A month had slipped by since Ryan and his small group had clashed with the Frost Walker in that frozen arena, a battle that felt both like yesterday and a lifetime ago for them. Thirty days of simmering tensions, unspoken regrets, and the relentless grind of survival in a world that refused to let them forget its cruelties. The victory they had claimed that day—the blue stone now humming with alien energy in the Alien Device next to the Red Stone from the Fire Spitter—had come at a cost that echoed through every corner of their lives, reshaping relationships like seismic aftershocks.

The most visible fracture was Christopher's absence. He'd left their shared house that very evening, packing his belongings with the mechanical efficiency of someone severing ties to a life he could no longer endure. His departure had rippled through the group like a shockwave, leaving confusion, hurt, and a void that no amount of rational explanation could fill. He'd chosen to relocate to the Jackson Township Municipal Office, integrating with the community there under Margaret's and Martin's watchful eyes.

In the immediate aftermath, the confusion had been evident. Ivy, Liu Mei, Daisy, Rebecca, Sydney, and Alisha—those who'd stayed behind while the others confronted the Frost Walker—had been left in the dark about the full scope of what transpired. They returned from their various tasks around the house to find Christopher storming in with Sydney and Rachel, his face a mask of stone. Elena had frozen in the doorway, her eyes wide with immediate dread.

"Where are Ryan and Cindy? What happened out there?"

Back then she was scared something happened to them and they wouldn't return. Christopher's stern expression didn't help either.

Christopher had paused only briefly, his back to her as he headed for the stairs. "They're alive," he'd said flatly, without turning. "We got the stone. The Frost Walker's dead."

That was all. No elaboration, no reassurances. He'd vanished into his room—the one he shared with Ryan—emerging less than an hour later with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a suitcase borrowed from the house's absent owners. His eyes were red-rimmed, but his movements were sharp, almost robotic.

Daisy was too innocent to understand anything either. "Christopher? Where are you going? It's getting late—maybe we should all sit down and talk about—"

He'd cut her off with a shake of his head. "Tell Ryan and Cindy I said goodbye. And thanks for everything. Take care of you guys…" Without another word, he'd walked out the front door, keys to one of our spare vehicles in hand. The engine roared to life outside, and then he was gone, taillights fading into the twilight.

The house had erupted into a whirlwind of questions.

"What the hell was that? Did something happen during the fight? Is Ryan okay?" Alisha had asked.

Rachel, tears glistening in her eyes, had only managed a weak nod. "Ryan and Cindy are fine. They'll be back soon. The mission... it was successful. But Christopher needs space."

Sydney, usually quick with a sarcastic quip, had been uncharacteristically subdued, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Just give it time," she'd muttered, though her voice lacked conviction. "It's complicated."

Alisha had been more direct. "Complicated how? If Ryan's hurt or—"

"He's not hurt," Rachel had interrupted, her voice breaking slightly. "Not physically, anyway. Please, just... wait until they get back."

The wait had been agonizing, the group milling about in tense clusters, speculating in hushed tones.

Despite all even Liu Mei seemed concerned though she didn't show it but the fact that she was sitting in the living room said it all.

Rebecca however was quite upset. "More secrets," she'd muttered to a worried Daisy. "Always more secrets in this group."

His departure struck like a blow no one had been ready for. The shock lingered in the air, and it only deepened when, later that night, Ryan and Cindy returned.

The sound of the door opening drew every eye, and in the dim light, it took only seconds for Elena and Alisha to piece the truth together. They had already suspected something—Christopher's distant, unreadable expression earlier, the absence of both Ryan and Cindy when the group had gathered. Now, with the two of them standing there, their faces painted with awkward guilt and grief, the doubts were gone.

The words came haltingly, but when the truth was spoken—when they told them Christopher had left—the fragile balance shattered.

Cindy's face crumpled, and before anyone could stop her, tears welled and spilled. She bolted, rushing past them with sobs breaking from her throat, her footsteps echoing down the corridor until the slam of a door cut them off. Rachel didn't hesitate; she hurried after her, gently knocking, then slipping inside to comfort her, the muffled sounds of Cindy's crying bleeding faintly through the wooden frame.

Ryan remained where he was, rooted to the spot as if the ground itself had betrayed him. His mind refused to accept it, his heart refusing to believe. He stared ahead, blank, the news sinking into him like ice.

Not a single word left his lips. He turned stiffly, almost mechanically, and walked away. His steps carried him to the room he once shared with Jason and Christopher. But now, when he pushed the door open, the silence inside was louder than anything he had heard that night.

The space felt emptier, colder. Ryan stood there a moment, taking it in—the missing presence, the gap that couldn't be filled—before finally stepping inside. Alone.

