After hurrying to finally catch up with Ian quite a few feet into the tree line, “No, don’t wait for me or anything,” Kyle returned with a tad of sarcasm, now that he had actually caught up on his own.

“Was quite content to handle this myself, Ky,” Ian returned distractedly, his light blue eyes scanning the woods in front of them.

“Yeah, speaking of, since when do you have the urge to go take off on your own? Thought you always wanted us all within like thirty feet of each other.”

“Oh well, times they change,” he mumbled as he continued his slow movement through the forest in search of a target.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kyle asked with a bit of worry.

“Hunting is not really a chatty time, ’kay?”

“No, seriously, what did that mean?” Kyle asked more forcefully.

“That, uh, things change?” Ian responded flatly.

“Meaning?”

“How many more definitions you need, honestly?” Ian scoffed.

“No, does that like mean, that you think we’re perfectly safe all of the sudden, or does it mean that you…just don’t care, anymore?” he asked more quietly.

Ian let out a slight sigh, still refusing to look back toward the younger man, “It means that the three of you are just fine without me,” was his only response.

Kyle let out his own sigh of disbelief, “And when did you suddenly come to that conclusion?” he finally asked, though quietly.

“It’s become increasingly obvious,” was Ian’s mumbled response as he took a few more steps.

Kyle shook his head again, “Really?Was that before or after you saw how terrified Lili just looked about the prospect of losing you?”

Ian let out his own soft sigh, “I’m just going hunting, Kyle.”

“Doesn’t change what I just said. She seemed terrified. I mean, what if Jared had another vision or something, and they didn’t tell us yet? It took ’em long enough to mention the other one,” Kyle pointed out.

“Yeah, and when would he have told her about this alleged new vision? Wasn’t she a little busy with you last night?” Ian couldn’t help retorting.

“Wow,” was Kyle’s breathed response, though the tone to it did cause a bit of a crack in Ian’s walls.

“Don’t even go there, Kyle,” Ian mumbled again.

“Too late,” Kyle returned in the same soft tone.

“Just…whatever.Drop it, ok?” Ian returned as he moved further into the woods.

“How can I drop it, Ian? This is, obviously, getting to you.”

“I wonder why I wanted to come out here alone,” he muttered impatiently, as he forced his concentration to the task at hand.

“All the comments and insinuations, this whole time I thought you were just being you,” Kyle stated softly.“But there’s a lot more to it than that, isn’t there?”

“What part of ‘drop it’ didn’t you understand?” Ian mumbled once more, still refusing to look back his way.

Kyle shook his head again, “Even if I never mentioned it again, it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve finally seen past the cracks in the walls, Ian.”

“What? You want a fuckin prize or something?” Ian scoffed.

“Listen, I know I’m the last person in the world to even talk about being able to make any kind of real human connections, but maybe if you actually told her…”

“Told her?” Ian scoffed more loudly, “Told her fucking what?”

“I don’t know, maybe that it’s about a lot more than just getting into her pants. That you actually do ca--”

“Well, oh wise one, for your information, I have already told her…I believe it was a few hours before she jumped you. So, you got any other brilliant ideas?” he shot back before purposefully moving off through the woods again.Though, at the sound of Ian’s statement, it was now Kyle’s walls that developed that crack.

Jared sighed heavily at her last statement, trying very hard to only concentrate on the latter part right then.“Lili, I think that maybe you’re looking at this whole vision of mine the wrong way.”

Lili just scoffed and sniffled, “I’m trapped here, on some strange new planet, knowing that sometime in the foreseeable future, I’m going to have a child who is going to be trapped here too. And there are only three people in the whole wide world that me or my child will ever be able to depend on, and none of those three people were in that vision…How am I supposed to look at that?” she asked tearfully.

Another deep sigh as he moved to take a seat close to her, an arm around her shoulder, “For starters, you can look at it this way: Just because the three of us weren’t in the vision, it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be here then. Honestly, we all still could be. There’s no way to be sure yet. So, maybe instead of assuming that we won’t be, you could try assuming we will be. After all, either option has a fifty-fifty chance, remember?”

“Maybe I…” she began with a deep breath, “maybe I can fix this.”

“Pardon?” he asked warily.

“Ok, so if I’m not pregnant yet, which is still pretty possible, then I can just never have this baby at all. Then I’ll never have to worry about the vision coming true, right?”

Jared sighed solemnly as he looked down.“And we didn’t even originally think the baby was going to be possible at all, for at least two years.”

“What’s that mean?” she asked, as she looked up at him worriedly.

“I mean, things tend to have a way of kind of forcing us in the direction of these visions, don’t they?” he returned, though in a whisper.

She swallowed hard, “You think I’m already pregnant then?” she breathed the words.

“No, I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that these visions, they still tend to happen, even if we think we can change them,” he answered softly.

After a long pause, “So, what other visions have you had come true?” she asked, wondering if she truly wanted to hear his answers.

