Summers looked out to what used to be his way home. It was filled with the dead, some his own, some the strange creatures of whatever this world was. He leaned down, picking up a rifle from one of the dead soldiers. He checked the magazine, still full. Summers tossed the unspent magazine into a duffel bag at his side.

“Find anything special?” Nowak called out to Summers.

“More of the same. Couple MRE’s.” Summers called back. He saw Nowak turn away. The 63rd had managed to set up a rudimentary camp, and though it looked like they were initially settling in for the long haul, what was left over in there was either destroyed or useless day to day bureaucratic bullshit. They desperately needed some supplies.

They’d settled on scavenging the battlefield for anything they could use, food, weapons, clothes that weren’t too messed up. It didn’t sit right with him, stealing from the dead like this. But with god knows how long they’d have to last out here they’d quickly decided they’d need it more than their fallen comrades would. Most importantly, they’d needed medical supplies. Nowak was doing what he could for Logan. Which wasn’t much, they’d tied off his leg as best they could manage, but without somewhere to treat him it’s likely he wouldn’t make it. He was hoping they’d at least find some pain killers to make it a little more comfortable.

That isn’t to say there wasn’t a screaming match for the stunt he’d pulled closing their only way home. But after tensions died down, they more or less agreed it was the right call to make. Whether that attitude would persist past the first week hoofing it through what looked like an endless forest, they’d find out.

“Guys!” Adams shouted. He was standing under a small canopy next to the young girl Summers had picked up, having been relegated to babysitting. They were doing their best to keep her away from the, in some cases literal piles of bodies, that littered the camp. The poor kid hadn’t said a word after what happened. Then Logan dropped out, given he’d probably saved her life in the fight earlier, he’d assumed they were close.

Summers jogged over to the private’s side. “What? What did you find?!”

Adams only pointed down at the girl. “Fucking look at her!”

Summers eyed Adams, then glanced down at the kid. She… was a kid. Long hair, probably on the shorter side for her age, blue eyes, pointed ears. Wait.

“What?” Summers said, pulling the girl’s hair out of the way. He hadn’t noticed them before. She didn’t seem to appreciate that as she slapped his hand away.

“No touch!” She yelled. Only she said it with a bit of an accent. Then he remembered hearing her speak something… well other than English when they’d first found her.

“Sorry.” Summers said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “So uh, what are you?” Summers asked.

“Jesus man, have some class.” Adams interjected.

“Sorry. Again.” Summers said, Adams may have had a point. “Where are you from?” Summers quickly amended.

“…Zolah.” The girl finally answered. And that solved nothing.

Nowak approached, saw both Summers and Adams crowded around the girl, then saw her ears.

“Uh, is she an elf?” Nowak asked.

The girl saw everyone staring at her. She pointed to herself, speaking slow as if to a child.

“I am Asle.”

“Are there more Asle?” Adams asked.

“Asle. Name.” She said, punctuating the words as best she could.

“You’re Asle?” Nowak tilted his head. “What were you doing here? With these men.” Nowak said, indicating the dead around them. Asle didn’t seem bothered in the least by the scene.

“You take Asle from Zolah. Make me speak.” Asle said simply.

“We take?” Summers asked, confused. “Where’s Zolah?”

“Really far!” Asle said, pointing seemingly in every direction at once.

Then the realization hit.

“Shit. No, no. We. No. Take. Not us.” Summers immediately understood that for whatever reason, the 63rd had kidnapped a child. And rightfully wanted to distance himself from that.

“You take Asle.” She replied with a bit of finality, and more than a little accusation.

“I think she’s their translator.” Nowak concluded. When he saw Summers expression he clarified. “Whatever the 63rd were trying to do, we know this ain’t anywhere on earth, not our earth anyway. Settlers used to do the same thing back when they came to America. Take children, teach them to speak your way, and they can help you talk with the natives.”

“She’s still just a kid.” Adams said.

“First thing’s first, you all right? We’ve been in sort of survival mode and I didn’t think about what you’d be going through. Sorry about that.” Nowak looked the girl over. Asle didn’t give a reaction, if she was bothered by the, in some cases literal piles of bodies around her, she wasn’t showing it.

“Fine.” She said simply.

Nowak leaned down to the girl’s level, “Good. Do you think you can help us? Because we could really use some help right now.” He took her silence as permission to continue. “Do you know what that is?” Nowak pointed at what remained of the shambling moss creature that had torn into their friends. Asle nodded. “Are there more?” Nowak asked.

