Time passes slowly as Levi and Emma look at each other. The sound of wood creaking and the house settling begins to wear on my nerves.

Finally one of them speaks.

"Why are you here?" Emma demands, her jaw clenched and her hands closed into fists.

Levi’s eyes widen, "Why am I here?"

He tries to stand up, but looks up at me when he fails. I grab the hand of his uninjured right arm and pull him off the floor. He stumbles, but then gains his footing, wincing when the pain in his shoulder flares up. He takes a step closer to Emma.

Her green eyes widen, and she throws a hand out to stop him.

"Don't come any closer, I'll make you sick!," she exclaims. Her voice breaks as tears begin to form in her eyes.

"That's why we're here Em, we're gonna help you get better," Levi answers slowly, his words carefully picked and coated with emotion. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”

Emma lets out a breath she had been holding, then the smallest smile forms on her face as she wipes her tears away. "You care too much about me, y'know that?"

"If you weren't contagious I would-”

"Ok, ok, hi Emma, my name's Flynn...uhm, can we get out of here before you guys start flirting?....please?" My eyes are drawn to the dead man on the floor in front of me, his body still frozen in a kneeling position.

Her green eyes focus on me, my heartbeat quickens and dots of sweat appear on my face. She’s scary.

"Friend of yours?" She asks, returning her attention to Levi.

"Yeah," Levi answers, he turns away from Emma and faces me. "Thank you Flynn.....even if you weren’t the one who pulled the trigger, you were prepared to.”

He leans down and grabs the dead man's rifle, lifting it off the wooden floor with his uninjured arm, he holds it towards me. "Take this…..and give me mine back," he says, a smile forming on his face.

While we trade rifles, Emma heads outside, her boots thumping down the steps loudly.

"Hey guys! Is this Shadow?"

"Yeah," Levi says, appearing at the door with me close behind him.

Shadow lies on the ground, unmoving, his coat wet with blood that steams in the cold air. His eyes are still open, reflecting the moon that hangs above us.

"Oh...man," Levi says quietly, he moves closer and places a hand on the animal's head. "I'm sorry.”

He stays like this for a little while, muttering something under his breath with his eyes closed tight. Maybe a prayer, or some other tradition….in any case, it’s private.

He moves to the horse's saddlebags and removes the first aid kit Paige packed, then wipes his eyes before standing up and facing us again.

"You ok?," Emma asks.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good," Levi says, the sorrow in his voice betraying his reassuring words.

I head over to Rose, who's been looking over at us since we came out the house, and give her a pat on the side. She stomps her foot on the ground gently and snorts.

"Good girl," I say.

“Levi, why don't you ride Rose, keep your shoulder still for a while.”

Levi nods, then climbs onto the horse using me and the stirrups for support. We wait a few moments for Emma to regain her bearings, then we leave the old house and poor Shadow behind.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some Time Later..

The sun has finally started to come up, bathing the grass and trees around us in its bright orange glow. More importantly though, it helps us keep track of what's around us, whether it be human or monster. It also gets rid of the bitter cold air that takes over in the sun’s absence, a bonus I’m happy to accept.

I walk on the ground a few feet behind Emma, making sure infection from the virus she carries is, hopefully, impossible.

Meanwhile Levi rides on Rose, his shoulder bandaged by me, with instruction from both Emma and Levi, it was….intense, both of them are kinda perfectionists.

With the sunlight I finally have an actual look at what Emma looks like. She's around the same height as Levi, and looks strong, but not in a super muscular way, she still looks non-threatening at first glance, which I'm sure works to her advantage.

Her hair seems even darker now, and it's still pulled back in a ponytail, albeit much looser than before.

"Flynn," Levi says, his voice distorted by the bouncing of Rose.

I slow down, matching the horse's pace and looking up at Levi.

"Last night, when I froze on the steps...I'm sorry about that," He stares into the distance for a few seconds, probably deciding what he’s going to say next. "It's been happening since my time in the military.....I-" he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I can't control it."

It reminds me of something I read as a kid in our bunker, veterans who returned home from war often came back with severe anxiety, fear, and flashbacks. All triggered by them experiencing something, like a sound or visual cue, that reminds them of what they went through.

“I understand, it's not your fault. Everything turned out ok in the end, that’s what matters, right?”

Levi smiles, then winces, pain probably shooting through his arm again. “Right,” he finally says.

Emma’s voice appears from ahead of us, “We’re here.”

