The day was dawning crisp and clear, sunlight pouring through the windows, giving us true warmth to the day. A gentle breeze was edging across the sky, pushing the whispers of clouds to the azure plain.

It was around the time Marcus got there the previous day. The morning looked promising. Lighter than the previous day, it didn't look as dark as before. As if all the weeks of rain had suddenly vanished. It was weird to say the least.

The five of them had loaded their saddles on their horses with everything they could need. Tents, hammocks, food, water, first aid kit, literally everything.

"Are you sure you want to do this Nathan? There's no turning back after we go." Marcus said to Nathaniel, putting his hand upon his shoulder. He looked back up at their house. At her window.

"No. I don't want to. But I need to. If I don't now I fear she will actually kill me." Nathaniel chuckled.

"Come on." Marcus said, "Let's go... before the sun rises fully."

He got on, and Marcus followed. Nathaniel had tried to persuade Abadel to let them take some trucks, but he failed. Abadel was the only one to know what they were doing. It wasn't the best idea to try and talk to him anyway, never mind persuading him to let you do something. 

"His excuse was that the senior soldiers might need them if the Erans attack again. To get to the battlefield quickly." Nathaniel said to Marcus, "Which don't get me wrong, is a good excuse, but A, we wouldn't be using all of them, and B, that would be for if they attack. We are literally going to attack them! It's not like I kept any of our plans from him,"

"Plus. We're going to be in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it's good that we don't have trucks, we might run out of fuel," shouted over Neve.

"Good point. But Abadel has never been nice. Never. Never since he was training me anyway. How is a bloke that mean, and rude, captain of the army? Like how?" Marcus replied.

" 'Dunno, he was never nice to me either. And he practically raised me,"

There were 4 horses, which Marcus and Nathaniel rode the front two. The 4 horses pulled along a wooden cart, large enough to carry an extremely big load. That's where they put all the tents, food, all the larger things. Lucas, Neve and Elliott also sat in the cart. The tents kept rolling about. And some of the food fell out of the bags. The wind was relentless.

"This tent may actually be the death of me! No matter how many times I roll the damn thing back, it just keeps rolling back down!" Lucas said. Neve just looked at him and rolled her eyes.

"So, Elliott. Tell us something about yourself,"

"Just ignore him," Neve sighed. "You have my permission not to answer any of the things he says if you don't want to."

"Well he's shy! How else are we meant to get to know the guy?"

"Maybe by just talking Lucas? Oh my- Elliott I am so sorry please ignore-"

"No it's fine, don't worry. I don't know when to join in a conversation so asking questions is actually easier for me. What do you want to know?" Elliott said, the most confident sounding voice he had put on so far.

"See! I'm not all bad Nevaeh. Anything. Home, family, why you're here, just things for us to get to know you more mate."

"Uh... I moved in with my brother a while back. He's a senior soldier, taught me self defence, how use my Terraria. Everything. I'm here to be more like him I guess- Shitting hell!" the cart jolted, causing the 3 of them to fall forwards.

"What was that?!" Lucas shouted.

"You all alright back there?" Nathaniel tilted his body round, but not so far as he could see them.

"Yeah! What the fuck was that?" 

Elliott, Neve and Lucas jumped out of the cart, and walked around so that the 5 of them were in a crowd.

"The cart just stopped. See this is why Abadel should have let us use them! I damn knew it."

"Let me look," Elliott said. Lying on his back and scooting himself backwards so that he could see the back of the wheels. "The wheels' prongs have snapped. Fucks sake why in earth is Abadel so strict man." He said, taking the wheel off and lifting it to show them, whilst placing a rock so that the inventory didn't fall out.

He told Marcus to get him a new one from the bag. When they bring everything, that does mean literally everything. He grabbed the wheel off Marcus, and put it back onto the spool, whilst fastening the bolt onto the end so that it didn't come off. He then scooted back out and stood up as if nothing happened. 

"What the hell was that?" Lucas said, surprised.

"Oh, one of the things Oliver taught me was how to repair things, it was no big deal,"

"Well thanks dude, you saved me some dollar there man," Nathaniel said, before getting back onto his horse and everyone else following. Eventually riding off into the maturing daylight. 

~

It was a while before they stopped again, the sun had been risen for around an hour or two. They needed to set up, for something to eat.

They hopped off the cart and their horses. Nathan and Neve were in charge of setting the fire, Lucas collecting wood, Marcus cooking and Elliott was getting the food ready for cooking. He walked over to the cart, stepping over the tents to get to the back of it, where the food was. He heard a whimper coming from the tents, he was curious. He slowly bent down to unravel the tent, but it rolled off. The wind had blown it off. Something was there. Elliott screamed. He didn't know what to do. It made him jump.

"Did you hear something?" Neve turned to Nathaniel.

"Yeah.. I think I did. We better go. Jesus we haven't even set up yet, " He said. "Come on."

They came running over, along with Marcus and Lucas. crunching all the sticks they hand found for the fire beneath them.

"What?" Neve said.

"What's wrong Elliott?" Nathan asked. He wouldn't answer. He was just frozen in shock.

"Elliott. Look at me. What's up?" Marcus said, putting his hands on Elliott's shoulders in an attempt to ground him. It worked, he made noises, none of them formed any words though.

"I- I uh.." he couldn't say anything. He just pointed to the open tent on the ground, to which the 4 of them slowly walked around him to see. He revealed a person lay between the edges of the tent. They lay in the corners which the wind was continuously blowing, hitting their legs so that they struggled to stand up, in a fight with the tent for dominance.

"What... the actual... fuck." Nathaniel said.

"Umm... Hi?" Alania waved back.