As the night had grown its darkest, Nya had somewhat reluctantly fallen asleep with her children cradled in her arms.

  She had somewhat tried to argue about the long wait, saying it should be shorter, but when she was faced with the alternative of being tired up for a week, she quickly shut up, whispering some colorful curse words before turning away from Kenneth.

  Now that she was sleeping, that only left Kenneth alone to think. He had tried to fall asleep, but it was no use; he wasn’t tired enough, and probably being in a different time zone didn’t help either.

  ‘I wonder what they are doing now at home?’ Kenneth thought. ‘Connor is hopefully cured of that damn disease; Eva has probably heard something about Connor and knows her dad didn’t make an empty promise.’

  ‘June, on the other hand, probably believes I had gone crazy and run away, unable to accept the reality that is the world I lived in.’ He then looked out into the darkness of the forest, and he was somewhat sacred, not by any sound or glowing eyes in the forest, but by the lack thereof.

  He knew this was a different world altogether, but still, so much was somewhat similar to Earth that the things that were just slightly off unsettled him.

  On an instinctual level, he felt like he was near an apex predator that no creature dared make any noise around. But in the end, it was nothing, and he knew that.

  ‘What would their reactions have been if I had told both Connor and Eva that I was going to another world? Would they have asked me to stay, or would they have asked me to come with?’ Kenneth wondered.

  Thinking about his kids, Kenneth couldn’t help but look over at Nya’s and be reminded of when his children had been born.

  Kenneth had never been very good with emotions, but the day both of them were born had been the happiest day in his life, and he knew from that moment he would do anything to protect them.

  Then the pandemic happened, and Connor got infected.

  After he heard, he dropped everything he was doing and cashed in as many favors he had from every doctor he knew owed him big time, and even a few he knew didn’t owe him as much but did help him somewhat.

  He was allowed to work on a cure even though he had never studied in that area. He spent almost every waking hour studying, spending upwards of days without rest.

  To any outside observer, it must have looked like he was trying to commit the longest and most painful suicide imaginable.

  But in reality, he couldn’t do anything other than work to save and protect his son, even if he knew what he was doing wouldn’t amount to anything in the end.

  ‘Why was he even thinking that now?’ Kenneth sighed in frustration. ‘What is done is done, and now there was no way changing that.’

  The night was long, and Kenneth didn’t get a wink of sleep either due to different time zones or the memories that somewhat haunted him. But eventually, the darkness of the forest began to dissipate, replaced by a little more light.

  Although he had promised Nya that they would leave at first light, the sight of her holding her babies in such an embrace was so heartwarming that he couldn’t bring himself to disturb it.

  And, for some time, he watched the scene, but nothing lasts forever as she awoke only a few minutes or so later, looking tired but more rested than yesterday.

  Her eyes eventually fell on him, and for a moment, she had a hostile look in her eyes, but that quickly disappeared as she fully awoke and remembered all of yesterday.

  “Morning,” he said, sounding somewhat tired.

  “Yes, it is morning, and we are leaving now,” she answered, sounding a bit annoyed.

  “Sounds like someone didn’t sleep well last night,” he said with a chuckle which was immediately met by a less-than-friendly glare. “Well, anyway, you said you needed to report the outpost's destruction. To who and how long is the journey?”

  “When an outpost is destroyed, it is the duty of any survivor to report such an event to the nearest or any outpost at all,” Nya said as she began to stand up, which was proving to be a little bit of a challenge.

  Kenneth quickly got up himself and stood in front of her, holding out a hand to help her.

  For a moment, she looked confused, and then a look of understanding came across her face, but she never took his hand; instead, struggling on her own to get up.

  It took some time and a few groans, but she managed to stand up and take her babies in her arms, holding them close. “So, where precisely did you take me?”

  Kenneth was somewhat tempted to say something like here, but he knew that wasn’t what she meant, and to be honest, he didn’t actually know where he was. All that he could do was shrug and shake his head.

  She let out a long sigh of frustration, and to Kenneth, she seemed like the person who would also rub her temples if not for the fact she was holding her children.

