Sinder was walking up towards Clifftop again. She wasn't thrilled, but Sam had asked her to take some of Hunter's meat up to Lana, and she respected Sam. Was loyal to him. And also, the Healer wasn't somebody you wanted to upset. Not least because she had a huge gun.

She didn't even know what was in the sack on her back, just hoisted it over her shoulders and began the climb. It was a long walk if you followed the road, but having done this before, Sinder knew a shortcut, climbing over the rocks. It could be dangerous, but she trusted herself. Before the FAYZ, she reflected, she'd never have even considered making this climb. She was like any other kid her age: trying to fit in, be cool, find her own style, something she could be. She still liked to keep to her goth style, although few people cared what you looked like in the FAYZ.

Lost in thought, she slipped suddenly on the rocks. She felt a sharp gash open up in her leg, but the pain didn't register as much as the panicked adrenaline coursing through her body. Her roughened fingers scrabbled to get a purchase on the rock, but she just kept on falling, feeling the ground rushing up to meet her. This is how the prees must have felt, she thought suddenly, when Mary jumped. She made a last, desperate grab at the air, and her fingers clasped around a tree root protruding from the cliff side. Still slowly slipping, she hauled herself up a little further, curling her grazed fingers around a young sapling. It bent over, creaking under her weight.

But just as Sinder thought she was going to fall again, the sapling stopped creaking and bending. It felt... more solid. She looked up, and she thought the trunk looked thicker, more solid. She thought she was imagining it, until she saw the new bud blossoming out of nowhere on a branch. It appeared slowly, but it definitely appeared.

Struggling, her legs windmilling wildly, Sinder hauled herself up until she was straddling the young tree. Setting her feet on it, she carefully climbed the rest of the way up the rocks, to continue the journey to Clifftop. Hunter's catches were somewhere down the bottom of the cliff now, but Sinder figured that the painful cut on her leg merited Lana's attention. It was bleeding a lot.

But she was more nervous about what she had discovered about herself. She was a freak. Mutant. Moof. Chud.

Being loyal to Sam, life with the Human Crew still strong in Perdido Beach wasn't easy, but she had managed to keep a low profile.

now it would all be different.