I made sure I was the last one to get taken up the rubble mountain. I could hear Ash’s voice in my head and how angry she was going to be when I reached the top. It was already noon by the time Haru got me up the mountain and I could tell he was exhausted. I felt bad but this really helped us so we could get to the cave and plant the explosives.

Once Haru got to the spot with the rest of the group I saw that they were fighting off Reapers. I cursed knowing they had stayed in the same spot for too long waiting for everyone to join so the Reapers must’ve caught their scent. “Drop me off and you stay floating out of their reach. I know you’re too tired to fight,” I told Haru.

“You got it, boss,” he said looking relieved. He got me close enough to drop me off and I was quick to draw my gun. I fired at the Reaper closest to me. I saw one overpowering Jeff and aimed at that one. The bullets were enough to catch the monster’s attention and it charged at me. I was able to predict how it was going to attack, but I couldn’t dodge fast enough.

The Reaper caught me by the pant leg and its claws sunk into my right side. I used my gun to block the hard jaws from clamping down on my face. Suddenly, Jamison’s fire blasted at the Reaper and it jumped away from me. Jamison was quick to light it on fire, killing it effectively. I sat up to see where the other Reaper was and was relieved to find that it was taken care of by Seth.

Ash was helping Paul since it looked like one of the Reapers got him in the arm. She was tying his arm up to stop the bleeding. I sat on the ground, sighing in relief. Everyone seemed to still be alive besides a couple of injuries.

“You’re bleeding Liam,” Seth pointed out. I looked down at my side and sure enough there was a lot of blood leaking out. Seth took a shirt out of his pack and wadded it up to push against my side. I hissed in pain. “Ash! When your done get over here! You too Jamison!” Seth shouted.

Jamison came over to us and saw the situation. He looked instantly pale and I had a feeling I was worse that I thought. “Come on, it can’t be that bad,” I stated.

“I’m going to lift your shirt to see the damage,” Seth told me and I nodded. It stung when he lifted my shirt since pieces of the shirt were inside the wound. Jamison handed Seth water so he could rinse off the wound. Ash appeared and she looked panic.

“You all are freaking me out. Why is everyone so pale?” I said starting to feel panic myself. They ignored me though, which told me this was serious.

“What do we do?” Seth asked Ash. She had been studying to become a nurse before all this happened so she had the most medical experience out of all of us even if it wasn’t much.

“Stop the bleeding. Jamison, get ready to use your fire to cauterize the wound. I’m going to take off your belt, Liam,” Ash seemed calm as she spoke but her hands shook as she removed my belt. She moved to sit by my head and put my head in her lap. I was starting to get light headed and the pain was slowly fading away. Ash held the belt up to my mouth. “Bite down on this and hold my hand.”

I put the belt in my mouth and then grabbed her hand with my other hand. She nodded to Jamison and he activated his fire just enough to where his hand was glowing bright red. “Levon get over here! Come hold Liam down for this, but don’t hurt him,” Ash exclaimed.

Levon came into my fuzzy vision and put his hands on my shoulders. As soon as Jamison put his red hot hand on my wound I jerked up, my eyes flying wide open in agony. Levon held me in place as I struggled and I clenched my teeth on the belt. The excruciating pain and the smell of burning flesh were all my mind was registering at this point. I could see Ash wincing in pain as well and I knew I was squeezing her hand too hard, but the pain was unbearable and I wasn’t in control of that.

Ash kept whispering calming things to me, but my mind was in overdrive from the pain so I couldn’t really understand what she was saying. The soothing tone did help a tiny bit so I tried to focus on that. She told Jamison to stop and my body relaxed as my brain sent dopamine out to mask the pain.

“We have to hurry. I see more Reapers coming for us,” Haru called out from his position in the air. That seemed to snap my mind out of its fuzziness and I reached up to take the belt out of my mouth. I pushed everyone away from me and sat up getting back into survival mode.

“Grab your stuff!” I commanded.

“Liam, are you…” Ash started, but I didn’t let her finish.