  “Do you remember when we first met?” she asked after a long breath.

  “You mean when you attacked me with a knife without warning? Yeah, that rings a few bells in this old head of mine,” Kenneth responded, unsure of which tone to take.

  “When we met, I was heading in the same direction you were coming from, towards the old battlefield. Where did you take me if you use the old battlefield as a reference point?” Nya asked while looking out of the cave.

  ‘If I use the graveyard as a reference point, then I would be more or less traveling in a straight line and, so, it would be more or less the same direction as she was traveling in,’ Kenneth thought while putting his hand on his chin absent-mindedly.

  “Well,” Nya asked impatiently.

  “Ohh, yes, I believe that I have brought you more or less in the same direction you were originally heading in. Although I can’t be entirely sure about that,” he said, hand still on his chin.

  “I guess it's better than nothing,” Nya said, letting out an irritated sigh. “Can you tell me how long you or how far you traveled? I’m guessing that it must only have been a short distance.”

  “Well, I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. When I first walked, I felt like I did so for a few hours, and when I took over my shoulder, I just ran as fast as I could, only slowing down for a very short time before running again.” He said, grabbing his bag from the cave floor.

  “Wait!?” She exclaimed. “Did you say you never stopped to rest? How did you not pass out from exhaustion.”

  Kenneth just looked at her with a confused head tilt, “I’m not sure what you are asking about, but all I did was run for a long time and slow down a little and start back up again. How would that make me pass out?”

  Nya, with an expression of both shock and surprise, said. “Whenever one of my kind begins moving, we begin to heat up, and if we don’t stop and rest or drink water to cool us, then we might die; from it.”

  “What don’t your kind sweat or something to help you cool down?” Kenneth asked, sticking his hand down the bag and grabbing a beaker with IV fluids.

  “What is sweating?” She asked.

  “Um… well… it's when you start to get hot, and your body cools you down by letting what is essentially water out of your body, so you can keep moving,” he said, taking a sip from the beaker.

  “So wait, your body releases water when you get hot. How is that even possible?”

  “Evolution” was the only response that came from him.

  “I have no idea what that word means.”

  “I would imagine that it is not a word most from this place would be familiar with, and I could spend multiple hours explaining the story of Charles Darwin and the origin of species, but here is the short version.” Kenneth sighed in frustration.

  “Evolution without going into too much detail means that a living creature changes over time to be better suited to a situation or environment.”

  Nya just looked at him with a mildly confused look that also read something like understanding.

  She moved her eyes away from his and down to his bag when her expression then again changed, this time into maybe realization if Kenneth read the expression right.

  “What happened to my knife,” she asked, gesturing with her eyes toward the bag.

  ‘The knife? Ooh yeah, the one she tried to kill with,’ Kenneth suddenly realized.

  ‘Wait, I didn’t see it when I went to pick her up, and the last place it was was.’ Suddenly a chill went down his spine as he clearly remembered what happened to the back now that adrenalin and fear didn’t cloud his mind.

  He quickly examined the bag, and just out of his eyesight, he saw the hilt of the knife stuck in the bag.

  Without another thought, he grabbed the hilt and made it come out of the bag. It was somewhat hard to get out, but in the end, it came out.

  Before Kenneth had even seen the blade he was holding, Nya screamed,” What did you do to it!?”

  He took a moment to look at it and saw that most of the blade part was covered in some black oil-like liquid, and some of the blade had somehow melted or something.

  But before he had time to examine it more, Nya grabbed it out of his hand, now only using one hand to hold her babies and looking like she just saw her best friend die.

  “Why is my knife broken?! How did it break?! What is this black gunk?! And what did you do?!” she asked quickly, catching Kenneth a bit off guard and making it so he only heard half of the frantic questions asked.

  “Um… well…. um…. well,” was all that he managed to stutter out from his mouth, which only seemed to infuriate Nya even more.

  She began growling and glared at him with murderers intent in her eyes, like a wild beast ready to tear its prey apart.