“Um. Skeen. Children feed.” She said, indicating the pale creatures around it. “Only one, too big. No more.” She said, more confident. “Skeen gone too. No mother, they find new.” She nodded to herself, seemingly proud for having an answer.

“So, queen bee and the absolutely terrifying drones?” Adams speculated.

“Sarge I don’t know if I’m good with dragging a kid through hostile territory.” Summers said.

“We don’t have much choice. But I get what you’re saying.” Nowak glanced down at the girl. “Look, Asle, you don’t have to stay with us, we can find you somewhere -” Before he could finish Asle’s eyes widened, it wasn’t quite an expression but there was something of panic in her eyes.

“No leave! No leave!” She shouted. “I. Will. Speak. Good.” She seemed to put more effort into that sentence than before.

“No.” Nowak said quickly. “You can leave if you want. Do you understand? You can stay with us if you want. But you do not have to.”

It took Nowak a few more reassurances before she started to calm down. “Wow sarge you’re great with kids.” Summers muttered.

“Shut up.” Nowak said. “Reason I stayed single.”

“Uh huh.” Summers looked at him skeptically.

“Y’all want to explain what’s going on over there?” Cortez shouted as she left the treeline. She had about six guns slung over her shoulder, and one in her hands.

“Uh… She’s an elf?” Summers shouted back, pointing to the girl beside him.

“Asle.” Asle muttered.

“…Fucking neato.” Cortez replied, completely nonplussed. “I found the big boss. Need some help.”

What Cortez found was an LUV – a Humvee about 30 feet in the air tangled in the branches of an absolute beast of a tree. At its side dangled the very much dead suit Summers had seen earlier.

“How in the shit did he get up there?” Nowak stared up at the dented Humvee.

“My guess is the big guy tossed him.” Cortez answered.

“Real question is how are we going to get it down?” Adams asked.

“I got an idea.” Summers said, raising his gun and leveling it at the thick branch holding the Humvee.

“No. No. That’s a stupid goddamn idea.” Nowak said, seeing where Summers’ mind was going.

“You got a better one?”

“Just give me a second.” Nowak said, watching the Humvee intently.

Two hours later Summers took aim at the offending branch.

“Clear!” He shouted, then fired a long burst into the base. They tore through the wood in an instant. There was a loud crack, then the Humvee tumbled down nose first, slamming into almost every limb of the tree it could before landing wheels down in front of them. Its suspension bounced as the corpse of the suit crashed onto the hood of the Humvee with a wet thud.

“That actually worked better than I expected it to.” Nowak admitted.

Cortez immediately got to work looking the Humvee over. She shoved the corpse of the suit off the hood, popping it and giving the engine a once over. Then quickly moved to the driver’s seat.

To his surprise, Summers heard the engine first struggle, then turn over. It actually ran.

“Oh hell yes!” Cortez said with a smile. “We got our ride out of here.”

“Kill it, we need to preserve gas as much as possible.” Nowak said. He had his hands in the suit’s pockets.

Summers flipped the corpse over, helping his sergeant, “You got used to this grave robbing thing fast.”

“Not grave robbing. I just want some answers. Here we go.” At that Nowak pulled a cracked phone from the suit’s pocket. And it still had a charge. “Shit, it’s locked.”

“Give it here.” Summers said. As Nowak handed it over, Summer’s held up the corpses’ face to the camera. The phone flashed in recognition, and the home screen appeared as he handed it back.

Adams watched all of this with a look of absolute horror. “You people need some goddamn therapy.”

“Given the kind of shit we’re in you should probably get used to it.” Summers replied.

Asle was prodding at the suit on the ground. “See she ain’t scared.” Summers added. Asle opened her mouth, taking an experimental bite of the man’s finger.

“Nevermind.” Summers quickly moved to the girl’s side, gently pulling the dead man’s hand from her grip. “We don’t eat dead people.”

Asle pouted, Summers took one of the dead men’s MRE’s and handed to the girl. After showing her how to open the package she seemed satisfied. So now he had to deal with a cannibal elf. Great.

“Actually, I guess it’s not cannibalism if she’s not human?” Summers muttered. Cortez had roped Adams into checking over the Humvee. Nowak was still screwing with the phone, and Asle sat happily eating a burrito bowl.

