With their food stocked and no snowfall to hinder them, the journey to Jokkmokk became uneventful, but pleasant. They talked and sang a lot during the trip, in order to fight the boredom.

Eventually, they came at a crossroad. Esther looked up at the sign that stood before it and smiled.

"Jokkmokk: 25 kilometers." She said excitedly. "We're almost there Sven!"

He smiled as well. "Finally... Can't believe we've been walking for this long already. And you do this all winter?"

Esther nodded. "That's correct and in the summer I go biking... So I am gone from home as well then."

"Damn, that sounds insane to be honest."

Esther remained unimpressed, however. "I do whatever I need to survive. It's as simple as that. I simply can't afford to live on my own in a house. I would die a slow, painful death."

Sven was quite confused. "How so?"

Esther sighed. "That's what happens when you don't get insulin. Your organs slowly start dying off. It's a slow, agonizing process, I heard. So I'd rather keep going to Bodø for my insulin."

"Oh my, yeah I can imagine that that is a better solution for you then." He laughed.

After passing the crossroad, the two walked further down the road and eventually passed a house.

Esther asked Sven to stop. "Hey, I know this place." She said. "It's a safe spot for scavengers. I heard that the original owner died years ago. Instead of housing someone else, the commune decided to make it a safe place for scavengers going to Jokkmokk. Quite nice of them, isn't it?"

Sven looked quite confused. "How do you know all this stuff?"

Esther giggled. "You need to know about addresses to stay when you go out in the wild. It's a dangerous world, after all. So I remember the places I can stay at."

Sven nodded. "Impressive."

They moved closer to the house. It was an old, yellow painted wooden structure. Red and yellow generally are colours that are common in Swedish houses and this one wasn't different.

Before they went in, Esther pointed at a symbol that was sprayed on the door with black graffiti paint.

"You see that?" She asked. "That's the symbol that indicates that it is a shelter for scavengers."

Sven looked at it. It resembled a cross with a circle around it. "So there's some kind of secret language involving symbols between scavengers then?" He asked.

Esther nodded. "That's correct. I don't often see other scavengers, but this is how we communicate we each other."

After looking at the symbol, they both went inside.

The interior was quite old. There was a giant wooden table in the middle of the room and a stone fireplace at the wall. There was also a small kitchen that looked out on the yard outside.

Esther smiled. "Look at that." She said. "The previous scavengers were nice enough to leave behind firewood for us to use."

Sven laughed. "Didn't know there was so much friendliness between scavengers." He stated. "You're competitors after all."

Esther shrugged. "We might be competitors, but we try to keep things fair for each other. We also have a set of rules: never kill someone, never steal from a living person, mark empty buildings and be polite towards others. These rules are more common sense than anything else, really."

Sven nodded, he seemed impressed. "I always imagined scavengers to be quite rude and aggressive, it seems like I was wrong."

Esther sighed. "A lot of people think that. But it honestly isn't that bad. Most people are just trying to get by, after all. Many of scavengers are mothers or fathers, in fact. They have mouths to feed and scavenging earns more than other jobs."

Hesmiled. "Well, thank you for learning me more about the scavenging world!" He took some of the wood that was left behind by the previous scavengers and ignited the fire.

They then both took a seat in the old leather sofa. "You know, I wonder Esther: what did you do before the war?"

She thought for a moment. "Well, I was just done studying a master's program in Luleå. I was about to work for the municipality of Jokkmokk to do research in the neighboring forests... But then the war broke out and well, there was no international nor national community of scientists anymore. So that meant that my work became pointless... What did you do before the war?"

Sven shrugged. "About the same thing I did after it. I was a lumberjack, just like my father was and his father before him... You get the idea, it was a family business. Earned pretty well, but everything changed after the war, of course... Money suddenly became useless. People wanted practical stuff instead."

Esther laughed. "Indeed, because what's the worth of paper when you can get food instead? It just shows how weird money actually was. Though, the commune of Jokkmokk still has a universally accepted currency. Do you know what that is Sven?"

He shook his head.

"Rechargeable batteries. People need a lot of them for flashlights during winter but they are also small and convenient to take with you."

Sven seemed impressed. "I didn't know that society kept a form of currency... That explains why you tried to steal those batteries from me."

She laughed. "Scavenge, not steal, remember?"

After the talk about their past occupations, they prepared their last dinner of the trip: pasta with chicken and then as per usual, they went upstairs to the bedrooms. It had been a while since Esther slept in a real bed, but she was happy that she could do it again.

She could use the extra energy for tomorrow. It would be the last day of their long trip.