Sleep was hard to come by with all the sounds and danger that was around us. The only part about last night that was enjoyable was that Ash was able to sleep beside me. No one cared out here since there was a feeling of uncertainty that we would survive once we left this base. I figured if we were going to die I, at the very least, wanted to hold Ash in my arms one last time. Even though we both tried to sleep, it ended up with us just resting next to each other.

Now it was sunrise and we were off on our respective missions. I made our goal to make it at least 10 miles a day to get to the cave in 3 days time. I figured that was a good pace to not tire us out and would be doable even if we run into Reapers that could slow us down.

We trekked on in silence, everyone on edge with every sound that we heard around us just waiting for a Reaper to appear. We made it about a mile before Ash grabbed my hand.

“I sense a blood lust coming for us,” she stated.

“How many?” I asked.

“At least 4,” she replied.

“Glad to know with you we will have some warning,” I smiled to her before turning the group. “Everyone! Four Reapers are approaching. Elemental users get ready! Everyone else get your best offensive attack ready.”

We had three elemental users and they took the front line. Two water users and Jamison with his fire. “Don’t splash me with your water or I’ll be useless,” he warned the other two. They activated their powers and I got ready. Maybe I could predict the moves of the Reapers and try to help people dodge. Everything we were doing was only based on theories and hope that all of our powers would affect the Reapers.

The Reapers appeared snarling and my eye began to work. I silently thanked whatever higher power was up there for making my predictive power work on these monsters. The Reapers were planning on splitting up and surrounding us from the four sides. I was able to form a plan quickly in my head and then started shouting commands.

“Everyone get your backs to each other. They are going to split and surround us. Jamison take the north side, Michelle take the east, Paul take the west. I’ll get the south. Everyone else guns or powers out now!”

Everyone got to work, pulling out weapons or getting ready. Ash had her rifle out and was standing beside me. Seth had his darkness scythe out and was defensive. I made sure to have my gun out as well since my negating power would be useless here. A surge of courage ran through me and I glanced at Ash. She must be sending courage to everyone and I was proud of her for coming up with that on her own. The last thing we needed was for someone to hesitate because that could mean death.

The Reapers did as I predicted and surrounded us. They stared at us with their black eyes and I could see blood on the jagged teeth of the nearest to me. It looked similar to a rhinoceros with the hard skin and horn on its face. It snarled at us, getting ready to attack. My eye sensed that they were going to strike in a few seconds.

“Give it all you got now!” I shouted and then gunshots rang out. As suspected Jamison was able to take out the one on the north side without issue since he just set it on fire and it let out a deafening screech as it burned up. The water users had more struggle since water was less damaging without a water source nearby.

Both Ash and I unloaded our guns on the Reaper closest to us, but it barely damaged the hard outer shell of the creature. It rushed towards us and Seth stepped up to swing his scythe at it. It dodged his swing by leaping into the air. Then I saw where it was aiming to land and panic filled me. It was headed straight for Ash with teeth out.

I tossed my gun to the side needing my speed to help me here. I saw Levon turning in our direction after a second Reaper was taken care of on the west side of the group. I reached Ash and yanked her by the pack she was wearing as I ran to get her out of the way. Levon stepped in Ash’s place and then the Reaper collided when him, but with his super strength he was able to stand his ground and hold the Reaper by the horn and neck.

“Toss it towards Jamison!” I commanded.

Levon wasted no time in gripping the Reaper by its horn and heaving it over our group to the other side. Jamison was fast in burning it before it could even hit the ground. I thought we had won when I noticed the water user, Michelle getting overpowered by the last Reaper. She was losing her resolve and tears were streaming down her face as the Reaper pushed through her powerful water stream to get closer to us.

“My fire won’t work because it’s soaking wet!” Jamison exclaimed.

He was right and I had dropped my gun so I couldn’t distract it. I tried to come up with another plan and my delay was a big mistake. The Reaper burst through the water stream and jumped on Michelle. She let out a loud scream and I was about to rush forward when Levon held me back. It was too late but I still wanted to do something. I grabbed Ash and pulled her face into my chest so she wouldn’t see what was happening.

