Ye Can Trust Me

"The worst decisions in Clivilius are the ones where both choices lead to death—you just have to guess which one kills you slower."

As the relentless wind began to ease, the unfortunate reality of our situation became even more palpable. Kain's soft, pained sounds filled the temporary lull—whimpers that he tried to suppress and couldn't, each one a knife twist in my gut. At Glenda's behest, I had surrendered my shirt, watching as she deftly wrapped it around Kain's leg. The fabric, now a makeshift bandage, was an attempt to stem the flow of blood and shield the wound from the invasive dust that had become a constant adversary in our struggle for survival.

The night air was cold against my bare skin. I hadn't noticed until now—the adrenaline had kept me warm, kept me moving. But sitting here, motionless, waiting, the chill crept in. Gooseflesh rose along my arms and chest. My body was reminding me of its vulnerability, its exposure, its fragility in this hostile world.

Despite the urgency of tending to Kain, my vigilance remained unwavering. My gaze continuously swept the perimeter, the darkness a canvas for my deepest fears and uncertainties. Every shadow could hide a threat. Every sound could herald an attack. Yet, involuntarily, my eyes gravitated towards where I imagined the Portal to be. Each time the darkness remained unbroken by its light, a silent knot of worry tightened in my chest.

The absence of Luke, each minute stretching longer than the last without any sign of his return, cast a shadow over the flickering hope that he would emerge unscathed from whatever venture had called him away. Where had he gone? What had he found? Was he chasing whoever else had used the Portal, or was he running from them?

The effort to rein in my spiralling thoughts felt Herculean. The quiet, the dark, and the waiting merged into a torturous cycle, feeding into the loop of dread and apprehension that threatened to overwhelm me. Each scenario my mind conjured was bleaker than the last—Luke dead, Luke captured, Luke abandoning us. The thoughts circled like vultures, patient and hungry.

The weight of leadership, the responsibility for the safety and well-being of our group, felt heavier in these moments of uncertainty. Luke's absence, Kain's injury, and the precarious shelter we had found within the Drop Zone—each element compounded the sense of being on the edge of a precipice, one wrong step away from calamity. I was supposed to be the Drop Zone Manager. I was supposed to have things under control. And here I sat, shirtless and terrified, with a wounded man bleeding through my clothing and something unknown hunting us in the dark.

"I mean ye no harm."

The declaration sliced through the silence, a woman's voice emerging from the darkness like a beacon of uncertainty. My entire being tensed, every sense heightened in anticipation of what was to come. The voice was calm, measured—too calm for someone stumbling upon strangers in a dust storm. Too measured for someone innocent.

In a moment of desperation, we had buried the phone in the sand, a futile attempt to cloak our presence from unseen threats. But necessity demanded its unearthing, and as Glenda retrieved it, the phone's light once again pierced the darkness, casting long, ominous shadows around us. The beam settled on a young woman standing a few metres away, her form outlined starkly against the light, a figure both daunting and surreal in our beleaguered state.

She was dressed strangely—not in the casual clothes of Earth, but in something that looked handmade, practical, worn. Her stance was that of someone who knew how to fight. Someone who had been fighting for a long time.

"Shit!" Kain whispered, a sentiment that echoed my own internal alarm.

My gaze locked onto the sharp arrow in the woman's grasp, its sinister appearance compounded by the dark substance that adorned its length. Blood, I surmised, a tangible proof of violence that did little to ease the pounding of my heart. Kain's blood? Someone else's? The blood of whatever had attacked us? The questions multiplied faster than I could process them.

"Follow me," she commanded, her voice cutting through the tension.

The directive, simple yet loaded with unknown implications, left us frozen in a moment of indecision. Follow her where? Into the darkness we had just fled? Into a trap?

Glenda's grip on my arm tightened, her fingers a vice that spoke volumes of her fear and protectiveness. I could feel her trembling—or was that me? In the cold and the dark, it was impossible to tell where my fear ended and hers began.

As the woman ventured a step closer, Glenda's voice broke out. "Stay back!"

The warning was sharp, a clear boundary set against the encroaching stranger.

"Keep yer fuckin' voices doon," the woman hissed back, the urgency in her voice belied by the calm surrender of her dropping the arrow and raising her hands. "It's nae safe. We hae tae gang. Noo."

The gravity of her words, coupled with the dire circumstances we found ourselves in, forced a rapid reassessment of our situation. The immediate fear of the unknown, represented by this armed stranger, clashed with the instinctual understanding that our current refuge offered little in the way of long-term safety. Her insistence on silence and swift action, though alarming, carried an undercurrent of genuine concern—a paradox that left me wrestling with confusion and a grudging sense of urgency.

She was afraid. Not of us—of something else. Something out there in the darkness. The same something that had made Lois growl. The same something that had wounded Kain.

In the dim light, Glenda's face was just a shadow, her expression lost to the darkness as the phone's beam remained fixed on the stranger before us.