Jared took a deep breath as he attempted to offer his answers, “For starters, I was dreaming about this place…the trees, the plants, the animals, even the damn river and the stupid rock up there…long before I saw the computer saying that there was something here at all, and way before I ever thought I’d be someone who’d get picked to come here.”

“Did you see any of us?” she dared.

“Flashes…which, I guess is another reason I reached out to you the day the computer finally caught up with my dreams. I already knew that somehow, you were going to be important to me, in some very big way,” he allowed.

“And the guys?” she asked more quietly.

“Even shorter flashes. Remember, this was before the things I saw started making any sense at all,” he reminded.

“And did you ever see anyone else at all?” she asked as her eyes turned toward the fire which was now, finally dying down.

“I don’t know,” was the only response he could offer.

“You don’t know?” she asked as she looked back up at him.

“That’s the part that’s still…shaky.”

“Shaky how?” she asked a little more loudly as she looked around.

Another deep sigh, “There is one other…person…that I sometimes get a flash of.”

“Here?” she almost choked on the word.

“Yes, but I can’t even tell if it’s a male or a female, and I never see them with any of us, so…”

“So…what does that even mean?” she asked with a nervous swallow.

“So, my best guess, which is only a guess at all so far, is that maybe…maybe the child does live, and maybe, just possibly, that’s who I’m seeing. I honestly don’t know,” he added with a desperate kind of frustration.

She looked down again, “And if this other person is actually…from me…from me and one of you guys, then they end up all alone, after all?” she asked worriedly.

“Like I said to you earlier, just because there’s no one else in the visions, it doesn’t mean that there’s no one else in actuality,” another deep breath.“You can’t assume that it means we’re not going to be here. If you do that, you’ll spend the rest of your life here feeling even more paralyzed than you feel right now. You’ve gotta remember not to do that, please,” he told her as he pulled her close, placing another kiss over her forehead.

It was early evening before Kyle and Ian finally returned to camp, though they did indeed have one of those deer type creatures with them.“I killed it, someone else can cook it,” Ian offered as his only greeting as he tossed the animal’s body to the ground near the fire that Jared and Lili had just started building back up.

“So, you guys are ok then?” Lili returned as she met Kyle’s own worried look, while Ian simply started up the incline to his own tent.

“Looks like,” was Ian’s only answer as he moved away, not really doing much to foster any kind of communication with any of them on his own.

Jared swallowed as well, also looking back at Lili’s sad eyes watching Ian take a spot up there once again, “I got some more fish too, just in case,” Jared offered as he gestured to the small refrigerated box that the remaining food and drink from the pod was stored in.

Though neither Ian nor Kyle offered any response as Ian began busying himself sharpening one of his knives. Jared sighed slightly before moving to examine and hopefully find a way to prepare the meal. Kyle allowed his own sigh as he moved back toward where Lili was adding the last few branches to the fire while still wearing that worried look.

“So, what did I miss?” she asked Kyle softly as he reached her side.

“Odd, I was gonna ask you that question,” Kyle responded, matching her quiet tone.

“Sorry?”

“Well, as worried as you seemed this morning, I thought that maybe Jared had another vision, or something,” Kyle allowed.

Lili swallowed a bit as she attempted to approach that subject once more.“Actually, I’m still stuck on the last one: The one where he saw the future, but only saw me, alone,” she sniffled again.

“Well, does he think that means that we’ll all be gone?”

Another sniffle, “Results: Inconclusive.” she answered under her breath.

“So, you’re just assuming the worst then?” Kyle returned gently, though pointedly.

“How can I not? Look at this world: This life we’re all stuck in now. Don’t know how much worse it can get,” she offered with a broken breath.

Though her words caused Kyle to look downwards with his own bit of sadness right then.“Odd, I thought that it had been going remarkably well, all things considered. Of course, I know I’m obviously not speaking for everyone,” he added with a pointed look toward both she and then Ian, before quietly moving away to assist Jared.

Lili then sighed with her own sadness as Kyle moved away. She then glanced up toward where Ian continued to busy himself alone up on that rock, and let out another long breath before moving to start up the incline once more.

Upon her arrival and taking of a seat next to him, Ian only glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.“Dinner can’t be ready already.”

“No, not yet,” she whispered, eyes downwards, as he just looked over at her once again, not speaking up right then, as odd as that was for him.

After another long moment of her silence as she remained at his side, staring blankly down at the water, Ian finally had to say something.“So, did you and Jared have a nice day today?” he asked at last.

Lili just sighed loudly in response.

“That good huh?” he returned with a raised eyebrow.

“How do you do that?”

Then he furrowed his brow.“How do I do what? Sharpen a knife?” he asked as he gestured to the blade in his hand.

“How do you make it so every damn word out of your mouth results in me trying to decide whether I wanna hit you or kiss you?” she retorted, finally looking up at where he finally allowed the slightest smile.

“It’s a gift?” he allowed through the still tiny grin.

“You’re such a jerk,” she returned, though allowed her own smile before moving close to him and choosing the second option at last, closing her mouth over his in a culmination of nearly ten years of verbal foreplay, coming to that final combustion point, at last.