  The sight alone sent a shiver down Kenneth’s spine, even though he knew deep down at that moment that any fight involving physical strength was one she couldn’t beat him in.

  ‘Oh shit, is she serious? It's only a knife. Why is she so mad about it? It’s not like I know what happened. The only time I touched it was when I removed it, and she saw me do it.’ Nya was still standing, looking really pissed, and his silence sure wasn’t helping.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Kenneth managed to say quickly, holding up both defensibly. “I don’t know what happened to your knife; the only time I touched it was when you saw me take it out. I have no idea what happened to it or anything else.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that when it was your bag, it was in that now doesn’t have a hole in it,” she snarled.

  ‘Wait, no hole?’ Kenneth thought as he quickly looked at where the knife had come out, and just as she said, there was no hole. ‘What the fuck is going on?’

  “Okay, listen, while this is my bag, I've only had it for a short time before I arrived here, and it can do many things, but I don’t know all of its capabilities, and it looks like it could do; more then I believed,” Kenneth said, his voice a mix of fear and nervousness.

  For a short time, after Kenneth had spoken, Nya still snarled, but it seemed her children could feel her emotions as they all began to yip, cry and scream.

  Her attention, which had been almost completely transfixed on him, was now much more soft and nervous as she looked down at her children.

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  She looked like a mess of nervousness as she tried to calm her babies down, but it was all for not since all of her attempts amounted to nothing.

  Kenneth let out a nervous sigh and chuckled as the sight reminded him of himself one of the first times he held Connor.

  Connor started to cry, and he didn’t know what to do; he himself became more nervous until June told him a little trick about babies.

  He then walked over to the nervous Nya and held out both of his arms, “may I?”

  Nya looked at him for a moment, whereafter she took a step back and snarled, which only resulted in her babies crying even more and her becoming more nervous.

  “Is it your first time having kids?”Kenneth asked calmly.

  She responded only with a slight nod.

  “You know, you remind me of myself one of the first times I held my son,” Kenneth said longly. “You might not know this, but babies have a good understanding of emotions and can sense yours, so they will feel in danger as long as you are nervous.”

  This only seemed to make Nya’s nervousness greater as she tried to calm her children down as well as herself.

  “Children can cry for a long time, and we do have to get going at some point. So can I try?” Kenneth once more asked calmly.

  Unlike last time she let out a sigh of defeat and began handing him the babies.

  “If you do anything, I swear on the gods you won’t live to regret it,” Nya threatened, sounding angrier than he had ever heard her before.

  “Please. I helped deliver these three darlings; if I wanted to hurt them, I would have done so long ago,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Given Nya’s expression, it might have come off as a bit too sinister than he had expected.

  ‘um, she looks like she’s worried about her children. Better try and calm them down,’ Kenneth concluded as he awkwardly took the three of them from Nya

  The second they had left her arms, all of them seemed to calm a little down.

  Slowly Kenneth began to rock from side to side, which definitely seemed to help, but something was missing, and he knew it. ‘What is it? What is it? Oh yes, that’s it.’

  Kenneth began humming a melody and singing a soft and gentle song.

  “Now I've heard there was a secret chord. That David played, and it pleased the Lord. But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth. The minor falls, the major lifts. The baffled king composing Hallelujah.”

  “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.”

  Kenneth wasn’t that good of a singer, but his naturally deep voice and this song combined helped calm the babies down into a deep slumber.

  Then he handed them off to the somewhat stunned-looking Nya.

  In a hushed voice, he said, “I’m sorry about your knife, but please don’t wake them again, and let's get going; we have wasted enough time.”

  He began walking towards the exit of the cave, and Nya followed him quite quickly, taking the lead the second they exited the cave.

  Having told Nya that we had more or less traveled in the same direction she was originally headed had put her in a bit of a better mood, but she was still somewhat angry, one could say.

  Her expression read as much the few times he looked her way and hoped she didn’t see him do so.

  Most of the trip was filled with awkward silence, and more than a few times, Kenneth wanted to ask some questions but withheld his toughness, but curiosity won out over fear.