Only a handful of them knew the truth about Ryan's curing power and what had really taken place. For everyone else, the matter remained a mystery.

Yet silence never stopped people from forming opinions. Those who stayed in the dark pieced together their own version of events, their guesses running dangerously close to reality in some ways, but stripped entirely of the context that mattered most.

Christopher had left. That was undeniable. And when Ryan and Cindy returned later that night, both wearing awkward, guilty expressions, the unspoken conclusion was almost too easy to reach. To the others, it looked damningly simple: Cindy had cheated on Christopher with Ryan.

The fact that Cindy and Christopher had never made their relationship official didn't matter. Everyone knew there had been something between them, a quiet affection that lingered in glances, in small gestures, in the way Christopher's presence seemed to steady Cindy whenever she faltered. That bond, unspoken though it was, was clear enough for people to treat them as a pair.

So when the pieces fell into place, that was the story the camp quietly accepted. No one said it aloud—no one dared confront Ryan or Cindy—but the suspicion lingered in their eyes.

And Rebecca's opinion on Ryan couldn't have gone any worse when she also thought of this possibility…

A month later, mid-July 2025, and the heat had settled over Jackson Township like a smothering blanket. Even at 7 a.m., the air was thick with humidity, the sun already promising a scorcher. The once-reliable water tower had run dry weeks ago, forcing them to venture farther afield for supplies—raiding distant streams or abandoned reservoirs, boiling every drop to make it safe. It was one more hardship in a world that seemed determined to grind them down.

Rachel woke with the first light filtering through the cracked blinds of her room making sure to not wake up Rebecca.

She'd claimed a small space on the back yard floor where she could maintain some semblance of routine in the chaos. Stretching had became her morning ritual, a sequence of movements that grounded her enhanced body. The Dullahan virus had amplified her strength and agility, turning simple exercises into something almost meditative. She flowed through poses—downward dog to warrior, each one pulling at muscles that healed faster than humanly possible.

After thirty minutes, sweat beading on her skin despite the early hour, she moved to meditation. Sitting cross-legged on the worn carpet, she closed her eyes and focused on her breath, pushing away the persistent undercurrent of worry that had become her constant companion. The group was fracturing, piece by piece, and she felt it keenly. Christopher's absence was a gaping wound, and Ryan... Ryan had withdrawn into himself.

When meditation ended, Rachel filled a bucket from their dwindling reserves—water hauled back from a stream five miles out, treated and stored in whatever containers they could find. The house's plumbing had failed long ago, so washing was a primitive affair: a sponge bath in the privacy of her room, the cool water a brief respite from the heat. She scrubbed methodically. The soap was a precious commodity, a bar of unscented glycerin they'd scavenged from an abandoned pharmacy weeks ago, and she used it sparingly, lathering just enough to cleanse the sweat and grime from another restless night. The water, slightly murky even after boiling, cascaded over her skin in careful pours, rinsing away the physical remnants of the day before but doing little to ease the emotional weight she carried.

"Ryan…"

Her thoughts drifted inevitably to Ryan again, as they often did these days. A month had passed since the Frost Walker incident, and he'd become a ghost in his own home—present but distant in his mind.

How could she reach him? Words felt inadequate against the walls he'd built, fortified by the fracture with Christopher and the impossible choices that had driven it. Or maybe everything he had gone through since the incident in his highschool and the loss of his mother hade finally erupted inside him?

As she toweled off with a threadbare cloth—once a bedsheet, now repurposed—she resolved to try again today. Maybe a simple conversation, or offering to help with his work. Anything to pull him back from the edge.

Dressing was another ritual born of necessity. Rachel selected clothes from her limited wardrobe: a lightweight tank top and cargo pants, both hand-washed every week in a basin with whatever detergent they could scrounge or improvise from ash and fat. Drying them was a chore—hung on lines in the backyard under the relentless sun, guarded against dust storms or opportunistic infected that sometimes wandered too close. The fabrics were worn but functional, patched in places with thread scavenged from abandoned homes. She laced up her boots—sturdy hiking models reinforced with duct tape—and tied back her red hair, ready to face whatever the day demanded.

Descending the stairs, Rachel paused midway, her hand gripping the banister as her gaze fell on Ryan's bedroom door. It stood half-open, revealing a sliver of the empty room beyond—the unmade bed, scattered tools, the faint glow of a solar lantern he'd forgotten to turn off. He wasn't there, which meant he'd left even earlier than usual. She hadn't seen him depart at this hour in weeks; in fact, she couldn't recall the last time she'd caught him slipping out before dawn. Did he sleep at all?

