I

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Section one.

Wading her way through the forest, she set eyes on her companions. She’d searched in every direction inside of the forest. She put it past them to be so undriven as to relax during their mission, but here they sat. They lay slumped under a dogtree in front of the wreckage. It seems they’d also failed.

“What do you think he’ll say?” a man groaned out, pushing himself up into a more comfortable sitting position. “We still haven’t found anything.” His hoarse voice lay muted behind the whistling of the wind and snow. Crow’s feet wrinkled through the edges of his eyes, short and scraggly hair rampaging down his head while a beard covered his face, hidden behind a cloth scarf draped in snow. With his robust arms, he signaled to Rheela dejectedly, feeling ignored.

Rheela, the man being questioned, hadn’t turned his head after being asked. His hair was tied in a ponytail, revealing his otherwise angular face and slight figure. Sitting in a casual position, he picked at a peach blossom in his hand, rubbing it in between his fingers. His sharp eyes angled toward the man next to him, responding, “He doesn’t have the authority to punish us, does he?” he said, his voice clear but lingering. “We’re here to clear the area, right? If no one’s here, we should be fine.”

The mature man offered no rebuttal, simply sighing and turning his gaze to two other men, sitting at the front side of the tree. They looked similar, both with hair that’d gone uncared for and round faces. They clothed themselves with long, brown furry coats over their tan undergarments. They only looked forward, their eyes fixated on something.

Sighing, the man decided against asking the two anything. He let his head fall back, his chin poking out of his scarf. “It’s not that simple… You should know that. Just because…” As Rheela ignored his repeated complaining, the man suddenly stopped, looking forward. Someone was approaching.

“Ada. Where’ve you been?” The bearded man spoke, slightly relieved. The group came to attention at her arrival, eager for news.

Ada slowed her stride and looked at the group, observing before she spoke. “No luck,” she said, “I doubt there’s anyone here. The shack may have been a temporary place to stay,” she said, gesturing to the rubble, “or they may have fled once we arrived.”

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Rheela interrupted, “Then, why are we still here?” The dogtree hadn’t shielded them from the snow, the bearded man in particular shivered intensely. Rheela stared at her, his eyes slowly taking on a weighty edge.

Without a change in expression, Ada responded, “On his orders,” she stated, “Obviously.” After a pause, she continued, “I’ve already tried to advise him. He didn’t give me a chance.”

She stared into his eyes, “Do you dare?”

Rheela kept silent, though his fingers rubbed with more force. The peach blossom in his hands had already disintegrated, breaking from the tree sprout as a curl of pink specks fell from his hand.

He lowered his eyes. He did not dare, as it was too daunting of a task. That man was their superior. Ada spoke again.

“Fres, have you been well?” she asked, finally unlatching her gaze from Rheela and taking a step closer.

“No. No one ever listens. We shouldn’t be sitting here—we should be looking.” He tried to raise his volume, but the wind blew counter to his words. Catching the error in his words with the context Ada has brought to the table, he continued, “But there’s nothing to find. We’ve searched for days now.” In a rush to convince Ada, he kept speaking. “We could find a whale in a desert if we tried, but this?”

“His position is at stake,” Ada countered gently, “I’ll say, I would have preferred another team leader.” Casting her gaze toward the two others staring into the abyss, she questioned, looking back at Fres, “What’s wrong with them?”

He struggled to scratch his beard, his hands trembling. “They’ve been strange for a while, I don’t know either.”

“Get up. Unless you lot want to starve in the cold, we need food,” she said, disappointed by their incompetence.

Fres perked up at her words, “Right, I caught a whiff of something in the forest. It smelled like a fresh kill nearby, want to go looking?”

Ada’s heartbeat accelerated slightly but she kept her cool. “No, it’d be long gone by now considering your condition.”

As the two continued their conversation, the coated men kept their stare as if they hadn’t heard anything. On a log that made up the ruins, a small stone was embedded. They were sure that such a thing wasn’t there when they first destroyed it. One of the two, with darker skin and a slightly slimmer face asked, “Do you remember the first-born, Raj?” He continued staring as a moment passed. The man beside him, his face full of blemishes, grunted in affirmation as the two continued staring.

After a while, they turned their attention to the three beside them. They were discussing how they’d break the news to the team leader. Raj’s gaze instead traveled up and didn’t stop for a while.

“Hey,” he said, grabbing the group’s attention with his flat voice. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing upwards above the treeline of the forest.

Ada and Fres halted their conversation, confused as they turned and looked along with Raj. There, a dark plume of smoke floated upwards, a stark contrast with the sky.

In shock, the group came to a realization. “Let’s go,” Ada uttered, already on her toes as she began sprinting into the forest.