  “Um, not to make you angry again, but why were you so angry when you saw your knife broken?” He said curiously.

  For some time, as they walked, she didn’t answer the question, and she didn’t even look his way.

  He was worried, it had just made her angrier than last time, but eventually, she let out a sigh and spoke in a calm but sad tone,” It was a family heirloom.”

  Hearing that, Kenneth felt a little bad for it being broken. Of course, he only defended himself and didn’t even know the bag could destroy a knife, but still.

  Maybe he should change the topic, “So, umm, have you decided on a name for your kids yet, or are you still thinking.”

  Even more silence than before was followed as they walked.

  ’ Oh shit, did I just make it worse? Why do I always need to fill the damn silence?! Why can’t I just let it be,‘ Kenneth thought before he was interrupted by Nya speaking.

  “The boy Cyrus and one of the girls, Kaci,” Nya said quickly.

  Then there was some silence between the two for some time, and he didn’t want to interrupt it this time since it seemed like she didn’t want to talk.

  “You know you ask a lot of questions. Did you ever consider I might have some of my own,” Nya said in a calm tone.

  Kenneth looked at her, “Well, you just don’t seem like the talkative type, and you haven't asked me anything, so….”

  Her expression remained unchanged, “fine, what was the song you sang? I've never heard one like that before.”

  “It’s a song from my home; it's called Hallelujah. I can't say I know who wrote it, but I’ve always liked it, so I have more or less memorized the entire song and could probably sing it right now.”

  She walked for a bit more before speaking in a soft tone, “One day, I might like to hear the entire song.”

  A little smile crept up behind the mask, and with a happy tone, he said,” I’d be happy too.”

  The two of them then walked through the forest, Nya guiding the way for the most part, but he was growing a bit worried for Nya.

  She had, for the most part, slowed down in speed to the point where he needed to slow down himself to actually not walk past her.

  “You okay?” Kenneth eventually asked, his voice a bit worried.

  “In… fine,” she said in an angry tone, but the way she breathed made her sound as if she had just run a marathon with how much she was breathing in and out.

  He looked at her for a moment,’ dammit, I knew it was too sone for her to move. Besides the fact her body hasn’t had the time to heal, she also inhaled too much smoke from yesterday.’

  ‘Her lungs must be a mess; no wonder she hasn’t been able to keep pace for a long time.’

  “Listen right now; your lungs are a complete mess, and if you keep pushing yourself as you have now, then you might pass out or worse. You need to take a break,” he said, going in front of her.

  She looked at him, and her expression was something like frustration, “we are almost at a hill that stretches above most trees.”

  “Once we are there, I can see what direction we should go in from there; then, it's only a day's journey until we reach the outpost.” She said, sounding completely out of breath.

  “I understand that, but you must also understand that pushing yourself in that condition is only going to result in more problems later down the line. Maybe not today or tomorrow or even the day after that, but it will eventually, and there will be no guarantees,” Kenneth snapped at her.

  “Listen, you!” Nya growled, getting right up into his face. “If I’ve even half a day late, that could result in the outpost being unprepared for an upcoming attack, so I don’t care about your concerns; we are going to keep traveling until we reach it, understood.”

  Kenneth stood his ground showing no fear, but he knew that it would be a hopeless battle he was fighting. Unlike her, she didn’t need him, and if she wanted to, she could easily get away from him.

  Of course, it would probably result in her passing out, but still, if he couldn’t find her, then he would be at the mercy of the wilderness and the three warring factions.

  Sighing in defeat, and stepped aside, letting her pass. She had won; they were going to keep on traversing the wilderness, but he never said that he would allow her to walk and exhaust herself.

  As she passed him, he quickly got one of his arms behind her legs around where her knees were. Then he adjusted his free arm, so it would catch her as he literally swept her off her feet and carried her like some sort of princess.

  As he did, she let out a yip of surprise, and of course, she was angry. “ In the name of Akina, what do you think you are doing?!” she growled while squirming in his grasp, trying to get out of it, but he wasn’t letting her.

