In the early morning, we had a bit more light to work with. Gab and Chloe figured out a spot from the branches where they could roll apples down the trunk of the tree, hopefully bruising them less than just letting them fall on the grass.

One rolled toward me. It was shiny and dotted with drops of morning dew, thin yellow lines passing through the red peel. It smelled fine, like a regular apple. There was an amount of nostalgia that came with the scent. Had it really been that long? I didn't even usually eat apples! Persim berries were fine for me to eat because they could mostly be finished with one bite. Apples were different. They were heavier, way harder to keep from rolling down smooth surfaces like my arms, and required many more bites. If I wanted to eat it, I'd have to stab it. The idea made me queasy.

The sky was turning rosy, but it wouldn't be long before it became a dull white, a textureless blanket of clouds overhead blocking out the sun. We wouldn't be seeing any kind of stars anytime soon. I aimed my stinger the best I could against the apple's side, suspecting that if I went through the middle, it might split.

Schnikt!

Apple skewer achieved. I took a bite and looked through the clearing. Everyone was so busy eating that no one was talking. Rather, everyone was so busy on avoiding talking that they were doing anything else. The thing on our minds was so present it might as well have been an anvil waiting to drop.

You didn't need to say anything for someone to know what you were thinking about. We were all constantly thinking it. What was the point of talking about it when we were all already so depressed? I grit my teeth, crushing an apple chunk. Maybe we couldn't get over it, but we had to speedrun this whole thing anyway since we knew what was at risk.

If you ignore mental pain, it moves places. I felt as if I'd swallowed a hairball, it uncomfortably scratching at every inch of my stomach lining. I had that constant stomach ache and my limbs were numb. I couldn't imagine how Micheal felt.

Then, let's not. You can ride it out. Let him sulk.

I didn't blame Micheal, at least not wholeheartedly. What he did, with the whole running into the lava thing, wouldn't have worked if Mr. Henry wasn't already too far gone. But he was. He followed him in, not blinking or hesitating. The dragon saw movement and roared, slashed, and chased. Micheal hadn't seen the way those talons flexed as the Charizard reached for him when he dove.

As long as I was concerned, it meant the act of keeping everyone else alive had double the worth now, because one less person here meant one more zombie on the other side.

That's a morbid thought.

Crunch. Thud! With that last bite, what remained of the apple lost balance and fell on the grass. Great. I'd have to pick it up again. I tried my hardest to do it quietly because of the stillness all around. For some reason the atmosphere was fragile.

It was something easy to ruin. I knew it.

In the tree hollow, things felt safe. We'd built a lean-to once before, but I'd missed having a door to shut our sleeping space. I was missing a couple things. I was getting sick of Persim berries. They were still good, yet— man— I missed cheeseburgers. Hell, I missed lettuce! We'd only eaten fruit— borderline candy— for weeks.

What do you have to complain about? You know he had it worse.

Out of all macabre things to think about, that was the one that froze the blood in my veins. Someone, multiple people, had felt what it was like to die. Were their minds still kicking afterwards, even trapped behind a red barrier of violence? Could you live with that?

I picked at the rest of the apple, hit it, tried to do anything to grab it—

"We're doing recon today, right?" Valérie suggested. There wasn't any pushiness to it. Sleep must've done her some good, however short it had been for all of us.

I stood up and wiped my stinger on the grass. "That's my cue."

I left the apple's remains there. It was a pile of mush at this point, something to feed to the grass.

A few people stayed at the tree for the time being. No use losing control of that spot. With little discussion or care, it was Lola, Valérie and I who backtracked to the entrance to see if anything had changed.

The hedges were all at least a meter thick. There was enough resistance that, if I cut something with an arm stinger, a chunk of foliage would fall to the floor. It seemed the hedges were more like massive tangled knots made of leaves, vines, and a few branches. I let some venom loose here and there as I grazed the walls. Might as well check the effects of different amounts of poison while I was at it.

Lola was the one to point out the entrance when we rounded the corner. Open as ever, it let a breeze through the hall as the occasional gust of wind howled outside. The rustle of leaves and grass was soft but oh so present, something I'd forgotten from last night.

There wasn't any trace of where I'd poked at the walls yesterday. I thought then that I hadn't focused enough, and my arms had still been hurt from the burns. They felt better now. Today would be a better example of whether marking our path would work.

We walked past the entrance to explore the side of the hall we'd neglected the night before. Like the previous path, there was only one turn at the end. Chances are, the forks started further in. I'd have put marks on the next few turns, but even they were one straightforward trail. We were definitely a few hours in at that point, and nothing new appeared.

The one change, really, was that the trail had a dead end waiting for us. I looked to Valérie when I noticed it. Thanks to her picking our initial direction yesterday, she'd saved us some trouble. God knows how we would've taken this route trying to get to the apple tree.

"I guess we turn back now," I groaned.

Lola shook her head. "Nope. I want to mark it."

I shrugged. There was no chance of us ending up back here since there was only one way, but you never know. I had to agree with Lola that we should at least pummel the thing for our troubles. The Absol padded to the back hedge and readied her Scratch attack. Her claws glowed white, and—

They lengthened and took so much force to swing around that I felt wind rushing at me after Lola had cut at the hedge. My wings twitched. Her range had increased so much that she'd dug a foot or two into the wall.

The gash, the attack— the whole thing was just bigger.

