She gasped and sat up straight, her hand gripping the dirty fabric that concealed her chest over her rapidly beating heart. Her eyes were wide open when the last picture of her nightmare started to fade away slowly, replaced by the sight of dim stony walls. The small campfire a few feet next to her was warming up her side and despite her body experiencing the symptoms of pure horror and shock, she wasn`t sweating.

"…I almost wanted to wake you up, mum" a soft voice spoke up next to her.

Only then did she notice that he sat down next to her pillow and worked on one of the mandibles he harvested the day before. With skilled hands he had sharpened its side and managed to form some kind of sword out of it. Where the mandibles were hollowed out, he placed a self made, robust little tube which he connected at the end of the curvy sword to a vessel filled with a thick, black liquid. He finished it up and swirled the sword in between his hands before he gave her a look that reminded her of a small boy looking expectantly at his mother with huge eyes, waiting for praise. As wide open as he could even manage with the dark shadows underneath his eyes.

"This is your weapon for emergencies" he explained as he carefully placed it next to her knee.

"The poison inside will be effective even for the bigger ones. But you should be careful not to touch the blade. I made you a few shots of antivenom, but it isn`t like it´s easy to get. You will need to be very careful when you handle this as we don´t have much medicine left" he added while he pointed his thumb to the small shelf behind them. Although it was still relatively full a few weeks ago, there were now only a few jars and containers to be seen. They always kept the empty jars in lightweight bags for easier transport.

She rubbed her tired eyes and yawned. She still felt exhausted, her body still malnourished and stomach empty. She gave him an annoyed look when she noticed the dark bags under his eyes had grown larger than the days before. Of course, he wouldn`t sleep much. Sometimes she appreciated it, but in this case, he needed as much rest as he could get. Staying up and missing the time for sleep, he would get unfocused and weak if he continued like that.

"I`ve told you how much I hate it when you don`t get the sleep you need" she scolded him.

"We are safe here, there is no need to keep on guard all the time."

"You need to keep on guard all the time" he countered and grabbed a small container that had been standing near the fireplace.

He opened it carefully and checked the temperature before he nipped at it and drank the water inside. She huffed and straightened her back. Her muscles felt cramped and tensed after sleeping on the hard ground for so long. She winced, her right hand flying to the side of her stomach where a large line of a scar painted the skin right above her hip bone that had been pressing against the soft, slightly pale skin.

She didn`t miss that he stopped gulping down the much needed water while his eyes stayed on the scar of her side. His eyes softened immediately and his pupils widened slightly when his lips formed a deep frown. She didn`t want to make him feel guilty again, so she quickly grabbed one of the bags they used for harvest and gave him a small smile before she reached into it, searching for her own container of water.

"I am fine! You really worry too much" she tried to assure him.

It didn´t help.

His eyes trailed down to the tools spread out on the ground in front of him, while he moved his own container from his face, closing it and putting it aside. He sighed and grabbed the tools. Then he stood up and walked carefully to the shelf without talking a single word, taking one of the bags and checking the content of the remaining vessels.

They had spent the last week without the need to leave their secondary home. The supplies of water, self-made medicine and meat bought them some time to rest and restore some of the energy they lost during their last famine. But the time was running out slowly and they both knew that they would need to leave the place very soon. No matter how much they tried to find food in the area, the season had come where the eatable creatures would leave this place, always following the source of consumable water.

It didn´t hurt to prepare everything already, even though they still had some meat left for two days before it would reach a point where it slowly begins to decompose. One of the main reasons – despite the gruesome bitter taste and the rubber-like consistency of the meat - why both of them preferred to eat vegetables. And mushrooms. Only bad for them that the berry plants and the mushrooms only grew in certain places and only during a limited time. Without being able to preserve the food they harvested or gathered, they had only limited time when they could rest before they needed to go out once again.

She stopped the gentle massaging of her fingers on the skin above her hip bone and stood up herself. She had to take it slow. She could feel her heart already picking up in pace when she moved her body on one foot and slowly lifted it up. Her knees slightly buckled underneath her little weight. She hadn´t realized just how weak she had become. She didn´t listened to her sons worried orders to eat more than she had since the hunt, and now she truly regretted it. She carefully made her way to the fire, slowly sat down again and grabbed one of the slices of meat they had grilled the last day. She swallowed before she took a bite, clenching her eyes shut at the foul taste. She would never get used to insect meat but her growling stomach demanded for something, anything to digest.