“Got a medkit.” Cortez announced.

Nowak looked up from the phone. “Toss it here, I’ll head back to camp and make sure our friend is okay. Summers you stick with the Humvee and watch for any funny shit coming out of these woods.”

“Roger.” Summers said in reply.

As Nowak headed off Summers did his best to scan the horizon. Without all the crazy shit it was actually kind of beautiful. Trees, birdsong, all the nature he could take. He could see twin mountains in the distance, just like the kind back at base... No exactly like the kind back at base.

“Hey Adams.” Summers asked.

“What?”

“Those mountains look familiar to you?”

“Maybe it’s like fucking time travel or something!” Adams said.

They’d managed to get the Humvee back to their little encampment. Cortez had to change out a flat tire and a dozen other little problems once they were back in the relative safety of the cave entrance, but it looked like they had transportation.

“I don’t think people ever had pointy ears.” Summers replied.

“Those mountains are definitely the same we had back home.” Cortez shouted down. She stood on a high rock above the cave. “I’d bet my ass on it.”

“Maybe it’s just a different earth. Like one where the first fish to walk on land went left instead of right.” Summers suggested.

He glanced over at Novac who was still on the suit’s phone. Every now and again his hand would dart to a notebook at his side, jotting down a few words. “Sarge, questioning the nature of the world. Wanna chime in?”

“Shut up.” Nowak muttered.

“And screw you too. Have you found anything we can use?”

“Yeah. They cracked into this world about two years ago. I’m looking through the general’s correspondence now. But this is just his personal phone, so I have to piece a lot together.” Nowak replied. “Now leave me alone, I got about an hour or two of battery left and I don’t want to waste it.”

“All right. Sure.” Summers backed away. He found Adams sitting with Asle and Logan. She looked concerned for the man, whose breathing was becoming even more ragged in his sleep. Summers moved over to the group and sat down across from them. It looks like Nowak had done a quick and dirty patch job on the leg. None of them were really trained medics, so they’d shoved a few pills in his mouth and kept an eye on the leg, which resembled a burst hotdog more than anything. Hell, even if they did get him back home, they’d still probably have to take it off soon or the tissue would start to necrotize.

“Been telling the kid he’ll be all right.” Adams said, nodding to the worried Asle.

“Well you’re lying, he's fucked. I know it, he knows it, the kid knows it too.” Summers replied. He half expected to hear crying a moment later but Asle just watched him in response.

“We’ll do what we can for him. And hope for the best.” Summers added. Her shoulders seemed to untense, guess she took that a little better. “It’s getting late, we should set up a watch. You all right taking first shift if I leave you with Nowak?”

Adams nodded in response. “I know how to watch shit. That’s basically all they trained me to do, actually.”

“I’ll let Cortez know. Wake me up in about three hours.” With that Summers headed off.

“Holy shit!” Nowak shouted. Summers head snapped up from a dead sleep. He’d laid down with his gun and nearly blew his foot off. “What?!”

Cortez was awake now too. Adams looked over from his perch above the cave. They all waited for some kind of explanation, but Nowak just kept staring at the phone.

“Start talking jackass.” Cortez yelled over.

“Sorry. Sorry. I just found a way to get us back home. Shut up a second I need to get this down.” Nowak said, scribbling something in the journal at his side.

“You what?!” Was about the general consensus from around the camp.

Nowak ignored all of them until he was done writing, then continued to scroll through the phone.

“Come on baby you still got a pixel left. Don’t die on me.” Nowak read as fast as he could. He took a few more notes before he powered the phone down himself. “Okay, I got what we need. I’m going to keep a small charge just in case we can use it down the line.”

“How in the hell are you going to get us home?! Start talking!” Cortez shouted, a little more insistently this time.

“What we saw wasn’t the only machine, the 63rd were running a scouting group or something like it. All their research is done out of some base in Nevada I’ve never heard about.”

“Area 51?” Adams prompted.

“No not -- of fucking course I’ve heard of area 51. Somewhere different. General has a back and forth with a researcher there. They’ve got a permanent setup. If we can get to that, then we can get out of here. And if this place is a 1:1 match of our world, then we just need to go from their version of Alaska, to Nevada.”

“On foot?” Cortez asked.

“With shit like that thing we killed walking around?” Summers added.

Nowak smiled sheepishly, “I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”