"You got all that?" Malik asked while stuffing bottles of water into a backpack.

Nari nodded. That was a lie. She had no idea what was going on, though she didn't know if that was because of Malik's awful explanations or because she just couldn't be bothered to take it all in. Both?  Nari didn't care about any of this. She didn't care about whatever reason she was brought into this hell. Didn't care about this crazy talk about saving the world, or worlds, or whatever. Her world was already past saving. What did any of it matter?

Of course logically she knew it should matter, but she finding it hard to care much about anything right now.

Malik handed her a backpack with water and a scarf. "Why?" Nari asked.

"You'll see." Malik lead her up the stairs to a hallway of what Nari could only describe as portals. She might have been curious before, intrugued or weirded out, she wasn't sure what emotion she would have felt before she'd lost all emotions. Nari snorted at the thought, there was some erse humour to be found in all this, she just hadn't figured out exactly where.

Malik tied her own scarf around her nose and mouth and motioned for Nari to do the same. She did, figuring she'd find out why soon enough. "So there's another world behind that huh?" She mostly asked because she felt like she should, not because she really wanted to know.

Malik nodded. "Sure is. After you." She motioned Nari toward the portal and Nari approached it. "I scouted the world while the others were asleep," Malik continued. "It's not a pleasant world but you'll see that soon enough. Off you go."

Nari shrugged and stepped through just like that. Despite everything her heart skipped a beat as she stepped through, not sure what would happen but not caring enough to hesitate. Turned out it was just like stepping through water except without getting wet. The old her might have wondered at that - but not Sigma. 

What was on the other side was unlike anything she had ever seen.

The first thing she noticed were the husks of metal jutting out from the landscape, reaching up from piles of dust and rubble. They were like exoskeletons of skyscrapers long gone- in fact, that was probably exactly what they were. She looked around and noticed she was standing inside one, surrounded by the metal frames and crumbling concrete. This was a city she expected had been dead for a long time. A thick film of yellow dust covered everything around her and in the distance alike. The sky was a similar brownish grey, everything was browns and greys. The air was hot and humid, yet windy, carrying the dust with it. She understood now what the scarf around was for.

Something hit her from behind and Nari fell hard onto her knees. Malik fell down next to her, but Nari hardly processed it, her brain still working on figuring out the world.

"Do not freeze in front of the portal," Malik said through clenched teeth and got up, brushing the dust from her clothes.

Nari got up too but didn't say anything. She approached the edge of the platform and looked down. They must be on what was once the second or third floor of the building, about 2 meters above the ground. Most of the wall was gone, leaving just a few centimeters of crumbling concrete and the metal beams that made up the skeleton of the building.

"I didn't see any people around when I was here before," Malik said. "But I saw bootprints, so there must be someone around."

"Then how are we gonna find-" Nari paused, she didn't actually remember who Malik had said they had to find.  "That person?" Saved it.

Malik looked annoyed at that - she hadn't saved it then - but she didn't comment on Nari's obvious cluelessness. "I've never once found a world without people. There is someone around here, we just have to find them. Besides, the fewer people there are, the harder it is for Zhu's agents to find Pi as well."

Right. Pi. Another Greek letter. She could relate. 

"There's a way down on the side here, come on." Malik said.

Nari ignored her, wrapped her sleeves around her hands, and grabbed a steel beam to slide down. 

"Sigma!" Malik yelled and ran up to stop Nari, but the latter pushed off and let herself slide down, using her feet to control the speed. She landed hard, but otherwise unharmed.

"I'm fine," she called up to Malik and tried to rub the rust off her sleeves

"Dammit Sigma what the hell?!" Malik called down."Don't just- don't ing do that!"

Nari shrugged. "It was fine." The name 'Sigma' still sounded a bit jarring to Nari. When she was asked to introduce herself she'd hestitated. She didn't want to be known as Nari. She didn't want to be Nari. Sigma had just come out and now she had to live with that. 

Malik grumbled and made her way down via a set of staggered blocks of concrete. Admittedly a lot safer than Nari's path had been. Oh well.

Malik joined her, giving her a wary look before pointing in the direction of what used to be an asphalt road. "That's where I saw the boot prints earlier." The wind was picking up, and Nari couldn't see much through the sand. Any bootprints that were there before were long since covered by a new layer of dust. She had to use her hand to shield her eyes. She was very glad for the scarf that was protecting at least half of her face.

They set out at a brisk pace, and Nari was content to keep quiet and follow. Part of her doubted if Malik really knew the way but a bigger part just didn't really care. None of this really mattered.

The road they walked on used to be asphalt a long time ago, but now it was crumpled and degraded, with more holes than actual road. She had to concentrate on her footsteps, otherwise she might twist her ankle in one of those holes. She was thankful for that, the less room she had to think the better it would be.