"…This is my fault…"

It was a whisper, almost too silent for her to pick up the words. She stopped chewing and looked up. He had turned his back at her, still hovering at the shelf and packing the bags after he checked the contents of each tiny vessel and small container.

She blinked.

"Sorry?"

There was a pregnant pause. She still didn't continue chewing, her eyes staring at the skin of his back. His muscles had shrunken slightly during the last week, given the lack of nutrients. In addition, the scratches on his right biceps stopped healing, the skin still irritated and red.

"….I… If I haven´t been born, then –"

"Nico, you can´t be serious!" she interrupted him quickly.

"How often do we need to talk through this? This is not your fault, it is no one´s fault. It happened years ago, and we were able to pull through it. I am very much alive and walking, you know".

A moment of silence. She stared at him, her gaze showing the anger that she felt. No matter how often she tried to remind him that he isn´t to be blamed for anything, it still didn´t help her to get through the thick skull of his. That boy had been too pure to realize the truth.

There was a change she could feel in the air between them as he slowly raised his head, but only enough to stare at the wall in front of him. The small flame of the fire flickered slightly.

"You´re right…. It´s not my fault…. It´s his". She didn´t recognize his voice by the dark tone lacing it.

She blinked, confused.

"…His?".

She could hear him grit his teeth and feel his anger rising. She didn´t like the way he acted.

"Yes, HIS!" he growled out, still refusing to look back at her.

He didn´t mean to start an argument, but in the past years his character had grown quite a lot, and he reached a point where he couln´t suppress his anger anymore. He has harbored a grudge against him for many years now, which has been steadily growing. After each dangerous hunt, after each hunger period and after each time one of them needed to take medicine because of the polluted water they were forced to drink, his fury became more and more uncontrollable.

His mothers stories of how protective, strong, smart and friendly he had been didn´t help. Simply because he didn´t buy a single word.

"Who do you mean by ´his´?" she asked warily after she gulped down the chewed meat she had been keeping inside her mouth, forgotten.

"You know very well who I talk about..."

She noticed him balling his hands into fists. She could feel her nervousness rising. She was walking on very thin ice, and she knew that one wrong word could only feed his anger towards his father.

"Nico, it isn´t his fault…. He didn´t even know – "

"That is NO excuse! He fucking left you behind, not giving shit about what had happened to you while he roamed around that stupid vessel of his and who knows, probably continued his shit pirate life of stealing from people and slaying innocents!" he snarled.

It was times like this that she regretted that she didn´t tell him the whole story about what had happened on that fateful day. The day the Polar Tang got attacked and sunk into the ocean, the crew defeated and her taken away. She didn´t tell him that Law had been fatally injured during that battle and had fallen into the ocean, the biggest danger to a Devil Fruit User, after which his trusted navigator and furry friend caught him and carried him away.

In truth, she didn´t know if he was still alive. The chances of death after receiving such an injury far away from any island in the middle of the ocean had been too high and with his Devil Fruit Powers weakened by the ocean´s water, she was rather convinced that he didn´t make it. That had been the most painful experience when she started to regain her memories weeks after they had captured her and treated her like an animal. Losing her mother as a kid was already a key trigger in her life, but losing the only person she deeply loved and that had been her chosen partner, was on a different level. It triggered something that she wouldn´t have had before – an unbreakable will to survive in order to keep alive the last part of him that he left on the world and that was growing inside of her at that time.

She didn´t want their son to know about it. She wanted him to have at least hope to meet his father one day. He was her son, after all. And hope was a power that kept both of them going and made it possible for them to surpass any limit – no matter how impossible that seemed. She was the living proof.

"He tried everything to avoid that to happen. The enemy had been too strong and the attack too sudden. No other pirate crew could have fend them off…" she could feel her eyes begin to water.

"If it wasn´t for him, you would never have been born" she added and sniffled.

He tensed and finally turned to face her. His face was unreadable, but she could still sense the anger inside of him. It didn´t help to soothe it in the slightest. But her view must have stopped his thinking and soothe his building up temper tantrum.

"…I love him…." she added in a faint whisper.

He decided to drop it then. As much as he wanted to release the fury that had been building up inside of him – and being still in puberty didn´t really help to lessen it – he never could see his mother cracking like that. He couldn´t remember the last time she was close to cry. It only made him feel like shit, knowing that he had been the reason for her miserable state right then. His face softened and he walked towards her, stopping when his chest touched hers and he pulled her embraced her with his warm arms, pulling her against his chest while he rested his cheek on top of her head.