Emma being contagious forces Levi, Rose, and I to sit a couple of feet away from the camp itself. The Three of us share a carrot meant for the horses, thankfully Rose accepts having ⅓ of the snack.

With the sound of crinkling and rustling paper, Emma produces a map from her backpack. She unfolds it and lays it flat on the ground between us. On it is the series of fields and hills we are in now, multiple marks and notes have been drawn on the map with a pen.

“I’ve seen patrols of soldiers, wearing armor I've never seen before. Here, here, and here,” she points to three circles on the map. “They all come from the same direction. That’s where I was going to search next.”

Levi swallows the last of his carrot portion, then says, “What are we waiting for then? Let's do it!”

“Ok,” Emma says with a grin. “Let's go.”

We leave Rose tied up to a tree near the campsite, within reach of all the bushes she could ever want.

The three of us leave the camp, trekking north along the hills towards the location Emma marked on her map. She travels ahead of Levi and I, weaving between patches of mud and hopping over water filled ditches.

Hot weather moves in as noon approaches, coating us in sweat and tiring us out quicker. Making our already lengthy journey even longer.

“Keep low,” Emma says. “Just past this next ridge.”

Heat bears down on us as we climb the hill, but eventually, covered in sweat and struggling to breathe, we reach the crest.

“Woah.” We all say...with some variation.

Soldiers dressed in black and grey armor patrol around a large installation, walled in by tall green fencing. Inside the fence over a dozen small buildings and tents have been set up, soldiers move between them carrying equipment and weapons crates.

“This is it, right?” Levi asks. “Gotta be.”

Emma nods, watching the camp with a startlingly intense glare. “Let's find a place to rest, then…..we come up with a plan.”

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Later that night…

We lie at the top of the hill, hiding among a cluster of tall grass that obscures us from prying eyes.

I shiver, and notice Levi and Emma doing the same. Cold air has already moved in, taking away the extreme heat and replacing it with the cold, from one extreme to another.

“Let’s go over this one more time,” Emma says quietly, steam forming at her mouth and rising into the air silently. “First, the distraction.”

“I fire a round from my rifle,” I say.

“Right,” she says. “Then we circle around the backside of the base, and make our way in. Once we’re in we need to find their medical building, there we’ll probably find the Cure.”

Levi sighs, creating a cloud of steam. “I wish we could be sure.”

“Me too,” Emma says, “-but we don’t have any binoculars…and we can’t send someone to scout it out without alerting them.”

“I know,” Levi says. He looks down at the camp for a few seconds longer before sliding backwards and heading down the hill.

Me and Emma slide down after him, careful not to slip in the mud at the bottom.

She looks at me, her cheeks red from the cold breeze. “Ready?”

I nod, then remove the rifle from my shoulder and point it straight into the air. I look over at Levi, he nods.

I click the safety off with my thumb, pull back the bolt partially to make sure a round is in the chamber, then pull the trigger.

We’re already sprinting at full speed before the sound has finished echoing through the hills around us. To our left I hear the sound of soldiers yelling and hollering. An alarm begins blaring a few seconds later.

Once we’re far enough we take a sharp left and trudge up a hill. We reach the top and confirm we’re at the right position.

Soldiers on the other side of the base rush up the hill where I fired the rifle. Beams of light darting back and forth through the darkness.

“Come on!” Emma whispers loudly, already sliding down the hill towards the base.

Levi and I follow her, muddy water squelching underneath us. Together we approach the fence, then spot an entrance a dozen or so feet away.

It looks clear so we slowly make our way inside. Levi watches our left side and I watch our right, meanwhile Emma leads us forward to the center of the camp.

We pass a large building labeled barracks, I can’t help but wonder how many soldiers could be in there now.

“There,” Emma whispers, pointing ahead of us at a sign with a red cross printed on it.

The building sits ahead of us at the center of an empty square, the ground is lit up by multiple floodlights. It must be the center of the base.

We wait for any sign of movement, it must be only 20 seconds or so, but it feels like an eternity.

Finally, Emma takes a step towards the center, her foot crossing into the light. She takes another step, fully immersing herself in the light. She stands in the light for a few seconds, then waves us over.

At first we go slow, but that quickly turns into a jog across the center. Being in the light makes me feel like a fish in a barrel.

Finally we make it across the field, Emma and Levi pile up on the door, then turn the handle and push it open. I raise my rifle and slowly step inside, Emma follows behind me, then Levi a few seconds later.

We spread out, searching for the Cure while also clearing the building. Levi stays close to the door, watching the field outside.