Michelle’s screams ended abruptly as the Reaper’s claws caved in her chest and it began to eat her, ripping off her limbs with ease. While it was distracted Seth went up and used his scythe to cut the Reapers head off. His scythe was deadly and cut through the Reaper with ease. The monster’s body collapsed and its head rolled into a pile of rubble.

Ash was shaking and crying into my chest. Paul stumbled away from the group and then vomited after witnessing Michelle’s cruel death. I felt guilt for not being able to save her as I was the leader.

“There was nothing we could’ve done once it had her,” Levon sighed patting me on the shoulder before walking to grab the gear he dropped during the fight.

I let go of Ash enough to have her look at me. She was sniffling, but the tears had stopped. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to her.

“It’s not your fault,” she replied. “Thank you for saving me. Seeing what they did to Michelle just got to me since it could’ve been me.”

I pressed my lips to her forehead not able to say anything else. As awful as I felt I was also glad that Ash was okay. We survived our first Reaper encounter with only one casualty, but with those odds we wouldn’t make it to the meteor. I had to be better as a leader for us to get there.

We were silent as we gathered our things and moved forward. It was hard to tell what time of day it was since the meteor blocked the entire sky being this close to it. I knew we were supposed to be immune to the purple smog here, but it still made the air heavy and it was harder to breathe the closer we got. For the last 10 miles we would probably have to wear masks if it kept getting worse.

We made our way through to rubble and make it the rest of the way to our goal for the first day. We had only run into one other Reaper and that was easy enough to take care of since there was only one of them. We were able to find a building that was half standing and made a camp in the part that had two walls that could protect us from at least two sides. I assigned shifts of people to stay awake and watch out for danger and thankfully we had enough people for everyone to only have to take an hour at a time so everyone could rest.

The mood was gloomy as we all ate dinner around a small fire. Levon came up to me after dinner and sat beside me. “You did good today. I can see why Jackson picked you. If it weren’t for you I’m sure we would’ve all been dead,” he told me.

“Because I couldn’t think fast enough we lost Michelle,” I stated.

“Don’t take that on. Guilt has no place on the battlefield,” he replied.

“Have you fought before?” I asked.

“I was in the military before my power came to me. I did a couple of tours fighting the Contractors before getting detained two years ago when I started having the super strength. So if you need any help I’ve got your back,” he smiled at me.

“I appreciate it.”

“Get some rest. It’ll be your watch shift in a few hours.” With that he left and went to his bed roll to lay down. Ash was sitting with Seth chatting and I saw Jamison approach her.

“Your lover got one of us killed today,” Jamison snapped at her.

“What are you talking about? He was the reason all of us survived that,” Ash countered.

“I took down 2 of those Reapers today and how many did he kill? Zero. You should get with a real man like me,” he smirked at her.

I saw the look of disgust cross her face and chuckled to myself. He definitely had the worst approach for women, but especially Ash. She wasn’t easily impressed by Jamison even if his power was the most useful at this point.

“You’re seriously barking up the wrong tree if this is your move,” Seth stated to Jamison.

“Look, I get that being in dangerous situations heighten certain emotions, but this is not the time or place to hit on a woman,” Ash said.

That’s when I decided to step in and approached the three of them. “It’s important for everyone to get as much rest as possible. We don’t have endless energy to use on this trip,” I said to Jamison.

He glared at me hard for a minute before leaving to his own bed roll. I sighed feeling really tired. Hiking 10 miles while carrying gear and fighting monsters was exhausting. I went to my bed roll to lay down. It was beside Ash’s and Seth’s and they soon joined to lay down. Ash was in the middle of us, but she laid on her side to face me.

“I love you Liam,” she whispered to me.

I smiled my goofy grin at her and reach out to trace her jaw with my finger. “I love you Ash.”

I held her hand and watched as she fell asleep. It wasn’t long until I was asleep as well.