He closed his eyes when he felt her body relaxing and her arms returning his hug. She was so cold… For her, his breath was hot on her right shoulder, his body so warm, giving her the image of a warm light in a cold icy cave. A light in the dark on which she knew she could always rely on. It lit up the darkness after the light before had been turned off, taken from this world forever. She fought the knot forming inside her heart and tried to calm her emotions as best as she could. After a while he released her and placed his forehead against hers while looking deep into her eyes, the movement pushing up his furry hat a little. She met his gaze and found kindness and comfort in his gentle light brown eyes.

"I´m sorry" he said calmly, guilt filled his voice.

"I didn´t mean to bring up old memories" he continued and pulled away, stepping back and forcing out a gentle smile when he found out that he managed to successfully calm her down.

"I know this is not the right moment, but we should prepare our leave. I think we still have one or two days left before we need to go" he hated to remind her of their current situation, that they were forced to leave their save home in search for a new place to restock their supplies. But he knew that by bringing it up now, it would help to distract her from the depressive thoughts and feelings greatly. He didn´t know how it felt like to have romantic feelings for someone, but he could imagine the pain of not having seen your loved one for so long.

With a nod and a last sniffle, she collected herself quickly and helped him with the preparations.
They didn´t need to say a single word that evening.

At the corner of her eyes, she could make out some movement within the shadows of the rotten coral. She stopped in her tracks for a moment to register the threat it may pose to them. Once she noticed a faint click sound, she exhaled and continued to walk, catching up to him and falling into his pace. He didn`t even stop in his tracks, trusting in her decisions and knowledge that if she saw a reason for them to fend off whatever it was lurking in the shadows, she would have told him right away. He didn`t even need a second to act, once she would order him to attack.

They had been walking for months since they left their last secured place they called their second home during their year of stay. It was shocking how easy it had been to forget how it had been to survive in a world where it never could be safe. Where a horrific creature could jump from the darkness surrounding them and maul them to death. Where they struggled to stay conscious after they hadn´t been able to find a source of water they could filter until their last supplies ran out. Where they needed to be alert every second, draining their energy and stressing out their weakened bodies further. Where there had been absolutely no light. In those times, his knowledge about the local smaller insects was life-saving when he managed to build a small cage-like cube out of bones, and held a small bug inside that could create light. Those small butterflies had been her favorites.

The worst that could happen to them was when ´they´would appear.

The thought alone caused her to swallow, hard. The last attack had been a few weeks ago, and they barely made it out alive, if it hadn´t been for ´it´ to be released and slaughter every single one of them in a gruesome and scary way. She would never do it if the situation wouldn´t be desperate enough. Because after every time she had to fear her heart stopping, her tendons ripped apart, her insides mangled, or worse, Nico being mauled at by that fearful dark force. It never happened, luckily, and she knew that the chance of that ´thing´attacking him was pretty low. Still, there always would be a risk.

She glanced at one of his calves, the one that had been sliced diagonally by one of them. It was healing well, the wound completely closed and the skin around it having a healthy color. The scar that would be left wouldn´t be visible.
She couldn´t say the same for herself. Since that ambush, the cut on her shoulder didn´t healed well enough. The skin had been irritated, the flesh still ripped, being held together by makeshift tiny wires Nico managed to make out from one of the plants growing in this place. Even though he applied a salve on her wound multiple times a day, it didn´t seem to get better. He admistered an antivenom as soon as he was able to make it. It was thanks to his extraordinarily quick perception and intelligence that he took one of the dead spiders with him to extract the poison from its fangs in order to produce an antidote.

Her uneasiness rose when the wound didn´t get better. After weeks of the attack, this was something she never had before. And situations like these, where they didn´t know what had been the cause of her body temperature rising and her veins of her injured arm throbbing, were rising fear in both of them.

They stopped on the tip of a fallen trunk and took in the view in front of them.

They were standing on a ring of very high rocks overlooking a deep, wide valley. A bright blue light from a special source shone through the ceiling and lit up the valley. Lumniscient corals had been rare in this place. They provided light, which would increase their chances of survival. Giant mushrooms reached out the valley, the surrounding air was filled with tiny snowflakes, forming a slight yellowish fog covering the ground of the valley.

"Spores" Nico said, his eyes narrowing.

Nami sat down on a little branch protruding from the trunk. She put down her bag she had been carrying on her back and moved her shoulder to release the tension in the muscles.

"Those are Cantharellus-like mushrooms. They will provide us with food and those spores are not poisonous" she said as she let her eyes scan the valley.