“I’m fine. Let’s go!”

I went to grab my gear, but Levon picked it up for me. I nodded in understanding, but kept my gun on me. I grabbed Ash’s hand and we were off, looking for a place to hide. I ordered Jamison to be in the back so he can use his fire at the Reapers if they caught up to us. My side was in pain, but I had to ignore it and the adrenaline helped with that.

I noticed a break in the meteor and we all stopped when we realized what we had come up on. It was the entrance of the Reaper’s cave, where they had originated from. This was insane. It looked like the cave had exploded from the side of the meteor and that’s how the entrance came to be. It appeared to be big, but as we walked past it we say that it shrunk the further in it went. We’d have to take the explosives quite far inside to block off the tunnel to deeper into the cave.

That’s when we saw Lieutenant Jackson and squads A and B or what was left of those two squads. They had a camp set up on the side of the crater entrance and looked like they were just finishing setting it up. Jackson was surprised to see us a day early, but was also glad. “Are we clear Haru?” I asked up at him since he was still in the air.

“Yes. They didn’t know which way we went so they stopped at the campsite,” he called back.

We went up to the makeshift base that Jackson and the others had made. Once we were there I dropped all of my gear and sat on the ground as the pain started to catch up with me. The wound was hot and pulsed in pain. I wouldn’t last in another fight with the Reapers with this wound. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to walk to the meeting spot after our mission was over which meant I wouldn’t make it back alive if this wound was properly treated.

“Let me find you something better to dress your wound now that we’re safer,” Ash told me and then went to ask the others for help.

Jackson approached me looking wary. “That’s a nasty wound there,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, it doesn’t feel too great right now,” I spat out through clenched teeth as it stung to even stay seated at this point.

“We have a healer. He can help you with this.”

I felt hope then. The pain wasn’t subsiding and if we couldn’t clean it out properly then infection would get me. No matter how strong I was, I was still only human and could die easily. Jackson called over an older gentleman that I remembered vaguely from training. He had dark hair that was graying and a mostly gray beard. He kneeled beside me just as Ash came back with wound dressings.

“We won’t need those. I’m Xavier,” he stated.

“I’m Ash and he’s Liam. Can you help him?” Ash asked. I could tell she was panicking about the wound. She knew how bad it was, but also didn’t want to make everyone worry.

“Yes, but it’s going to hurt. Looks like you can handle pain though if you cauterized the wound without any painkillers,” Xavier said.

“Well it hurts now so do what you have to,” I replied calmly. Ash reached out to grab my hand and Xavier got to work. He lifted up my shirt to examine the wound. He placed his hands over the wound and I resisted the urge to flinch as pain shot through me. His hands began to glow and I felt the wound start to reopen from the burned flesh. I brought my free arm over my eyes and clenched Ash’s hand trying to focus on other things.

The next three minutes was pure agony as my skin ripped apart and reformed into new skin. While I should’ve been amazed at Xavier’s skill I was doing my best to not cry out so Ash wouldn’t be more concerned than she was. She kept a straight face as I held her hand tightly this time. I was so thankful to have her at my side. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was and Jamison’s words from last night finally made sense. If I were to die out here at least I had the opportunity to be with Ash for as long as I could.

“Alright. I can’t do anything for the blood loss, but you’re patched up now,” Xavier said. “You would’ve been dead if I weren’t around.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it,” I replied as I sat up. My head was lightheaded from the blood loss and the aftermath of all the pain. Ash suddenly hugged me tightly and began to sob into my shoulder. Xavier gave me a small smile before leaving us alone. I patted Ash’s back gently and sighed in relief.

“I’m okay now Ash,” I told her.

“I know. I’m crying in relief,” she sniffled and then backed away from me to wipe at her cheeks. “I didn’t know how we would get you home and I was so scared you wouldn’t even last through the night. You’re still so pale from the blood loss so you have to take it easy from now on.”