The interior is large but tight, many aisles and drawers for medicines and tools lining the walls and sitting on the floor. Emma rummages through drawers to my left, while I head to a door at the back of the room.

I’m only a few steps from it when the knob turns and the door swings open. Revealing a man dressed in dark clothes and a tactical vest. His eyes widen as he reaches for a pistol at his side.

He pulls it from the holster as I close the distance between us. I slam into him, sending us both tumbling through the doorway and into the back room.

The gun slides across the floor, coming to a stop against the leg of a desk with a metallic clink.

We hesitate for a second after hitting the hard floor, both of us distracted by the pain pulsating through our sides. He recovers first, crawling towards the gun frantically.

I reach out and grab the handle of a filing cabinet, using it to help lift myself off the ground. I look over and see the man grabbing the pistol, he flips onto his back and aims it at me.

Suddenly Levi appears, jumping onto the man and grabbing his wrist. They struggle for a moment, both trying to push the gun a different way.

A flash appears, along with a loud bang. A piece of the ceiling explodes into white dust and falls to the floor. I return my attention to Levi and the man in time to see Levi rip the gun from the man's hands and swipe it toward his head. It makes contact with a sickening thump. Knocking the man out cold.

Levi stuffs the pistol in his waist and helps me off the floor. Then leads me back into the main room.

“Did you find it?” Levi says, his determined look beginning to fade into worry.

She opens one last cabinet and pulls out a cooler. “Found it!”

Levi returns to the front door as she takes a syringe and injects herself.

“We got company!” He yells while pulling the pistol from his waist and checking the chamber.

“Ok,” she says, clipping the cooler to her backpack. “Let’s go!”

Together we burst out the door, sprinting in the direction we came. The soldiers follow us, close enough now that we can hear their footsteps.

We pass the barracks, it’s doors now open, and are almost to the exit when a squad of men appears from outside the fence.

“This way!” Levi yells, leading us away from the exit and along the edge of the camp.

We’re almost to the other edge of the camp when a familiar sound strikes my ears. “Wait!”

Levi and Emma stop and spin around, the cooler spinning beneath Emma’s backpack.

I lean down and dig through the grass, using my knuckles to tap in the dirt. It only takes a few seconds for the sound of dirt to turn into a metallic knock. I feel around for a few more seconds, then take an educated guess and move my fingers to the left, they catch an edge.

“Levi! Put your fingers here and pull!”

He crouches next to me and grabs the same edge.

“1, 2, 3 Pull!”

Slowly the metal hatch swings open, a sharp metallic screech appearing from a pair of hinges that anchor it to the ground.

“A bunker!” Levi exclaims. “Nice going man!”

Emma goes first while we hold the door, then Levi, both of them disappearing into the darkness. I grab a few handfuls of dirt and grass, tossing it onto the hatch as I pull it closed.

Then with one final metallic screech, the hatch is shut.

We stand in the darkness until the sound of a lighter being activated appears beside me. One spark, two sparks, then a constant flame. Giving light to the small room we stand in.

“What’s this for?” Levi asks, waving the lighter around as he examines the room.

“It’s like a.....mud room,” I say, remembering the word I’d been thinking of.

On one wall, to the left of the entrance, is a row of lockers. Emma pulls on each of them but they don’t budge.

Meanwhile, Levi uses the lighter to illuminate a bulkhead door that is built into the wall across from the hatch we entered through. He turns a wheel on the door, releasing the locks, then uses his shoulder to push it open.

Suddenly one by one, lights begin to blink and activate throughout the bunker, starting with the mudroom and moving onward, revealing an enormous room that isn’t very tall, yet is very wide and extends at least two-hundred feet ahead of us.

Lining the walls are glass tubes, each of which is the size of a walk in shower. The interior of each is lit up by lights that must be built inside them. We walk through the doorway one at a time, each of us equally curious of what we’ve stumbled into.

Levi makes his way to the nearest tube, while me and Emma stay near a desk that sits near the entrance. I open one of the drawers and sift through a pile of papers.

“Woah! What the-!” Levi jumps back from the tube. “Guys! Look!”

Me and Emma join him by the tube.

A Stalker floats in the liquid, completely motionless. Its skin is flawless, uninjured, and clean unlike the one we fought only a few days ago.

My heartbeat quickens, my legs threatening to give out. I look around, unable to count how many of the tubes surround us, it must be at least a hundred.

This is where the creatures are made.

And we’re stuck in here with them.