He nodded and crossed his arms.

"I can also see huge fruit plants. Oxygen and water will not be our problem here but I wouldn´t be surprised if this place is filled with life as well" he added.

There was a long pause and both of them felt fear and uncertainty rising. Places like these that were filled with water, food and resources, even with light, had been one of the most dangerous in this world. Logically because there wouldn´t only harmless creatures thriving here.

Her legs were already tired enough. She knew that he felt the same after he had been forced to use his ability quite a lot in the past months without a proper break, so they needed to be very careful if they approached the valley. Turning around and leaving was no option. The risk of starvation if they didn´t find a place with food and water had been too high.

"We need to keep going. The longer we wait the weaker we get" he concluded and stepped towards her, bending down and taking her bag.

She nodded her head, thankful that he would take the weight off her shoulders, and stood up before she walked ahead to find a way for a descent. He followed closely and heigthened his alertness.

Removing corals blocking the narrow pathway and carefully pushing aside the branches of the trees with his power, they managed to reach a small place within a gigantic mass of mushrooms and plants. The sounds of a high amount of water falling on a surface lured them right into a small clearing where a small waterfall in between the large mushrooms reached down to a grassy ground, the stream flowing downwards further into the lower grounds of the valley.
And on top of that, he couldn´t sense a single threat nearby.

After signaling his mother that the path was clear, she smiled wide and ran towards the water, kneeling down at the surface of the stream and carefully inspected it. When she didn´t find any trace of a possible source of poison in it, she waited patiently for her son to finish his inspection as well. Once he nodded, both of them quickly stilled the thirst that tormented them since almost two days and filled their containers afterwards.

After taking a bath and cleaning the wound of her shoulder they took their time to grab the food, both of them relishing on the sweet taste of the yellow fruits growing on the grassy plants. With their stomaches full she used the time to take out one of her maps and started to mark their location and add the valley. Nico had been sitting next to her, his back leaning against the trunk of a mushroom, keeping his eyes towards the exit of the clearing. They exchanged the information they could gather during their descent and decided that they would stay in that clearing for a while. Despite her protest, he would take the first watch while she could go to sleep. Grabbing one of the huge leaves, he covered her and busied himself working on his tools.

It was a rare luck to them to be able to rest for days without being forced to face one of the local creatures, given it to the need for a hunt or the need for defense. But it helped him restore some of his energy, and both of them gained some much needed weight. It would have been good news if it wasn´t for her shoulder worsening each passing day. He grabbed the bags and swung them over his shoulder, fixating them against the fabric wrapped around his torso. He gently took her wrist and helped her to stand up. She was yawning and still groggy from the long slumber. He gave her a moment to stretch before he reached out his hand to feel the skin on her forehead.

"Your temperature is rising…" he breathed out in worry.

He tried to give her some medicine he had made to help fight off the infection, he applied the antibiotic salve regularly, he had given her the antivenom he had made weeks ago, just in case. He had stayed close to her back and hugged her to him when she would rest, sharing his body warmth in hope to improve her condition. But nothing helped. Slowly, panic would rise and replace fear.

She moved his arm away and waved it off, keeping on her characteristic smile. One he knew was only a façade.

"It´s fine. I am positive that it will go away eventually. Maybe we will find a narrow cave again where it is safe. A few days of sleep will be enough for me to get healthy again".

His brows narrowed at her. Usually her demeanor would help calm his worry. But she never had been sick from a bite of a strongly poisonous black, four feet tall spider before, and she never showed similar symptoms for such a long period of time. Despite everything, she still didn´t improve. And he guessed that she probably suffered from a hidden infection caused by harmful bacteria coming from the spiders´ saliva.

Bacteria to which he had no possibility to make any antibiotics to fight off the inner infection. Given her symptoms, the infection still didn´t spread enough to immobilize her. But he knew that the time was running out like a clocks´ batteries. His abilities didn´t allow him to cure the infection or getting rid of the bacteria inside her body. He wasn´t a doctor, either. And their trump card wouldn´t be of any help saving her life.

The chances of her being able to pull through it were slim. As hard as he tried to suppress it, his fear would cloud his senses. And panic would fill his mind.

"BULLSHIT!" he had screamed out, loud.

It left her frozen on the spot, eyes wide and lips slightly apart. She held her breath for a moment. He breathed out, his chest expanding and shrinking in a rapid pace. His own eyes were wide open, and she could clearly see the pure panic in them. His mouth was open, moving with his breaths.

