Breakfast consisted of beef jerky and cardboard bread. Nikko was back to his glum self but at least he wasn't glaring holes through me. After breakfast, Nikko asked which way was back. We all pointed in different directions.

"No matter. I don't wanna go back to that terrible place anyways." Nikko said.

"Then where can we go?" I asked.

Nathan looked at the sky for a moment then pointed west. "That's the safest way to go. When I was young, my dad used to take me to a village thataway. We could seek shelter there. They always welcomed strangers."

"Great. Lead us Captain Knowitall!" I exclaimed.

Nikko walked ahead, murmuring to himself. Nathan and I walked side by side a little ways behind him. It was really quiet. Finally, I couldn't stand it.

"Well, say something!" I said.

"What do you want me to say?" Nathan asked.

"I dunno. I just hate silence." We slid back into silence. Ugh. "Hey. How did you know me before when we were on the airship? You looked like you recognized me."

"I had these dreams." He told me. "You were telling me to come to the Boarderlands. That you needed help. It doesn't seem like you needed help when you were a Thief, but now I understand."

"Yeah. I'm in so deep now." I sighed.

"I'm sorry about... before." Nathan aplolgized. "I was just suddenly so angry that no one knows what's going on. The others think it's the Enemy, a resistance pact from a long time ago who tried to overthrow the Society. But Dad knew better. He was an Enemy member."

"What happened to the Enemy?"

"Now it's broken up. Some fight about some stupid serum. Who knows?" He shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

Three days later we had half a bottle of water and three pieces jerky left. We were all starving and tired. We've climbed canyons, wadded through swamps, and hiked in and out of forests. Nikko was the one who found the village.

"That's strange. There's no one here." Nathan kicked open a door. Dust covered everything. It doesn't seem like anyone's been here for a long time.

We checked three other houses, all exactly like the first. Dark, dank, and dusty.

"Check this out." Nikko said. He led us into the basement of one of the nearby houses. There were books everywhere. Back in the Society, there wasn't books. Everything was done on our tablets and messengers. So this was probaly the most interesting thing I've ever seen.

"Wow." I said. I picked up one of the books and flipped through it. There were chapters and chapters of poems. I looked up for Nathan, but instead I noticed the paintings on the wall. "Nathan, look." I pointed at the wall. It was the picture of a man pushing a rock up a halfway eroded hill. Water was starting to fill in the crevice.

"It's the pilot." Nathan said. "There's words painted underneath.

"'Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'"

I continued,

'"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'"

There was a long pause of silence.

"Before I left to be a Protector, my dad told me to not go gentle and to remember the Pilot." I said. "Do you know what he meant?"

"No idea." Nathan said.

"It's scary down here." I shivered.

"We should go." Nathan agreed

"I found food and water!" Nikko said when we got upstairs.

"Great." I said. "I'm starving.