The next morning was filled with tension underneath the roof of the lighthouse. The first one to wake up was Jackson, who had difficulties falling asleep all night. He was miffed and disappointed in his group of friends. The rebels were known for not caring about what others did, unless it had to do with Government issues. The Hunters were part of the problem, but they all had made a promise that when the time was right that they would all confront the Hunters all together instead of targeting one person. Nonetheless a young girl who had her memory wiped out by Youngjae.

Accident or not, his friends had every intention of bringing her here. They had every intention of putting a chip in her brain and making her their tracker. The only person who had any scientific and surgical background was Yugyeom, so Jackson was sure it was him who had planted the chip inside of her. He had never yelled at his friends before, not even his leader. It wasn’t like him to blow up, but with the world ending the way it was, Jackson didn’t want any more blood to be shed. The only reason why none of his friends were dead was because Mia was outnumbered. If she had been with two other Hunters, this would’ve never happened.

Youngjae was next to wake up, but once he saw Jackson sitting by the counter in the kitchen he fled back to his room that he shared with Jinyoung and Yugyeom. Jackson did not look up, but he knew who it was. He gritted his teeth and sat very still on the stool, debating what to do with the situation.

Mark came out from their room and slid next to Jackson on the stool with a cup of orange juice in his hands. He looked unusually tired, but when they met eyes, Jackson understood as much as his best friend understood the reason why they both looked so exhausted.

“They’re such ing idiots,” hissed Jackson, placing his clasped hands to his lips and leaned lower on the counter.  

Mark nodded his head in agreement and took a long gulp of his drink. “The plan was dumb from the beginning. We should’ve stopped them.”

“I thought they would know better than to mess with a Hunter,” grumbled Jackson. From upstairs, they could hear Jaebum’s room open. Immediately, they sat right up and their ears listened carefully to the heavy dragging of the footstep. They looked at each other, feeling the dread appear in their chest.

“I’m getting out of here.” Just as Jackson was about to get out of his seat, Mark pulled him down. “Wait a bit, I’m kind of curious to see her reaction.”

Jackson shrugged his arm off and gave Mark a flat look. “I want no part in this.” And then he walked off, not waiting to see what his best friend had to say. He wanted to be as away from the situation as much as possible. He had met Mia before, and she had left an unforgettable impression on him. She had a mouth on her, despite the mouth mask she had that masked her features last time. He hadn’t really seen how she looked like, but the rest of the guys did. There was just something morbid when it came to intruding into other people’s privacy. It was fun hacking into Governmental issues and their documents, but when it came to normal people who didn’t have a single clue about what the government was hiding, Jackson felt bad.

He only wished that his friends felt that way, too.

Jackson sat down on the sand outside and watched as the sun began to rise higher and higher into the cloudless sky. He wondered if by now anyone from the center noticed that Mia was missing, and if they are en route towards the city to search for her. Seeing that there were no boat coming towards the lighthouse was a good sign, that meant that they had not figured out the rebels had taken Mia. But how long would they have until the rebels would become a prime suspect? Sure there were nightcrawlers out there, but Mia was a hunter and Jackson doubted that they would believe she would’ve gotten killed by one of them. Hunters were trained to hunt nightcrawlers, even he knew that. Death for them was not easy, unless they were killed by another human being.

As the sun rays began to beat down, Jackson was starting to feel the heat cling to him. His sweat was hugging onto his t-shirt and was beginning to burn from the hot sand. Today they were supposed to send signals to the land of Beast and see what interactions they would get back. The signals were supposed to let them know if it was safe or not to enter the land, because in no way were they planning to let the Hunters have all the fun. But now, with what happened with Mia, the course of their path was changed.

While Jackson sulked to himself, he didn’t realize that someone was standing a few meters away from him. When he did come to look up, his first reaction was to get angry. How long has she been there? Since when did she come? But when he realized that Mia wasn’t staring at him, but at the desolate city across the ocean, he softened slightly.

Mia was not what he had expected. She had this long grey-brown hair, which looked almost matte in the sun. There was no glimmer or shine in her eyes or hair, just a lifeless thing she was. She looked so lost and confused as she