As it turned out, they had walked right past an exit to the underground complex. If they had gone through the gruesome kitchens, they would have found a door that led to a long hallway and finally an exit.

The complex led out into a large cavern with countless tunnels that snaked beneath the rocky plateau. Fortunately, the Bloodtide Covenant set up torches at set intervals to mark the best passages.

Mel led her silent party through the pools of light amid the darkness, surprised but relieved that they didn’t come across any more monsters.

From the way their eyes darted back and forth, Mel didn’t think their nerves could handle another battle.

Mel marked a few side passages as potentially useful places to scout out later. She could smell fresh water down them, but didn’t want to risk a confrontation against whatever else might be drinking from them.

When they exited the cavern system, it was clear that they were no longer on the same plateau. The sheer wall of rock above and behind them could have been the very same cliff that Mel once looked down for all she knew.

The forest was denser here, more foreboding.

Mel couldn’t shake the sensation that they had ventured into a more dangerous area. She was glad for the enhancements to her equipment, but at the same time she was keenly aware that she could not rely upon the others.

She still held out hope that they could find a safe place to rest and recover. Her health was on the mend, but would take time to fully heal.

Like the others, Maddie kept looking around as if she expected the shadows of the trees to snatch her.

Instead of spreading out slightly as Mel had taught them, they stayed in a tight clump, afraid and jumpy at every little sound the forest made.

Mel didn’t know why she made straight for the darkness of the forest. There were paths around it to the north and south, but she felt an urge to dive straight into it. As if she could feel somebody watching her.

Once inside, the itching feeling between her shoulder blades lessened, and she started to relax.

Squirrels and other animals moved about in a tapestry of life, highlighted in reds and oranges to her infravision. Anybody trying to hide from her would be clearly highlighted against the background warmth of the shaded underbrush.

Eventually, Mel noticed a shift in the coloration of the plants. On a hunch, she followed the cooler colors until she came across a small, forested pond.

Without her infravision, she would have walked right past this place. The foliage was so dense and the area so rocky that even from a few feet away, she could not tell what was there.

Rocky shelves lined the northern and eastern edges, with the southern and western ends sloping down to the pond. The water was startlingly still, reflecting the trees and blue sky up above like a mirror.

The water had a milky green hue to it. A few fish darted under the water as her shadow fell across the pond.

In short, it was nearly perfect. Small enough that larger animals and people were unlikely to find it, but deep enough for fishing and clean drinking water.

The screen of trees and dense underbrush hid them from sight. As Mel went down to the edge of the pond, she noticed that the overhang of rock from the eastern edge created a small shelter.

Skirting the edge of the water, Mel disappeared beneath the dark shelf of rock. There was nothing there aside from crumbled stone and smooth pebbles. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable seating arrangement, but Mel could stand up easily. More importantly, there was just enough room for each of them to lounge out comfortably.

When Mel returned, she could see the peace of the area working on her friends. Each passing moment relaxed them a little further.

“There’s a small shelter down there that you can stand up in,” Mel told them.

Shane, the tallest of the group, looked doubtfully at her, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Maybe you can.”

“Ha ha,” Mel said, encouraged by his demeanor. “I know I’m short, but even if you can’t stand up, the rest of us can.”

A small smile played on Sabrina’s lips. “I don’t know about that, Mel.”

Mel rolled her eyes and took it all in stride. “How about we go down there and check it out instead of making short jokes at my expense?”

Unfortunately, when Mel led them to the shelter, she was the only person in the entire group who could stand without her head touching the stone ceiling.

She folded her arms and frowned at their hunched forms. “I get it, I’m short!”

That outburst seemed to pop the ballooning tension that had been hovering over their heads ever since the chapel of the Bloodtide Covenant.

From that moment on, they slowly returned to life. Each person pitching in with a respective task to make the place a little more livable.

Bernard and Shane went to find wood, Nathan and Sabrina made a stone ring for the fire, while Maddie and Mel went to find something to eat.

“I am starving,” Mel said, trying to get Maddie to come out of her shell a bit more. The poor woman had been through more than anybody else.

Maddie nodded. “There’s usually some blackberries around bodies of water like this, makes for some scratched legs but good foraging.”

True to her guess, there were plenty of blackberries to be had. Mel reached into the briars without thinking about it, much to Maddie’s surprise.

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The other woman tried to warn her, but Mel held up her gloved hand. “I’ve got armor on, don’t worry.” Mel deposited a handful of berries into the woman’s makeshift pouch.

They spent the better part of that day foraging and resting.

Mel suggested that they use the canteens they had to wash off the worst of their ordeal before anybody had the bright idea to take a dip in the pond, potentially tainting their drinking water.

Nobody argued with her about it, despite the added annoyance it would bring. At the same time, nobody talked about what they had been through. It became clear as night fell that it was something Mel would need to broach before long.