"Was that—" Lola said. "Was that something?"

"Slash, I think", I responded.

"Hm," Valérie crossed her arms.

I didn't want to acknowledge what had given her enough experience to reach that level. I just started walking back. We had a long trek to go, and not a lot of ground covered. If anything, maybe we could see if Lola could cut through the hedges entirely, but that would have to wait until we reached the rest of the group.

We spoke very little during the following hours. Nothing had regrown or wilted when our little group got back to the tree, though we'd wait the day to make sure.

Freaking everyone was sad in the room with the tree.

I don't want to be all doom and gloom, but the atmosphere was just not good. There was a sense of routine around, and in some strange sense the occasional sob from somewhere in the room felt normal too. It wasn't contagious or upsetting. There was just an understanding that they were there.

Inside the hollow, I'd hoped to get a breather, but was met with an entire workstation. Pickets from the plots of dirt outside had been torn out and placed here and there, a pile of apple seeds near them. Apparently, some of them had been planted outside, though I couldn't see the short-term use for that. Gab was weaving more things with random leaves she'd found, barely a sniffle in sight. She kept busying herself with the work, stray tears rolling down her white cheeks every so often, with no further signs of crying.

I felt bad, but I really didn't know how to deal with that. If she was showing her tears in public, maybe that meant she was okay with us seeing them anyway.

Chloe and Micheal had left for recon on the other side of the labyrinth after we'd come back. Upon their return, they brought back a few berries, each a different kind. Apparently, there was a lot of variety if you knew where to look. Still, they couldn't get very far before night fell.

We still had some daylight left, though, and with that we wanted to test Lola's hedge-cutting power. Slash was a handy move to have in this situation, what with the alternative being stabbing the hedges with stingers or setting them on fire.

We'd had enough of fire for a little bit.

Lola gingerly clawed at the ground, squinting through heavy eyelids.

"You ready?" Valérie asked.

Lola snapped out of it. "Yeah. Yeah."

She droned out of the hollow and positioned herself in front of the hedge furthest from the tree. If anything went too far, at least nothing important would get damaged. And went far it did. There was no trace of Lola's tired movements from moments before. Her attacks were a show of calculated strength and quick aim. The affected foliage was all but completely dismantled. Swipe after slice, Lola dug deeper into the hedge.

And halfway through, her front leg disappeared. Surprised, she moved it side to side, observing the pixel-like effect sparking where her leg met the invisible wall. Where it was cut off. Lola squinted and slowly took it out. She flexed her claws. The leg was intact, thankfully. Then, she just attacked the hedge again.

From behind me, slashing sounds. I turned to see the back wall. It bore new slashes, some twigs and leaves having fallen to the grass. Eventually, her friggin' leg poked through the other side of the room.

Another axis, another loop.

Damn it! We couldn't fly or dig, or even eliminate obstacles! We were caged in with no way out but through.

"Get away from there," Valérie grumbled, breaking the silence.

Chloe fluttered over to Lola. "No messing with the out-of-bounds, remember?"

The Absol nodded slowly and retrieved her leg from the physics-defying area. "I'll, uh, put it there twice. On the list. It's two commandments."

"Shut up," I spat.

Dinner was as uneventful as it was non-filling. Slumping into bed, we'd just resigned ourselves to the confines of the tree. We couldn't go far at night with our markers all being visual. I guess we did need to sleep anyway. The makeshift bark door made it easier for us to feel comfortable without anyone on watch.

Lola had just woken up, her voice hoarse and slurred. I wasn't sure she was all there as she started speaking to me.

"Hey. Hey Kieran, you awake?"

I kept my eyes closed and muttered: "What?"

"You know how everyone played Pokémon GO when it came out? And then it dropped off the surface of the Earth?"

"Lola, I need to sleep—"

"You think this is Pokémon GO taking its revenge on us?"

My eyelids were half-opened, and I already felt the bags below them. "Ok, we both need to sleep. Go back to sleep, Lola."

"What if we should've Pokémon Gone to the polls?" she lamented, earning a snicker from Micheal, who was apparently also up. The chuckle grew to a confused, hysterical fit, and he was quickly shushed by Gab.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, trying to stifle his laughter. "That was so bad."

"Do you need time to calm down?" Chloe asked, somehow pulling off both groggy and mocking in her tone. "We can pick up the pace for you."

Now Gab let out a snort, and I longed for the peaceful embrace of sleep. I was deep in denial, though, and Micheal would not stop making noise.

"Shut up," he said between laughs, confronting Chloe. "That was good advice. Hey, hey, we need to be quiet. Valérie's still asleep. She needs this."

"This whole thing is messed up," I said, sitting up. "Someone just died, and we keep joking? I'm with Valérie on this one, I'll admit."

"Then go back to sleep," said Lola.

I could've grumbled back that she woke me up in the first place, but somehow I didn't feel that it was the right thing to say. It was almost letting her down easy. She got the silent treatment and a death glare instead. I knew she could see it with her night vision. I wasn't sure if she even responded to guilt, but it was worth a shot. Her glowing eyes remained still.

"All right," she said, "let's let the Beedrill sleep."

"Good night, everyone," Micheal sighed.

Okay, fantastic. People settled down. A couple 'good nights' were passed around before we did become quiet. I heard a contented sigh from somewhere in the group, but I was right on the threshold of actually falling asleep, so I couldn't tell who it came from.