Sighing, she continued down, the wooden steps creaking underfoot. The air downstairs was already warming, carrying the faint scent of wood smoke from last night's fire. In the kitchen, Daisy was at the table, fumbling awkwardly with a can of corned beef and a manual opener. Her brow furrowed in concentration, she twisted the tool ineffectively, the metal scraping without progress.

"It's not like that, Daisy," Rachel said gently, stepping forward with a soft smile. She reached over, adjusting Daisy's grip on the opener and demonstrating the proper angle. With a satisfying pop, the lid gave way, revealing the preserved meat inside.

"Ha, thanks..." Daisy murmured, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. She lowered her gaze, fiddling with the can's edge. "I... I just wanted to help with breakfast, but I'm not very good at this stuff."

Rachel placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Then help me. We have canned food, so it's mostly about heating it up and adding some spices to make it taste better. It's not complicated—we'll do it together."

Daisy's face brightened slightly, grateful for the inclusion. Together, they set to work, the kitchen filling with the sounds of clattering pots and the faint sizzle of improvised cooking. The pantry was a patchwork of scavenged goods: cans of beans, vegetables, and meats from raids on abandoned stores, supplemented by whatever they could forage or trade with the Jackson Township community. Spices were a luxury—dried herbs from their small garden, salt hoarded like gold—but they transformed bland meals into something almost palatable.

As Rachel guided Daisy through the process—opening cans, portioning out servings, and heating them over the wood-burning stove—she explained each step with patient detail. "See, you want to stir the beans slowly so they don't burn on the bottom. And a pinch of that dried oregano we found last week—it makes all the difference."

The wood oven was a relic from the house's original owners, a cast-iron beast that dominated one corner of the kitchen. It ran on firewood, which had become a precious resource. Gathering it was arduous—venturing into the surrounding woods, always on alert for infected lurkers or rival survivors. Ryan had taken on most of that burden lately, disappearing for hours and returning with armloads of branches and logs. Rachel worried about him out there alone, but his solitary excursions seemed to be his way of coping.

"Did you see Ryan leaving this morning?" Rachel asked casually as they worked, trying to keep her tone light.

Daisy shook her head, focusing on stirring a pot. "No, but I saw Miss Ivy and Sydney head out just before you came down."

"Together?" Rachel asked, surprised. The two women were polar opposites—Ivy's quiet, methodical demeanor clashing with Sydney's brash energy.

"No, separately," Daisy clarified. "Sydney said she was going jogging—something about needing to burn off steam. Miss Ivy mentioned checking around the perimeter, making sure nothing's snuck up on us overnight."

Rachel sighed, a mix of admiration and concern. "Those two... really aren't afraid of the infected, are they?"

"Sydney's strong, but I'm worried for Miss Ivy," Daisy said.

Rachel nodded, understanding the sentiment. The world beyond their fortified home was a gauntlet of dangers—infected shambling through overgrown fields, scarce resources drawing desperate survivors, and the ever-present threat of mutation or new horrors spawned by the virus. Jogging or solo patrols were dangerous, ways to reclaim some control in a chaotic existence, but they carried risks nonetheless.

More than an hour passed as they prepared breakfast, the process stretching longer than usual thanks to Rachel's patient teaching. Daisy was eager but inexperienced, her hands tentative as she learned to measure spices or gauge heat on the stove. They chatted intermittently—about the garden's progress, the heat wave's toll, small hopes for normalcy. The front yard plot, started two months ago, was showing promise: tomato plants pushing through the soil with green fruits swelling daily, rows of beans and carrots fighting for space in the nutrient-poor earth. The backyard soil was richer, yielding faster growth, but pests and weather were constant battles.

"Just one or two more weeks, hopefully," Rachel said with a chuckle, eyeing the garden through the window. "Those tomatoes are almost ready. It'll be nice to have something fresh for a change."

Daisy beamed. "I can't wait. Remember that salad we made last time? It felt almost normal."

The meal came together gradually: canned corned beef simmered with spices to mask its preserved tang, beans heated with a dash of salvaged garlic powder, and a few wilted vegetables from their last forage stretched into a simple stew. It wasn't gourmet, but in a world where meals often came from dusty cans or hunted game, it was a small triumph. The wood oven crackled merrily, its heat adding to the already sweltering kitchen, but the aroma of cooking food lifted spirits.

As they plated the food—mismatched dishes scavenged from the house and nearby abandons—footsteps sounded from the stairs. The group was stirring, drawn by the smells wafting through the house.

A familiar voice cut through the morning calm.

"You're all so noisy first thing in the morning."

Liu Mei came out of her room in her nightgown, her usual arrogance tempered by sleep-tousled dark hair and a yawn.

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