If she didn’t, it would fester beneath the surface.

The only sign that there were people here was the thin stream of smoke coming out from beneath the lip of stone around the small forest pond. Even that was all but impossible to see unless you were close enough to smell it.

Satisfied that they were as safe as possible, Mel slinked back into their shelter. Nathan was stuffing his face with berries and drinking from a leather canteen filled with fresh pond water.

Nobody had gotten sick from drinking the water yet, so they assumed it was safe.

“I think we need to talk,” Mel said, wishing she didn’t have to bring this up.

“We do,” Sabrina agreed. “We’ve been talking…”

Mel raised a brow. “When?”

“While you were cleaning up,” Nathan told her.

Mel had insisted on being the last one to get clean. It was an uncomfortable experience washing in cold water from a bottle.

There was no shampoo or soap, but she found that her skin cleaned a lot easier than she thought it would. Almost as if she was cleaning stone or metal instead of skin. The dirt and filth rinsed away with surprising ease.

While each person cleaned, everybody else stood guard to make sure nothing happened to them. Mel didn’t mind somebody peeking at her. She had nothing to hide and was quite honestly proud of her body, but her confidence wasn’t shared by anybody else.

Mel turned to Nathan, reminded that her hair was still wetly clinging to the back of her neck. “I didn’t take very long. It must not have been a long conversation.”

“It wasn’t,” Sabrina agreed. “Though I must say, you were a model of efficiency. Unlike some people.”

All eyes turned to Shane.

The big guy hunched his shoulders. “What?! I’m not comfortable being naked around other people, okay? There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Are you one of those never nudes?” Nathan asked, a spark of the joker he used to be returned to his eyes.

“No, I get naked!”

“Do you though?”

Shane turned beet red, but didn’t argue the point anymore. “I think we’re getting off track,” he said tightly.

“Shane’s right,” Sabrina agreed. She turned to Mel. “You’ve done so much for us, saved our lives time and time again…”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” Mel said.

Sabrina clasped her hands and nodded. “There is.”

Mel shifted her position and tilted her chin up. She had expected this. “Go on then, I can take it. I’m a big girl.”

“We can’t do this anymore, Mel,” Sabrina said, her voice choked with emotion. “I know we said we’d follow you anywhere…but after…after that , we can’t. It’s too much. Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces. I can’t do it, Mel.”

Mel nodded, already halfway to standing. “I understand. I’ll pack my things and–”

“Wait, what?” Sabrina surged to her feet, hit her head, cursed, then crouched. “What do you mean? We don’t want you to go.”

Mel looked at them all in turn. “This sounds like a breakup.”

Sabrina reached out and took Mel’s hand. “Mel, we don’t want you to leave. We want you to join us . It couldn’t have been easy for you protecting us and watching over us in that…that charnel house. How many days has it been, three? I’ve gone through more horrors in the last three days than I had in my entire life. I can’t do it anymore, Mel. None of us can. It would be wrong to expect you to keep fighting. We want you to join us. Lay down your burdens.”

Mel looked down at Sabrina’s trembling hand holding onto hers. How wrong she was that Mel suffered for what she did. It hadn’t been a picnic, but it wasn’t that bad.

This is the gulf between us, Mel thought to herself. They seek to hide away from the pain, while I run toward it like some sort of addict. They’re such kind people that they think I’m like them.

“Join you?” Mel asked, grappling with the impending decision.

“We’ve been talking about what you told us,” Shane said. “You mentioned that people will probably be moving outward from wherever they entered the competition, right? That’s what we did, even if we didn’t realize it. Well…what if we do the opposite? Go back toward the starting area.”

“We think that maybe there will be fewer monsters,” Sabrina said. “Fewer people who want to fight and kill. With less room for advancement, the people seeking strength will move farther away, right? So what safer place than the areas that have already been cleared out?”

“It’s not a bad idea.” Mel had to admit. It made a lot of sense. If you wanted to survive, staying put or going back to the starting location was probably a wise choice. “There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Going back is nearly impossible.”

“There has to be another way back,” Sabrina said. “Even if it’s back through another cave, we can handle it. The closer we get to the starting area, the less dangerous it’ll be anyway, right?”

Mel could see that they were all clinging to this one spider silk strand of hope with all the fervor of a drowning man. She couldn’t take it away from them.

“You might be right,” she said with a forced smile. “But you’ve all been through so much. I can’t ask you to do that.” Mel took a deep breath. This was the least she could do. “I’ll find the way back. You just stay here and recover.”

The surprise on their faces was clear. Mel wondered if they thought she would argue with them about their decision.

It wasn’t up to her to decide what they wanted. They had been there for her when she needed help, and she would be there for them. They may not be like her, but that didn’t make them any less deserving of life.

If Mel could hide them away somewhere safe, maybe she would feel less guilty about going off on her own.

Maybe.