She honestly couldn't imagine anyone living here. Everything looked dead, even the trees beside the remains of the road were brown and withered. Still, Malik pushed on and Nari followed. She'd follow as far as was required of her.

They walked for what felt like hours. After a while Nari's feet started to hurt but she ignored it. She'd be damned if she was gonna ask for a break. She did manage to drink some water from her own bottle, though she drained it way too fast and was too proud to ask for another one  She wasn't going to ask Malik for anything. At least the humidity caused her to sweat a lot so she didn't have to pee. Small victories. 

The silence was hell though. Even avoiding the pot holes wasn't enough to stop her mind from wandering.

Wandering to Jonghwa.

Wandering to Gojin.

Wandering to all the things in her life that she wasn't going to get back. Never again would she jump at Jonghwa's arms around her again when she was outside looking at the stars and she hadn't heard him coming. Never again would she wake up in the middle of the night and snuggle closer to him, breathing in his familiar smell and knowing everything was as it should be. Never again would she be woken up by a wet nose and the smell of stinky dog breath when Gojin thought it was about time he was walked in the morning. Never again-

No. Push it down. She rubbed her quiet tears from her face and tried to control her expression. Just stop thinking, Sigma. When you think you think of them, so just stop thinking.

Ahead of her Malik stopped and turned around. "Let's stop for a break."

Nari was very glad she just rubbed thos tears away and tried to not look too relieved at the prospect of a break. She followed Malik to a spot off the road with a toppled tree trunk and sat down. Malik handed her a full bottle of water and Nari accepted it gratefully. She pulled down her scarf and gulped down the water. She could run a 10k but that was nothing compared to this.

She looked at Malik from the corner of her eye and felt a stab of bitterness. She wouldn't be here now if it weren't for Malik. She'd be home with Jonghwa and Gojin where she belonged. She probably would have celebrated the engagement tonight, they'd order some food from that Brazilian place they liked and stay in, just the two of them. A quiet personal celebration before they'd tell their friends and get overwhelmed by the response. Hwasa would roll her eyes and grumble about being the fifth wheel forever before giving her the biggest hug ever. God the guys would have gotten over the top excited, probably more excited than Nari and Jonghwa, and would start askng about all their plans immediately- 

Nari swallowed the bile that was making its way up and angrily rubbed the tears from her eyes. Malik, to her credit, was keeping her eyes to the ground and pretending not to notice.

After a while Malik cleared and checked her watch. "We've been walking for five hours now. I think it's time we start heading back. We haven't seen any signs of life in 5 hours and we're not making any progress. We don't have time for this. We'll try another world tomorrow."

Nari kept staring at the ground. Her eyes burned, either from sand or from tears. Probably both. She didn't really care about the world Malik would drag her to next time.

"So, ehm, Sigma," Malik started after another uncomfortable silence. "How are you holding up?"

Nari stared at Malik for a second. She really had to ask? Was the answer to this not obvious? She swallowed and shrugged. "It is as it is and that's as much as I'm willing to think about it." That was surprisingly honest. She hadn't thought she was going to be so honest.

Malik nodded and took a gulp of her own water. Hopefully that was the only attempt at talk she'd make. Nari was happy enough to not think about it.

They stayed another 10 minutes in silence. At one point Malik handded her a sandwich and Nari tried not to look too thankful as she stuffed it into her face and washed it down with more water. Then it was time to get back to walking and she pulled her scarf back up.

They walked back the way they'd come and Nari went back into her routine of trying not to trip on a hole and trying not to think too much. She might have been annoyed at waste of a whole day but she couldn't muster enough caring to. She just kept walking and kept quiet.

At one point the wind subsided for the most part and the air cleared showing a brilliant blue sky with streaks of pinks and purples to signify the sunset. Dust still filled the air but now they could see further than a few meters in every direction. They now could see the ruins of another city in the distance, hollow and jagged husks of former buildings jutting out of the ground like great metal teeth. She couldn't help but appreciate the depressing beauty of it all despite her painful feet and empty heart.

Walking back was easier on Nari because it was harder. Every step hurt her feet more, but every stab of pain distracted her from potential thoughts. She kept her eyes on the ground and her feet moving. 

And promptly walked into the back of Malik. "What the-" Nari sputtered.

Malik stared off to the right of the road and Nari followed her gaze. A little ways in that direction was a rock formation now shrouded in darkness, and from the opening of the formation came a dull glow of electric lights.

"We should check it out," Nari said.

"We should," Malik said, but she was hesitating. She shook her head and started walking toward it.

