We were lucky they hadn't gotten too far.

  Slowly tracking and following along.

  They wandered far, very far.

  I was scared to stray from the tracks without a compass.

  I'd get lost and fast in this dense of a forest.

  But at least I wouldn't be lost alone... Rich is probably losing his mind right now, serves crazy right. My jaw still hurts, and he gave us a gun and wandered away to who knows where.

  And well I needed some answers. The others certainly weren't any help, deep down I think Juno felt the same… even though he has secrets of his own.

  We made it to a clearing eventually, I was much too far away to hear anything but they are here meeting up with others.

  But the way these things move, it's not normal they shifted unevenly foot to foot, their hands hooked back with a mix of curled and straight fingers shoulders hunched chins down.

  It was anything but human acting like they'd never been contained in a skin before, and these two didn't have their faces covered either?

  They were caged. Lashing, lunging.

  It was a detached train car in the middle of nowhere and not an old one either. It's clean with no rust, not even a speck of dust out of place.

  I took cover near the edge of the woods. Juno was a bit more skittish standing a ways behind me. Seconds later another group came through this time with a man almost sleepwalking they had him tied at the hands and neck pulling him along.

  The chains begin to dredge the grass.

  I could feel the earth crying.

  It took time for them to realize what's been lost in him.

  The same was true for the man he still hadn't awoken to see what was becoming of him.

  I got down onto my stomach, and began to inch closer.

  Juno grabbed my arm and covered my mouth pulling me away from the scene.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “What are you thinking, do you know what they would have done to you if you got caught.” Juno let me go.

  “This has gone on far enough, this IS NOT SAFE. We need to get back and we need to tell Rich what we saw.” He grabs his mask, pressing it farther into his skin causing the seal of smooth wood to become even tighter.

  “What did we see? What's going on?” Juno might as well be running by now.

  “JUNO. Please, I need to know what's happening.” He turned to me, clearly distraught.

  “We need to keep moving. You need to keep moving.” He brings the gun to his chest, holding it like a lifeline.

  “What's going on Juno?”

  Footsteps fall behind us as Juno spins around.

  It's Rich.

  He takes off his mask and approaches slowly, signaling Juno to lower the gun. He does.

  “I told you two to stay put. What is going on?” He doesn't sound as angry as I thought he would, just concerned.

  “Rich there collecting Shrouded.”

  He pauses, looking shocked.

  “Bug tell him, the one in chains” I wasn't sure what he wanted me to say.

  “It looked like it was sleepwalking. It didn't have the…” My hands started to itch again as my mind failed me.

  “No, The Shrouded? They don’t have any reason… unless. Juno, are you sure?” Juno nodded.

  “What are you two talking about? What's happening”

  “Kid those things out there, the things being collected on the trains.

  The thing that brought you here, that brought us here.

  it's the woods, it's fighting back against… it.

  the thing you fought before the jumpy, uneven, movement of the skin blistering into spores of pollen and puss, they are Mycoforms, The… infected. The Morrowmen stop it from spreading. We’ll deal with what this means later, we need to get back to the others, do you still have the Med-kit” Me and Juno glance back and forth quickly before realizing Juno had only grabbed me not the Med-kit.

  “It's back by the spur.” Juno explains quickly.

  Rich takes a deep breath, trying to decide whether to go ask Laura for a new one. I'm sure he's thinking about the man's wounds.

  And what not having antibiotics out here means for the others.

  “We need to go back for it.

  Bug,

  how far is the Med-kit from the clearing."

  “Not far.”

  “It shouldn't be difficult to get then, you need to go get it, quickly.”

  “What, you're sending them alone, I know enough to get us out if something happens.” It's hard to tell what either of them are thinking with the masks on, but no one is happy.

  “Bug, hurry." I take that as my sign that I’m doing this one on my own. I'm not stupid enough to argue and he's right, if we get this over with quickly we won't miss the train.

  I just wish I knew what I was walking into.

  Even now I miss knowing what life had planned.

  As the day gets shorter the colds ash begins to fall again.

  The clearing comes into view but the Med-kit does not.

  I start weaving in and out of the tree line looking for any hint of the slick white container but it's not here.

  Before I realized I wandered a bit too close to the clearing,

  and everything went dark.