"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice laced with apprehension. The question felt both necessary and futile, a feeble attempt to grasp at some semblance of control in a situation that was rapidly spiralling beyond my understanding.

"Tae yer camp," the woman responded.

Her answer was straightforward, yet it did little to ease the knot of anxiety tightening in my stomach. Her assertion, intended to be reassuring, instead sowed seeds of doubt.

How did she know of our camp? And why lead us there?

The questions burned in my mind. She knew about us. Knew where we lived. Had been watching us, perhaps. Stalking us. Learning our routines, our numbers, our weaknesses.

"I don't think we should trust her," I whispered to Glenda, my gaze shifting between her and the woman.

Kain's soft cries of pain underscored my fears, painting a vivid picture in my mind of the arrow's potential role in his injury. That blood on the arrow—was it his? Had she been the one to attack him, only to circle back and play the rescuer?

Lois's low growl, a sound so fraught with warning, seemed to echo my own trepidation.

Don't trust this woman.

Then, cutting through the night, came another growl—deeper, more menacing than Lois's warnings. The sound sent a shiver down my spine, its origin hidden within the shroud of night that enveloped us. This wasn't Lois. This wasn't Duke. This was something else entirely—something large, something predatory, something that had no business existing in any world I understood.

"There's something else out there," Glenda hissed, her voice a mixture of fear and determination as she briefly redirected the light towards the source of Lois's attention. The brief glimpse into the darkness revealed nothing but the unsettling realisation that we were not alone. The darkness swallowed the beam before it could reach whatever lurked beyond.

Which is more dangerous, the woman or the growl?

The question haunted me, a dilemma of trust and survival that offered no clear answers. My heart raced, pounding against my chest with a ferocity that mirrored the chaotic thoughts swirling in my mind. The woman had a bloody arrow but claimed to mean no harm. The growl came from something that made no such claims.

As Glenda turned the light back, the woman's movements caught us off guard. She was now crouching in front of us, having closed the distance in the darkness without a sound.

"Shit!" The exclamation burst from both Glenda and me, a shared response to the suddenness of her approach.

She moved like a ghost. Like a predator. Like someone who had learned to survive in this darkness.

"My name is Charity. Ye can trust me," she asserted, her grip on my arm firm, as if to underline her sincerity.

Her fingers were calloused, her grip strong—the hand of someone who worked, who fought, who survived. The introduction, meant to offer assurance, only intensified the turmoil swirling within me. Yet her urgency was palpable, a clear indication that whatever lay in the darkness was far more menacing than the unknowns she represented.

Charity. The name felt like a cruel joke. Trust a stranger named Charity in the darkness while something with claws and teeth circled just beyond the light.

Lois's growl, more pronounced now, filled the air, her teeth bared. She was looking at the darkness, not at the woman. That meant something. Animals knew threats in ways humans had forgotten.

"Come on," I urged Glenda, my voice a mix of determination and desperation. I hoisted myself up, pulling Glenda along with me. The cold air bit at my bare chest, but I barely noticed. Survival had stripped away such minor discomforts. "If this woman wanted to kill us, she would have done it already."

"Or feed us to the creature," Glenda countered under her breath, her resistance sending a cold shiver down my spine.

The thought hadn't occurred to me—that Charity might not be the hunter, but the herder. Driving us toward something worse. Yet our dire situation left us with little room for debate. Stay here and wait for whatever was growling in the darkness. Or follow a stranger with blood on her arrow and hope she was telling the truth.

Neither option felt like living. Both felt like different flavours of dying.

"Fer fuck's sake," Charity interjected, impatience sharpening her words. "Dinnae waste ony mair time. We need tae move."

With resignation and a shared sense of urgency, Glenda and I supported Kain between us, lifting him to his feet with care. He cried out as his wounded leg bore even a fraction of his weight, and I felt his blood—warm and wet—seep through the makeshift bandage and onto my side.

"Gie me yer licht," Charity requested, her hand outstretched towards Glenda.

The moment hung in the balance, the exchange of the light a symbolic gesture of trust in the face of uncertainty. Give her the light, and we would be truly blind. Give her the light, and we would be entirely dependent on her to guide us through the darkness.

I watched, my throat tight, as Glenda handed over the light. The action, simple yet profound, marked a turning point, a leap of faith into the unknown guided by a stranger named Charity. The beam shifted away from us, and for a moment, we were swallowed by darkness so complete it felt like drowning.

"Bide close," Charity instructed. "And keep up."

Her directive left no room for hesitation. In that moment, the path forward was clear, albeit shrouded in mystery and shadowed by the threat that lurked just beyond the reach of the light.

I gripped Kain tighter, felt Glenda's shoulder pressed against mine, heard Lois padding alongside us. Behind us, in the darkness we were leaving, something growled again—lower, closer. Hungry.

We followed Charity into the night. We had no other choice.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, Rose's voice echoed—the memory of her calling for me in the darkness of our first night here. Was I leading us to safety, or was I walking us all into a trap?