"Bullshit" he repeated, paying extra attention to keep his voice low as he grabbed his mothers´ wrist once again and started walking out of the clearing. If there was any creature around, his scream would have attracted its´ attention towards the clearing.

She stumbled slightly, trying to catch her breath when they continued in his pace. Her feet taking multiple steps for one of his.

"Whoa- hey" she managed out between her breathing.

But he didn´t stop.

Fear raised inside her when he even started to pick up in pace, forcing her to follow him, his grip strengthening on her wrist, his fingers digging into her skin almost painfully. He moved aside the branches in front of him without care, even going so far to use his ability to lift off the rocks and mushrooms on their way and carelessly sending them away in both directions, destroying the surrounding plants around them.

He had lost his mind.

She didn´t pulled through the pain and successfully hide her nausea for them both to throw out their lives like this.
"Nico, stop this!" she said out, but to no avail.

He didn´t even seemed to have heard her voice through the sounds of the impacts surrounding them.

"NICO!" she called out.

She felt his hand around her wrist tighten further, the grip painful and cutting off the blood supply to her hand. He still didn't falter and continued to stomp forwards. A loud rustling was heard from the right side of them. A large trunk had been pushed aside as a large snake-like creature opened its jaws wide to reveal a set of six large fangs aiming at them with an ear shattering hiss. She would have jumped if it wasn´t for him still continuing in his pace.

With a single flick of his arm to the side, the snake was hit by a sharp trunk that had been ripped out of the ground and brutally pierced its head through its mouth, immediately sending it away. The crash whirled the spores and caused a mass of insects flying up from the ground and plants around them. She gasped, lifting up her free arm to protect her face from the black blood raining down at them. Her son didn´t even bother to wipe it off his face.

He finally let go of her wrist as he stopped and turned at her. She froze when she saw those eyes and yelped when he quickly placed his left arm on the back of her shoulders, bending down and pushing his other arm against her calves, causing her to fall into his arms. Without a word, he carried her bridal style and ran forwards, ignoring the clouds of spores and the sounds surrounding them coming from whatever creature coming after them.

He ran over a fallen tree and hopped onto the hats of mushrooms. She could see one of the round glasses being pulled out of the bag attached at his belt by an unseen force, the thick green liquid inside swirling around with the rapid movements of his thighs. Her eyes widened and she slung one arm around his neck for support when he jumped up on higher rocks and mushrooms, using his ability to throw the glass onto the ground over a hundred feet behind them, where the footsteps of something giant echoed through the thick cloud of spores.

"WAIT –" was what she managed to scream out before another, much smaller glass was pulled free from the belt hugging his chest and thrown towards the shattered glass with a green cloud accumulating over it.

The release of the blueish liquid resulted in a massive explosion behind them, immediately burning up the spores and the dark swarms of insects covering the air. An ocean of flames spread through a wide distance, devouring everything in their way. He was running faster, she was clinging closer to him in pure panic and clenched her eyes shut, her heart beat ringing in her ears, blocking out his rapid breathing as he jumped forward, his feet sliding on the surface of the rocks. He fell on his bottom and slide down the rocks, hugging her closer to him. The flames reached the rocks and burned the air above them, the force slowly closing the distance to them. She almost mistook his hot breaths with the burning air coming from the flames.

Their surroundings darkened as deeper they slid down the rocks in escape of the flames until his feet finally reached the ground and he quickly continued to run forward at full speed. The narrow way of the cave would have been darker if it weren´t for the closing flames that now almost reached them. She could feel the rising temperature on her skin already and given his grip tightening on her skin, she was sure that he noticed it as well.

Out of pure instinct and a wince, she bit on the arteries of her wrist and pulled out as much blood as she could within a few seconds, aiming her hand towards the flames and releasing the red mass toward it. In a blink of an eye, it spread out and formed a red wall behind them, blocking out the flames instantly. She could feel him stopping immediately, his feet sliding over the ground. The bloody wall started to boil with the heat behind it.

"WHAT DID YOU DO" was his panicked response, quickly sitting her on the ground and gripping her injured wrist.
He pressed on it hard enough to stop the bleeding momentarily. His eyes frantically looked in between the boiling wall that still held off the flames and his mother in his arms. Her gaze was glassy, her pupils unable to focus as her head lulled to the side. An internal infection accumulated with blood loss was the last thing she needed.

"OI" he snapped his fingers in front of her eyes, catching her attention.

"Don't fall asleep on me!" he rasped in between his breaths and grabbed one of the small cubes, shaking it to force the butterfly to glow.

