By the time the stars in the sky illuminated what remained of my village, the two women had become quiet again. Geisai and I had finished off the last of our original stash of food and the last of the rainwater for dinner. I wanted to try and ration out the food a bit more, but Geisai had been hungrier than normal and the bread wasn’t gonna last much longer, so we just ate until we were full.

“So, what are we gonna do now?”

Across our small fire, Geisai finally spoke up again after he’d finished eating. His eyes had been darting around his head for a while now. Whatever had been going on in his head was left for him to know, but his question was a good one. We couldn’t stay here for much longer, even if we didn’t have two people tied up in our hideout.

Scavenging for food wouldn’t last much longer and gathering water from the lake would mean regularly traveling the ruins of my home. That wouldn’t have been an issue if it weren’t for those monsters from before… those undead. A lot of people... died when the ogres attacked the village. According to Nonia, the undead normally took months to get moving, but all of the dead ogres made them rise faster. Even if only half of the dead people became undead the village would be full of them.

Then there was Adria and Nonia themselves, or rather the group they belonged to. I didn’t know how many there were, but it was only a matter of time before they sent someone to find the pair. We’d be right back in the situation we were in this morning once they discovered us.

If we stayed, sooner or later we’d be caught or killed. I knew these, but it didn’t mean I knew what to do about it.

“What if I just leave?”

“What?”

Geisai’s question dragged me out of my own head. When I looked directly at him, I noticed red’s of his eyes had faded to a dull crimson shade. I tried to get get a better looked at it, but he jerked his chin towards Adria and Nonia.

“You got along with the two of them before you brought them here, most of the old lady’s rant was directed towards me, and I’m not like you. It may be difficult at first, but if I leave you can join their group and get out of here without issue.”

I was taken aback by how much thought he’d poured into it.

“How do you know that I got along with them?”

Geisei gave me a strange look, almost if he couldn’t believe I’d asked him that, before speaking an answer.

“If they’d simply found this place accidentally, they would have been a bit more cautious in their search, just in case a wild animal or monster was in here. But, they were loud enough to wake me up and were relaxed enough to be caught off guard. Either they had a general idea about what was in the building, or are dumb. They wouldn’t be alive if they were dumb and you’re the only one that could have told them what was in here.”

He was more perceptive than he let on, but, most of the time I’d known him he’d been asleep or staring at the ceiling. I didn't really know all that much about him beyond the obvious and what he’d told me this morning. What he was capable of was a complete mystery.

“If I leave, you can plead with them for forgiveness and leave this place.”

Geisai’s voice was even and was looking straight at me, but something about what he was saying felt wrong. It was like he’d already decided on how things would happen and he was just asking the questions because he felt he had to.

The more I thought about it the tighter my grip on my became. I do know why, but that made me angry.

“Once they fall asleep, I’ll take a bit of food and leave. By morning I should be far enough away, that they won’t be able to follow me. Thank you for putting up with me.”

For a moment he looked less alive than a walking corpse. The sheath was practically digging into my palm when got up and smacked him on the back of the head.

“You don’t get to decide everything on your own, you little brat!”

Geisai tried to speak up again, but I didn’t give him the chance.

“Just because some old lady yelled at you didn’t mean you can run away the first chance you get! My father gave his life to protect us and I spent days patching you up and looking after you. I thought we were getting along. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

The words just a few from my mouth with no restraint. He didn’t deserve it, but I directed everything that had been building over the last few days at Geisai.

“Everyone, Everyone I cared about is dead. No matter what anybody thinks the two of us are together now. We can’t go back to how things were before. Throwing away the few things you have left won’t make things any better.”

“But, you’ll be better off without me.”

“Don’t talk as if you know what’s best for me!”

At some point, I’d started hugging Geisai. He could throw people across the room and fight ogres with his bare hands, but he was so small and thin, it felt like he would shatter in my arms if I squeezed too hard.

“I won’t abandon you, so don’t try and run away from me.”

I felt Geisai small hands grasp my shoulders before he pushed me away from him. My heart sunk because I thought he was still gonna leave, but when I looked into his tear-filled blood red eyes, I realized that that wasn’t the case. He was looking up at me as if he couldn’t believe that I was real.

It felt nice being looked up to, and I hated to rune the moment but…

“So, any other ideas?”

“Huh?”

“We can’t stay here and we can’t go with the old ladies, but I don’t know where we can go. In fact, where did you live before? I never saw you in the village, so maybe we could stay there...”

Geisai made a serious face, that was a little cute actually before he spoke again.

“Our home is just west of the village’s entrance. We can stay there but…”

His downcast eyes and hollow tone were all I needed to give up on that idea. Home just wasn’t home without anyone there. However, Geisai surprised me again.

“Oh, there’s the caves a couple of days out of from our home. Mom used them to store food for winter. She said that hanging too much food around the home would have been dangerous. We can go there.”

Nonia suddenly jerked her head up when she heard what Geisai said, but she didn’t say anything, content with glaring at us.

“A-A cave?”

Geisai vigorously nodded his head. The light had returned to his eye, to the point it seemed like they were faintly shining, and he was the most energetic I’ve ever seen him. A destroyed village full of monsters or a dark cave.

“Haah, I guess there’s no helping it. However, we’re gonna need more supplies before we go. What we have now won’t be enough.”

I released Geisai and made my way over to the pile of goods Adria and Nonia had collected. It may have lasted one person a couple of weeks, but only about half of that time for two people. Given what Nonia had said about the other people in their group, there must have been other pairs savaging the village for supplies, otherwise, they wouldn’t survive for long.

“W-We don’t have to take all of it. Half should be more than enough to get where we need to go.”

Geisai was beside me before I even realized it.

“What are you saying? We’re gonna need everything we can carry. No one’s gonna take care of us anymore, we have to take care of ourselves.”

Geisai went silent for a moment and his eyes wandered over to the tied up pair across the room. I didn’t want to hurt him, but our childhoods ended days ago.

“Have you forgotten that they tried to kill you? They wouldn’t do the same if our positions were reversed.”

I expected him to plead with me or simply accept my decision, so I was a bit shocked by what came out of his mouth.

“My mom said that you should never lower yourself to the level of those that hate you, and pinning all the blame on them would be doing just that. Things wouldn’t be like this if we hadn’t brought them here, they didn’t just come here by random and attack us, we brought them here without knowing them and are responsible for that.”

Something was off about what he was saying, but I waited to see where he was going with this.

“Since they didn’t kill us and we didn’t and don’t want to kill them we have to part ways with them at their expense but not their rune. If they come after us again, then they don’t deserve mercy.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“My mom said that’s how I should deal with strangers I couldn’t hide from.”

Geisai gave me another strange look when he answered my question. Maybe he’d never had a childhood, to begin with.

“What do you think we should do for supplies, then?”

“We can cut down the food around my home and take the things mom saved for the move.”

How long would those things last us? Could things really be so easy? What will we do in the years to come? Those types of questions filled my mind, but given our options, we couldn’t worry about anything but the immediate future.

“Alright, we’ll only take half of their supplies. And, we’ll salvage a few necessities and take care of something important before we leave the village behind. Understand?”

Geisai reluctantly nodded his head.

“Good. We’ll take turns sleeping to make sure those two don’t try anything. You’ll take the first watch. Don’t fall asleep and wake me up when the sky starts turning blue.”

I didn’t wait for his reply and simply made my way to my pallet. Today had been a long day and I began to drift off almost immediately. Tomorrow was the beginning of m-our new life and I needed all the rest I could get.