“We made it. Now we just wait for the others to lay the explosives down and then we head back. With this many Powers we will make it home for sure,” I smiled. I took this time to examine our surroundings. A and B squads did not look much better than we did, but in numbers we would have better odds. They had lost three members from what I counted. Xavier was going around healing people while others rested on bedrolls.

We were on the south side of the Reaper cave and looking inside the cave didn’t really give anything away. When the Reapers appeared they seemed to have exploded out of this side of the meteor. It was pitch black when looking at it and there was no way to see how far it went. Our goal was to collapse the exit in case more were waiting inside to come out. This was a dangerous place to set up camp and I wondered why Jackson picked this spot to join the squads together.

Jackson approached Ash and me and I turned to Ash. “Why don’t you go see how Seth is?” I asked her. She looked at me confused for a second, but took the hint that she should leave.

Jackson sat beside me as I started to dig through my backpack for a shirt that wasn’t covered in blood. I found one and changed shirts quickly. “So how are we going to blow up a hole this big?” I questioned Jackson.

“Who knows. What would be really helpful would be an earth power right now. They could take care of this no problem,” he replied looking up at the giant cave entrance. “They also want us to bring back samples of the soil inside the cave.”

“I’m so fucking sick of being a pawn. Whether it’s the military or the Contractors it’s no different,” I groaned in exasperation. I was at my wits end after all we had been through the last two and a half days. I couldn’t imagine how the others were feeling, especially the people who never had to fight a day in their lives. This was a complete turn from the way we had been living in Fairview.

“You and me both friend. At least with the Contractors we got to pick our missions and our teams and had access to resources. The past couple days have been super rough.”

“How long do you think we should rest here for?” I inquired.

“We should send the not injured people in to lay explosives down and grab some soil. We can stay behind and make sure no Reapers go into the cave after them. I’ll go send off who I think should go.” With that he left and I watched as he approached five people. Seth was one of them and I could see that Ash was arguing with Seth to not go. I smiled to myself. Looks like all that ridicule and bullying she experienced in training didn’t break her spirit. She knew when to be obedient for safety reasons, but she still wasn’t afraid to speak her mind if she didn’t agree with something.

I decided to help Seth out since it made sense for him to go. He was one of the strongest people I knew. I grabbed a granola bar from my pack and approached the siblings. “Are you hungry Ash?” I asked her, interrupting their bickering.

“Not now Liam. Maybe you can talk some sense into Seth to not go inside the cave filled with monsters that eat humans,” Ash snapped.

“It makes sense for him to go. He can see in the dark and his scythe slices through Reapers,” I told her.

She looked at me like I had betrayed her and I felt my heart sink. It wasn’t like I wanted to send him out, but we didn’t have much choice. “The sooner we get this over with then the sooner we can get home to safety,” Seth stated.

Ash hugged her brother tightly while saying, “Then don’t die you idiot!”

Seth chuckled and patted her hair. “Not a chance. I’ll live forever just to annoy you.”

The five people that were picked were off into the cave with the explosives and things felt calmer now. Haru would periodically fly into the air to scan the surrounding to make sure no Reapers were heading for us and that gave us some peace of mind. The rest of us just hung out which was something much needed after hiking, camping, and fighting the last two days.

Ash and Jamison were getting along a bit which was nice considering Jamison seemed to soften up last night. I wanted people to get along so we could be a cohesive team. It was also good to distract Ash while Seth was away otherwise she would worry too much.

It soon became nighttime and everyone ate dinner while getting ready for bed. I brushed my teeth and splash a little on my face, trying to feel that I was at least trying to stay clean. Not having a shower for three days in these conditions was truly awful so I tried to keep up my other hygiene to help feel a little better. The funny thing was that when I lived in the exile area with Ash and Seth before we had no problem going a whole week without a shower if we couldn’t find access to clean water. I guess we all had gotten used to the luxury of having showers almost daily so being dirty now felt extra dirty.

I laid on my bedroll beside Ash. She had fallen asleep almost instantly a little earlier in the evening. I gazed up at the stars and was just grateful to have survived after getting gravely wounded earlier.