She nodded her head and grabbed her own wrist, keeping the pressure on the wound while he lifted her up on his back, swinging her arms in front of him to keep her wrist in eyesight when he ran forward again. The movements weren´t smooth, but they made it difficult for her to keep awake.

"HEY"

The worried scream made her open her eyes again. She exhaled against the scruff of hair on his neck.
"…I am awake" she weakly said.

Despite him running at full speed, the narrow way didn´t take an end. He had stopped for a little while to rip off a piece of his trouser leg and wrap it tightly around her still bleeding wrist. After checking her eyes and forcing down a whole container of water into her mouth, he continued to run, ignoring the burning muscles of his legs. Her weak mind barely registered the shaky movements, her head resting on the back of his neck. Her blood pressure had been already low enough for fatigue to take over her senses.

"MOM!"

Her head spun and her eyes grew too heavy.

"MOM!"

"DON'T DIE ON ME" he screamed out when he realized that she had fallen asleep.

She felt warmth around her body. It was comforting and ceasing the pain coming from inside her torso. Instinctively, she moved her hand up to rest on her forehead. It was warm and sweaty. She rested her forearm on it and opened her eyes slowly. Her vision was blurry, but she could see light at the stony ceiling. Metal bars lined up the walls, connecting the tiles of the floor with the stones of the ceiling. She let her eyes wander through the room she was in. There was an old, rusty metal table, two metal chairs, an old, broken cabinet and a painting hanging on the wall right next to the metal door which had been closed. Looking to her left, she realized that she had been lying in an actual bed.

There was movement next to her. A hand reached out, grabbed her chin, and moved her head towards the source of that arm. He stared into her face, his gaze intense and his face holding a deep, worried frown.

"….What happened?" she croaked out, surprised at how rough her throat felt.

"You had been unconscious for five days" he replied, his eyes still studying her face.

"Five….. days?" she saw the panic still there in his brown eyes. She remembered them fleeing from the flames and reaching a cave. But given the room they had been in, something seemed off. Was it a hallucination? There is no possible way that there was a building with actual metal walls, a metal door and furniture inside.

He raised into a sitting position, giving her an overview of many tiny vessels placed on the nightstand of his side. And was there a syringe? He ran his hand through his black hair in exhaustion. Even though his head was lowered, she could see the dark bags under his eyes, being positive that he barely had any sleep during that time.

"I needed to keep you stabilized. It wasn´t long until I found this place. I didn´t know many of those medications that had been stored within one of the rooms, but I´ve found some helpful documents to find those" he reached out and grabbed one of the vessels.

She blinked and looked at the label "Amoxicillin, how is this possible?".

"Don´t ask me. I am just glad that these antibiotics actually helped to keep your fever at bay" he answered as he reached out to place his palm over her forehead, checking her temperature once again.

"With enough water, Amoxicillin and painkillers you could pull through the last days. But still, your infection doesn´t go away. Your temperature isn´t going down further and I am out of options" he explained.

Although he tried to talk professionally, he still couldn´t keep out the panic in his voice. She smiled.

"You really have grown up so fast. When did I miss it?" she tried to tease him although she couldn´t hide the pride in her voice.

He winced.

"Don´t start with this now, we have more important things to worry right now. However-" he gestured at the door with his head.

"- this building seems to be connected to the ceiling of this world" although the description seemed confusing, for her, it couldn´t be better. Her eyes widened.

"Wait, you found a way out of this place?".

He nodded his head. "I hope so. These structures around here are seemingly constructed for transport. Not only that but I found quite a high amount of documents and substances stored in some of the rooms. There also was a skeleton – "

"Okay enough. I better look myself before you ruin everything" she quickly interrupted him.

She didn´t want to think about what might have happened to the people that used to stay in this place.

He looked at her in confusion and shrugged it off. He removed the bedsheets and stood up.

"Although you might feel a bit better, please don't move around without me. You should take another rest. I will prepare the food for later" was all he said before he opened the door and left the room, keeping the door opened.

She huffed in annoyance. Only because she just admitted to him how much he grew up didn´t mean that he could give her orders all day.

Very soon, they would get back to the surface. She never believed that she would make it that far. Had it been a week ago that he told her that they would find a way out, she would have thought he lost his mind. Her eyes started to water with the heavy realization of the possibility to meet her crew, her family, again and that she managed to get Nico out of this hell.

If she survived.

authors notes: Thank you all for the support and the kudos! It really helps to keep up my motivation to reach to the next happenings of the story.