  He tightened his grip enough so she couldn’t move but not enough so he would actually hurt her.

  When she figured out the squirming wouldn’t work against his grip on her, she slowly but surely stopped and relaxed in his arms instead, giving him another look of murderous intent.

  To be honest, he was actually getting used to the look from her, and he couldn’t decide if it was a good thing or bad.

  Kenneth coughed a little, clearing his throat, “Well, as a doctor, I won’t let you do harm to yourself like that, and since you won’t take a break, I figured that carrying you was a reasonable compromise.”

  “Let me down right now, or I will make you!” She yelled, making him flinch since she was so close to him.

  “I know this might not be the best arrangement, but I’m only concerned for your safety,” he said, hoping she would at least understand.

  “Oh, my safety is not the one you should concern yourself with at this moment,” Nya said in a tone that read as pure murder. “Carrying me like this is only going to slow us down.”

  “You know I’ve been slowing myself down, making sure not to surpass you for some time now.” Kenneth sighed in frustration. “Whether or not you noticed doesn’t matter at all since this will be quicker than you walking and passing out.”

  She went quiet for a moment, clearly thinking about his proposal.

  She let out what could have been the longest sigh he had ever heard, “Fine… You carry me until the top of the hill, and if you are too slow for my liking, then you let me down and never do this again.”

  ‘Well, I don’t think I’m going to get her to agree to anymore, so better quiet while in ahead,’ Kenneth thought before giving her a nod, pulling her closer to his chest, preparing for the high hill he was going to ascend.

  And like every great journey of ten thousand or more steps, this one began with the very first one.

  The hill wasn’t too hard to climb, and he could already see the top of it from his start point, but he did need to be a little quicker than he currently was.

  Nya was by no means heavy, but climbing the hill would eventually take its toll on him if he rushed, so he chose a moderate pace.

  Everything was going fine, but Nya, from out of the blue, asked a question, “ You said you had a child, right?”

  He looked down at her for a moment, then answered. “Yes.”

  “Okay,” she responded, sounding, well, he was not quite sure how to describe it.

  “Is there a reason why you are asking me about my children?” Kenneth asked back.

  “You just made me think about when you asked me about my children, so.” She answered

  “You said you would like to ask me some questions or something like that. Well then, ask them if you have them.” He said, taking another step up the hill.

  She seemed to think for a moment before opening her mouth, “You told me where you lived in that Denmark place, but what it is like.”

  ‘Okay, what should I say to that? I can’t just say something like it is filled with cars, or you can hear the sound of planes every now and again,’ Kenneth thought. ‘Other than she wouldn’t understand, she or someone else she told might put two and two together that I’m not from here.’

  He took a deep breath before answering. “Well, I don’t know how to describe it other than it’s my home where I grew up among my family, but it’s a place where there's a lot of other people in towns doing their own thing.”

  “What was your town like?” Nya asked.

  Kenneth paused for a moment and looked further up the hill. “Well, I used to live in a much smaller town than I did before coming here.”

  “There wasn’t really much to say about it other than it was either filled with old people or children, and me being older than the children and younger than the adults made life somewhat boring.”

  “I’d imagine,” she quipped, making Kenneth let out a little chuckle.

  “But it wasn’t all bad,” he then started again. “One thing I did enjoy about the place growing up was the surrounding nature in and around the town.”

  “Most days, I would walk around the town, letting myself relax, and I did also enjoy watching the farmers sow the fields and planting the seed for the harvest and then watching the plants grow over a few months.”

  “Wait, what!” She almost screamed, surprising Kenenth and almost making him drop her. Fortunately, he found his footing and avoided what could have been an unfortunate situation.

  “Your people grow plants. Why!” She asked, sounding surprised.

  Kenneth was a little annoyed she had done that, but nevertheless, he answered the question. “ Well, we grow them so we can eat them.”

  The explanation only seemed to confuse her on top of her being surprised. “Do you eat plants like prey?” she asked.

  “Yes and no,” he responded. “It depends mostly on what plant they eat. I can’t say for sure that your… prey is the same as the ones I know from home, but we can’t eat every type of plant.”

