thanks for the help again."

I turned around. Sam was still annoyed and Rose was acting slightly strange - her face was red and her blushing didn't stop.

"Hey, Rose. Don't worry, she was just joking around."

She nodded slightly and we headed back towards our room.

* * *

As we approached our room door, the door - of the room next to us - opened and a group of three people walked out one by one. The young man walked out first and approached us.

"Oh, hi there!" he said enthusiastically. "Seems like we're neighbours! Hahaha," he laughed while reaching out his hand for a handshake.

"Ah... yes. Hello," I said carefully and shook his hand; it was cold.

The man was wearing a pair of black gloves, which felt like it was made from synthetic leather; it had some weird patterns on it.

"My name's Antonio! Nice to meet you all. We just moved in here, from the building opposite, this morning."

"Ah. I see, nice to meet you too."

He continued to hold on to my hand.

"Erm..." I looked down towards our handshake.

He noticed and retracted his hand. "Ah, hahaha."

Sam headed into the room ignoring them and Rose followed behind him. The group walked past us and Antonio turned around.

"See you all later!"

The other two girls - from that group - waved at us and followed him out.

I was struck for a moment and then walked back into our room. I closed my door and Sam jumped on the bed playing with his phone again.

"He's acting a little too happy, isn't he?" Sam questioned.

"Yeah," Rose said while sitting on the bed. "I think... we shouldn't get too close to them."

"Alright. But there's no need to worry too much. I think they are staying positive like this because of the current situation," I assured them. "Rose, are you alright? You seem to be a bit flushed today. Are you burning up?" I questioned looking into her eyes. "We have some medicine we grabbed before. If you need them, just use it."

"Erm... N-no," she stuttered while touching her cheeks with both of her hands. "I-I'm fine, just a little hot in here haha," she laughed.

"It's... not hot in here," I thought to myself. "Maybe she does have a fever."

"Lie down for a bit and rest up, Rose," I said slowly while taking my phone out of my pocket.

"Mhm, mhm."

I looked at my phone and it was low on battery again. Walking towards my bag, I turned my head towards Sam. "Hey... did you use my power bank again? We need to conserve power. I not sure when we will be able to charge our phones."

"Whatever," Sam said. "It's not like you will use the charge for anything else and you can't even go on the internet. Why not just let me play chess? Hey, you can play with me if you want - multiplayer," he grinned.

"I'm alright," I said opening my bag. I took out the power bank and pressed the button on top; the LED was flashing red, which meant it was low on battery. "If only there was a way to charge this power bank," I said to myself quietly while looking down at the only thing Janda left for me.

I proceeded to charge my phone, got on to the bunk bed and lied down hovering my phone above my head.

Swiping through my recent captures, I noticed that I didn't have that many photos. They were boring old photos taken from class or pictures of me and Janda; all of them were taken from the time we were still studying at uni. I scrolled down and saw the latest photo I took; it was the map.

The map showed a red 'x' indicating where the monolith was - also where the white suit was placed. The map was quite big, I travelled quite far to get back here from the 'x'.

"Hmm?" I thought to myself.

The area located near the left side of the map was slightly different. The buildings seemed a bit more... organised. They surrounded an area that seemed like there was a flat, empty land. There were even circular shaped buildings. It was labelled 'The Nether'.

"I wonder what that means," I said to myself.

I hovered over the side of the bed and looked towards Rose. Pointing towards the map on my phone, I showed it to Rose as she turned her head slightly looking up at me. "This might be our next stop."