The rock formation had been completely obscured by the dust before but now they could see it clearly.  As they approached they could see that it was actually a shallow cave with a wide opening angle just so away from the road that you could only see the glow from just the right angle. It was cleverly hidden, and the light itself was low. Inside were a few large tents with wires coming out of them connection to solar panels outside of the cave. There were crates too, with a symbol Nari didn't recognize and writing in a language she couldn't understand either.

"We have to get out of here," Malik said. 

"What? No. We just found evidence of people, isn't this what we were looking for?" Nari protested."Shouldn't we see if- ehm- whoever we're looking for is here?"

"Pi," Malik corrected automatically. "And we won't find her here. This looks like a Zhu camp."

"A what now?"

"Zhu's people, the ones who have been killing Pis and Seekers alike," Malik sounded impatient and flighty. Nari sensed she wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. 

"That means we definitely have to look around," Nari said. "There doesn't seem to be anyone around, this is the perfect opportunity to find out more about them isn't it?"

"No, we're leaving," Malik said. "Nothing good comes from messing with those s. Let's go."

"No!" Nari protested. "We can't just leave a perfect opportunity like this!" How could Malik be leaving such a perfect opportunity? Malik was already walking away and Nari hurried to catch up. "Why?"

"Trust me, we have nothing to gain from this," Malik said. 

"I'm not buying that." Nari grabbed Malik's arm to slow her down but Malik roughly pulled her arm away.

"I said no."

"I don't have to take orders from you," Nari countered. She wasn't willing to back down on this. "I'm sure there are things we can learn from this camp and we'd be fools to walk away. I thought these guys were the big bad? That we're supposed to be oh so afraid of them? Shouldn't we grab any opportunity to gain the upper hand? Or to mess with them?"

"Mess with them?" Malik started raising her voice. "Do you know how many of my fellow Seekers and friends have been murdered by them and you want to mess with them?! My last partner got curious too and they killed him while he was snooping around. Is that what you want too? Cause you can go right ahead and 'mess with them' if that's what you want to do, you don't have to 'take orders from me'. Go on, get yourself killed, see if I care, but I'm leaving."

Nari hesitated, she really didn't want to give Malik the satisfaction of following her orders but also she wasn't sure if she'd make it back on her own. She thought Malik was being a stubborn idiot not checking this out but did she really want to do it alone? Did she really care so much about this? What happened to not caring about anything?

In the end her doubts won out and she followed Malik. They walked back to the portal in silence, Nari still pissed about the whole thing and she guessed Malik was too.  When they got to it Malik pused through without a glance back at Nari. Nari stepped through as well, her heart giving another lurch as she passed through the weird liquid. 

Stepping back into the Spire was bliss as the humid and dusty air of the other world fell away in favor of very breathable nice air of the Spire. Nari pulled down the scarf and took a big long breath fo wonderfully clean air. She'd been ready to fall down with exhaustion before but with that one breath of fresh air it felt like some of her exhaustion just fell away. 

She made her way to her room (well, the first room she'd seen and tossed her bag into this morning) and very much ignored Malik's existence. She went straight to bed, she could probably use the sleep and she wasn't about to sit around doing nothing. Best to just try and rest a little bit and try not to think about anything that happened or anything that would reach into her chest and crush her heart. Best not to think about those things no. 

~*~

After tossing and turning for what felt like hours Nari had to admit that sleep wasn't happening. She looked at her watch: 4:30AM. . 

She just couldn't stop thinking about the camp of the Zhu people. It was such a missed opportunity and it really bothered her. She knew that she shouldn't care but she did, no matter how much she told herself she didn't. Well, that and other things, but thinking about the empty spot in the bed where Jonghwa should have been just caused her to push those thoughts away and think about the camp even more.

She just knew something about that camp was important. It had to be. It had been such a coincidence that they'd spotted it to begin with. Most of all she refused to admit that Malik might have been right with her head-in-the-sand attitude. Nari couldn't just ignore something like an opportunity to snoop around the enemy encampment, that was nuts! She wasn't going to sit around and let an opportunity like that pass her by.

She got dressed and quietly opened the door. She looked around to see if there were any lights . There was light coming from the living room but Nari thought she remembered that she could get to the staircase from the other side of the rooms' hallway too, bypassing the living room. So she chewed on her cheek and walked that way.

If Malik didn't want to go explore that camp then fine, that was her decision. She was allowed to be a coward and just stay here, Nari didn't care. It was all the same to her. But she wasn't going to stay here and do the same.

author's note

It's just about not been a month since I've updated??? Sorry guys, exams are now over and I've succesfully moved houses so now we can get back to some sort of regular programming xD 

This was mostly just set-up so not a lot of action but things will pick up soon~ As for what's gonna happen to Nari as she goes back to the camp? I suppose we'll find out in due time....