  “So you only eat plants,” she asked, seemingly in disbelief.

  Kenneth took another step forward and made sure too not to get too caught up in the conversation and fall with her and the babies in tow. Once he had looked and made sure he wouldn’t fall, he answered.

  “No, I don’t only eat plants. My species, humans, are known as an omnivore which is a creature that can eat both plants and meats but is able to forgo either as long as they get the necessary nutrients that the food contains to keep one’s body working,” he explained.

  Nya seemed to be in shock, disbelief, and a state of surprise all at the same time. The information seemed to have overloaded her since she had the same expression for maybe ten seconds.

  Though she did eventually speak once she had completely processed what I had said, “S-s-so… you can eat anything,” she asked, stammering a little.

  “Well, not exactly,” he responded, his voice getting higher as he hit the last note of the word. “ Sure, I can eat like a carnivore and herbivore, but there are still plants and meats that can kill me if I’m not careful.”

  The revelation that he couldn’t eat everything seemed to calm her down a little, but she still looked like she was in some kind of shock, and she was about to open her mouth when he took the last step of my ten thousand-step journey up the hill.

  “Well, guess we are here, so was I fast enough?” Kenneth asked, breathing a little heavily.

  He gently let her down so she could stand on her two feet and look out over the horizon.

  It was a beautiful sight from the top of the hill, the lush green nature, and throughout the trees, one could see many clearings.

  However, his astonishment did diminish a little when he saw that some of the clearings had been created due to fires rather than anything else.

  But as he looked further ahead, looking away from the burned parts of the forest, he could see mountains, and there was something else as well.

  At first, he had thought the mountain had just been very tall, but the top of it looked too symmetrical and round to have been created naturally.

  Kenneth looked over to Nya, about to ask what it was, when he saw her in what looked like deep thought as her eyes seemed to scan over the landscape.

  ‘She must be looking for the outpost. Better not to disturb her until she finds it. Though I wonder if I could spot it before her?’ Kenneth wondered.

  ‘Maybe it could be a competition of were’s Waldo, but with the outpost,’ Kenneth silently chuckled to himself.

  But before he could even begin his little competition of where’s, Waldo Nya pointed out one of the clearings that seemed to have some structures of some kind, but it was too far away for Kenneth to make out anything.

  As he looked at her, she seemed surprised. Quickly she looked in the opposite direction before she asked him, “How far did you take me?”

  Kenneth was a little confused by the question. “I’m not sure what you mean. I told you that when I took you away, I ran far, that’s all.”

  Her gaze turned back to Kenneth with what looked like mild surprise,” We are close to the outpost. Much closer than we should have been with how much we have traveled. It's only about half a day at most.”

  “So when do you think we are going to reach the outpost then?” Kenneth asked.

  “If I had traveled by myself, I might have reached it close to when I got dark, but now we should reach it long before that,” Nya answered.

  “So, should we get going? Once we are at the foot of the hill, I can carry you again,” Kenneth said, looking downward.

  “I would carry you most of the way, but this hill seems too steep for me to walk down while carrying you and avoid falling a the same time.”

  Nya then suddenly seemed to remember her being carried, and her expression again changed to something he wasn’t quite sure what was, maybe a mix of anger and contempt.

  “Well… I…. you was… but… still,” She said, sounding like she had an internal battle about the situation.

  One of the babies suddenly began crying and yipping, catching the attention of both of them.

  ‘Seems like it's either hungry or needs a change,’ Kenneth thought before looking up at Nya, who seemed like she didn’t know what to do.

  “Umm, I think it's hungry,” Kenneth informed.

  “We will take a break for now until im done feeding them, then we will continue to travel,” Nya sighed in annoyance,” also, while I feed, then we sit back to back and watch for any threat that could sneak upon us.”

  He could definitely see the logic in that, so with no further thought, he sat down, and Nya got behind him and began feeding her babies.

  Kenneth cracked a little smile, silently thanking her children for making her take a break instead of marching onward like she wanted to.