Into The Unknown

Chapter 08

Does anyone know the feeling of exhaustion? The saturation level of exhaustion where it feels like, ok, that's it, that's the end, I want everything to end now, bring doom to the world, am I the only one who feels like this? This exhaustion makes me irritated with everything, even the blowing wind. Is it the cold weather that's making me feel like this?

This fatigue state of mine is the result of three hours of sleep, extreme physical work, and the external cold weather. I might just collapse here and give up till someone find me to drag my body around. Then I remember when I look at my right that I'm not the only one who's exhausted, who's gone through an extreme physical and mental roller-coaster, these two boys went through the same.

"We need to keep moving", Xavier reminded me.

Ask any girl if she's willing to go on hiking after getting a maximum of three hours of restless sleep in the cold weather at around 8 in the morning, of course, no. I'm the girl and I say no. Being in Norway in December means sunrise at around 9. Till 8 it's all fog and dark.

76 days of midnight sun between May and July greets travelers in Northern Norway means no sunset at all. December follows the pattern of no sunrise in some states of Norway, we are on Arbmtys, an island near Norway means we do get sunrise.

Though it was my idea of moving our asses to the greens in the early morning so that fog will be our cover to sneak into safe, I still do not want to shift a step now. "Jump on my back", Zain offered and sat down in front of me.

He was waiting for me to jump on his back so that we can keep on moving to our unknown hideout. I do not want to walk and I absolutely do not intend on getting into an argument right now. Taking Zain's bag from his shoulder, I fastened it to my back. Keeping the rifle in my hand, I jumped on his back.

"A cave or a hut will do", I mumble, loud enough for the boys to hear.

Zain is built up for being 21. He has broad shoulders and a firm back. Because my arms are wrapped around his neck, I can feel his shoulder blades too. "I didn't know you work out", I ask him to start a conversation because if I do not talk or do anything then I might end up choking Zain to get out of my fatigued state.

Zain followed Xavier and Xavier followed his guts. Fog and darkness envelopes the island making it safe and difficult for us to find our hideout. The darkness kept on thickening as we went deep into the greens. To keep it safe, we tied the torches on our head, leaving a rifle in one hand and an empty another hand to remove the obstacles like branches from our way. If I've been active enough then it's almost been an hour since we started our long walk.

"I do work out regularly", he answers keeping it brief. Maybe he's too tired to talk. He's wasting his stored energy and fat on carrying me. I do feel like I should not be doing this when I can walk fine but my exhausted brain is lazy to argue and deliver a final judgment now so I kept mum.

According to my accuracy, nearly forty percent of the tourists must be dead by now. I wonder if it is fun to hunt down people from the greens like a hunter? First, make them run then enjoy hunting them down like animals. It gives those people lessons who had no empathy for animals, including myself. I never harmed any animal, nor I ever fed them. I was happy in my own bubble, keeping my distance from their bubble. They live, I live, we live without bothering each other.

I glanced over Xavier's shoulder to see nothing, I wonder how he's guiding us when he sees almost nothing. Zain is alert with his rabbit ears raised listening for any sound. I'm trying to get over my exhaustion and I can't afford to do that by wasting Zain's energy. I asked him to stop and I jumped down from his back.

Asking them to wait for a minute, I ran over to the huge tree and stomped on the grass. I sat there, took breaths, and stood up to break the branch.

Zain and Xavier kept watching me, thinking that I'm doing something smart and I'm about to make something good from the branch. Get over your exhaustion or whatever it is, you will get yourself killed, my subconscious snarled. I took the branch and handed it to Zain.