Once the sun slowly rose and the gloom had dropped from the world, Jisung picked up the pace. No longer did he carefully place each footstep to make sure that not even a twig snapped underneath his steps. Now, he pressed them to keep a steady pace,even almost a jog. One that honestly wore Hyunjin out pretty quickly. He wasn't about to complain, though because he knew, or at least he believed that following Jisung was going to lead him to his sister.

It was all he could do to keep up with Jisung especially with how hungry he was. That little bit of meat in the morning didn't do much as the day waned onward. Jisung had also shared some water from an old plastic bottle that looked like it had seen better days, but at least it was water. Hyunjin had to admit that he was really thirsty by the time that he had been offered that water.

The world around them had been more revealed with the rising of the sun as well. It wasn't as grey and pale as Hyunjin had assumed it was. Instead it was dusty and brown and just dry as if the land itself was dying. He wondered how anyone was able to live in this environment and that of course just brought to mind the idea that his sister had been here for a year.

No, he had to keep hope that she was okay, that she was alive, and that he was going to find her.

Finally after several hours of keeping up their fast pace, he stumbled and tripped, breaking his knee open on a small rock. "Ouch," he complained.

Jisung paused ahead of him as if he really didn't want to stop, and finally, begrudgingly, turned back. "Hey, you need to get up. No time to cry over a scraped knee. If we want to get to the Colony by tomorrow then we've got to keep moving."

"I know why I'm in a hurry," Hyunjin grumbled. "Why are you pushing such a fast pace?"

"Honestly," Jisung stated, "because I'd really like to live and I don't know that I can survive another couple days. You're new here. You don't understand how it is. You never know if tonight's going to be the night that those monsters learn how to climb a tree. So, I'd rather not find out. The sooner we can find your sister, the sooner we can find, I don't know, a candle or something and get out of here."

Hyunjin mused that over in his mind as he climbed back to his feet, ignoring the pain in his scraped knee. "So, if we do find... a lighter," he changed that from 'my sister', because no, he had to keep hope. "If we do find the lighter then don't we need a candle?"

Jisung shrugged his shoulders. "I really don't know but I didn't light it with a candle. Whenever I had that stupid bowl, I had incense in it."

"You think it's the same bowl? "Hyunjin asked, surprised.

"You think there's more than one bowl like it out there? That leads to this crazy- world?" Jisung didn't wait for him to answer and simply shrugged again. "I really don't know, though. All I know is, I had a bowl that looked just like that. I got it at some thrift shop in Malyasia. And, yeah, here I am. So I don't know but it looks really familiar. Felt familiar, too," he added in a quieter tone.

Hyunjin glanced down to where the bowl was tucked inside of his shirt once again. Curious. Jisung said he'd only been here for three months. His parent's had the bowl in storage with his sister's things for a year. It couldn't have been the same bowl, no matter what it felt like.

"Is that where you're from? Malaysia?" Hyunjin asked as they continued on their way.

"Kind of not really. I'm from Incheon. And I at least assume you're Korean from the fact we're speaking it. I found that bowl in Malaysia, when I lived there. So, If you found yours in Korea, then I guess, yeah, they're different bowls. I wonder how many there are in the world."

Hyunjin was wondering the same thing, and asked, "So the people at the colony, are they from different places? What languages do they speak?"

Jisung gave a tiny smile that seemed to make his face light up, even if just for that brief moment. "There is a wide variety, but the colony tries to speak English as a united language. You mentioned your sister's name is Yeji? Does she speak English?"

They had lived in America for a couple years as kids and Hyunjin told him so. "My English is rusty but she's always been better than me anyway, so I'm sure she's fine. How long have others been here?"

He was hoping for Jisung to say something like a year, ten years, whatever, and so when he easily said, "I think Matthew has been here the longest, and its been about six months or so,