By the time the group had reached the top of the cliff the sun was beginning to set. This brought on a bought of nerves and tension but Tai was secretly relieved, this meant they would stop walking, rest and get some sleep. He was exhausted and his whole body ached, every step was like a marathon.

It was Matt who took charge of the situation

"Alright everyone," he'd said looking a little awkward, as if he didn't really like addressing the group in such a way. "We need to decide what we're going to do next, I don't know how much daylight we have left but I for one don't want to be travelling through the night,"

"I suppose we could sleep here," Sora said looking at the clearing around them. Tai didn't really fancy it, there was no cover or protection, just open space.

"Sleep on the floor!" came Mimi's voice "Sora are you feeling okay?"

"To be honest I don't really want to sleep here either," said Joe. "We're still pretty close to the shore and what if Shellmon comes back?"

"Okay so what are you saying?" Matt asked Mimi and Joe "we carry on walking for a bit?" there was no response, Matt's tone hadn't helped, he sounded pretty pissed off to Tai. Matt sighed and ran his fingers through his blonde hair,

"Hey look I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a douche I just…don't know what to do." Suddenly Tentomon flew into the air above them and buzzed,

"Water! I can smell water!"

"Um, that would be the ocean," TK said pointing back out to sea

"Not salt water! Fresh water! Follow me!" and he speeded off into the forest, there was a moment's hesitation and then everyone decided to follow. Tentomon led them through some trees and bushes right to another clearing but this time Tai saw that right in the centre of the clearing was a great big lake.

"This is perfect," said Izzy "we've got some shelter from the trees, water, and we're not too far from Shellmon – "he was cut short however, by Mimi's gasp

"Is that a bus?" she pointed out a little further around the lake to a small island where Tai was amazed to see a trolley cart sat squarely on the grass.

"Let's check it out!" TK said jogging ahead with his Digimon in tow. Everyone followed, Tai struggled to keep up as they raced ahead, his ribs still aching after his encounter with Shellmon, thankfully nobody noticed, he didn't want them thinking he couldn't manage.

It really was a trolley cart though, Tai had half expected it to be a trick or some sort of hallucination. It was basically a sort of tram cart that had seemingly just landed on the small little island. Tai mentally corrected himself, it wasn't an island it was a peninsula. TK had already slide open the door and gone inside

"Hey are you sure it's safe?" Matt asked "What if it blows up like those telephone booths?"

"That's highly unlikely," Izzy said with his arms crossed against his chest "the telephones didn't explode for a start," Matt ignored him and cautiously entered the tram, followed by the rest of the group and the Digimon.

It was a bit of a squish with the Digimon too but Tai found the tram relatively comfy and sighed when he sat down on the leather seating.

"I think this solves the sleeping problem," Sora laughed

"It solves a lot of problems," Matt said brightly "this can be our base until help comes,"

"Or until we run out of food," Izzy said bluntly.

"Way to put a downer on things," Matt said giving Izzy a dark look. Izzy shrugged,

"It's just an observation, we don't have much food, it's as simple as!"

"Don't worry about food," came the deep voice of Matt's Digimon Gabumon "you can catch fish in the lake and we can collect berries and seeds that are edible,"

"Oh man! I never thought of that!" Matt said slapping a hand to his head "hey, maybe if we get a fire going outside we can cook some fish right now!"

"I can't catch fish!" Joe mumbled awkwardly

"We'll help catch the fish!" Biyomon said with a smile and she Agumon and Gabumon ran out of the tram and began to demonstrate. They blasted the water with their attacks and soon, Tai spotted dozens of small fish float lifelessly to the surface.

"I can't watch!" Gomamon said, covering his eyes with his paw.

"Alright great!" Matt said getting to his feet and taking charge "if we all work together we can be eating before it gets too dark. Okay we're going to need kindling for the fire so uh, Joe and Tai, can you two gather some for us?"

Tai nodded feeling a little put out that Matt was ordering him around so effortlessly.

"Mimi and Sora, if you go with the Digimon and collect some berries and stuff and Izzy and TK can you guys gather up the fish?"

"Wait now, what are you going to do?" TK argued his brow furrowed in a similar way to how Matt's had earlier on in the day. Tai noticed they looked more like brothers when they were angry than any other time. "I'm not doing all the dirty work if you're just going to stand there giving orders,"

"Yeah!" Tai agreed on purpose just to wind Matt up.

"I'm going to be cooking the fish," Matt said casually "unless you want to do it?" TK didn't reply, he simply got up, walked past Matt and left the tram. Everyone watched as he strolled over to the Digimon at the water's edge and began to pick up abandoned fish. Matt watched, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a silent rage of anger, but he smacked his lips and smiled brightly. "Alright let's get going!"

Tai followed Joe towards the trees and bushes and began to collect some twigs. He bent down to grab some broken branches flinched, his side was killing him. He grimaced and worked through the pain. It didn't take them long to collect a lot of firewood, they dumped their first batch at Matt's feet who began to assemble it together,

"Just a bit more," he said, Tai watched confused, Matt was arranging the kindling out but was making a sort of cone out of it, it made no sense to Tai.

"What are you doing?" he asked Matt staying behind as Joe went to gather more firewood.

"If we arrange it like this," Matt said focused on his work "we won't burn our hands or the fish when we cook them, we'll basically be barbequing them," Tai shrugged, it still made no sense to him so he went back to help Joe who was returning with an armful of twigs and branches.

"Here let me take some," Tai said but just as he took the weight off of Joe his side erupted in a burst of shocking pain and dropped the wood all onto the floor clutching his chest and side.

"TAI!" Joe and Matt both scolded but they stopped at once when Tai's knees gave way and he feel to the floor. The pain was incredible now, it had been bad ever since he'd been released from Shellmon's grip but now it was something else. It was like his whole left side was being pounded with a hammer, a steady, constant throbbing of excruciating pain. Tai began to gasp and tears sprang to his eyes, he suddenly felt Matt's cool hand on his shoulder.

"Hey it's going to be okay man," Matt said "Joe's going to take a look at you, just try to take it easy okay? Don't work yourself up." Tai knew that Matt meant well but he just wanted to tell him to shut up.

"Alright Tai, I'm going to need you to take your shirt off," Joe sounded more in control than ever before and a little intimidating, like a real doctor. "Don't worry, Matt and I will help you," Tai cringed as Matt and Joe slowly helped him out of his shirt. Once it was off there was a terrible silence, Tai who had his eyes shut in pain, opened them and looked up at Matt and Joe who were staring at him, Matt had gone pale and looked horrified and Joe just looked plain frightened.

"Wh...what?" Tai gasped then he looked down at his chest. He nearly threw up in panic, his entire chest and ribs were bruised black. The bruise coiled right around him and blood was seeping out of some parts of his side giving the bruise a horrible maroon stain. Most horrifyingly of all, Tai could see the whitish colour of bone protruding just a tiny bit out of his left side. "is…is that my…bone?" he gasped to Joe. Joe nodded.

Tai passed out.