López's orders were unequivocal: abandon the settlement if the exploration team did not return before dawn. But the air was thick with uncertainty, the group engulfed in a whirlwind of ethical and moral dilemmas. Some insisted on going back for the missing; others accepted their disappearance as a dark omen, a harbinger of ruin should we remain.
Vidal, however, rose like a beacon of conviction. He refused to accept more abandonment—not again, not this time.
"Have you all forgotten what happened on the other side of the wall?!" His voice cut through the rising dispute with the force of a steel blade. "Are we so wretched that we would betray our comrades again? Or shall we wait until dawn, ready to rescue them if they don't return?"
"I'm sorry, Vidal, but Torres' orders were clear," López interjected firmly.
"We will hold our ground!" Vidal replied with determination. "We will only leave when all hope is gone… when we find their bodies, if we must."
"I'm with Vidal," Batista added. "Without Binet, these suits have no future. No one can make or repair them like he can. His absence condemns not just us, but the entire project."
"López has already made his decision," Duarte stated, unshaken. "Our priority must be the survival of those of us still alive. We can't cling to Schrödinger's men."
"Then go with him, Duarte," Muñoz snapped back. "As the lead medic, my duty is to all of you—to heal you and look after your wellbeing. I will not abandon our comrades, not again."
"As for me, I'll keep cooking," Sánchez said with a smile that clashed with the tense air. "I've got all night and part of the morning to wait for them—with a feast ready."
With renewed vigor, the will of one man began to tilt the balance toward hope. If it were possible, we would not only wait—we would go out and search for them.
I… simply watched. I admit it! As always, I was a motionless observer, trapped in stillness—even though one of the missing was like a brother to me. And still, I did not move.
The argument faded slowly, like embers dying under the weight of an earthly dinner that barely sustained us. The settlement was wrapped in a brittle silence, heavy with doubt. Duarte, standing by the door, stared into the void. His eyes saw not the landscape, but echoes of a past that seemed to condemn him. He no longer believed there were words capable of healing those who had sworn to save lives, yet now could only mourn them.
"I suppose that's why you didn't have the guts to pull the trigger," Vidal's voice, broken but firm, interrupted my thoughts. "I don't blame you for being unable to shoot that man."
"What…? But I… I did shoot?"
"For a moment, I thought you would," Vidal confessed, tears glimmering on his cheeks. "But it turns out you're a better man than I am," he added, his voice trembling at the memory of the life he himself had taken.
"It was them or us, Vidal," I replied, echoing Duarte's words in the forest, trying to justify the unjustifiable.
"They're human beings too. We don't know what led them to do what they did."
"They chose their fate," I said coldly, trying to convince him—or maybe myself.
"Apparently… they also chose mine, Larel," Vidal concluded, his gaze lost, every word laced with resignation.
Vidal walked toward Duarte. Both men, scarred by different but intertwined tragedies, sought solace in one another. Their embrace was not one of hope, but of acceptance—a bitter acceptance that in these lands, survival demanded erasing faces and names, turning enemies into soulless shadows.
The night wore on, and with it, the silence grew thicker. The settlement remained shrouded in darkness, as if the very night refused to reveal the secrets we shared. Duarte stood at the door, unmoving, while the aroma of Sánchez's cooking filled the air—a cruel contrast to the tragedy lurking nearby.
"Do you think there'll be redemption for us?" Duarte finally asked, without looking away from the horizon. His voice was a whisper, as if afraid to awaken the ghosts already haunting us.
Vidal, sitting by the fire, looked up. His eyes, heavy with a burden that seemed beyond his strength, met Duarte's.
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "But I don't think we're seeking it either. There's no redemption here—only survival."
I listened from a distance, pretending to be focused on cleaning my weapon, though my hands trembled at every word. I knew my silence was a shield—one I used to avoid facing the truths they had already accepted.
"And you, Larel?" Duarte called out to me. "If we could turn back time… would you make a different choice?"
I looked up, surprised by the question. My first impulse was to lower my eyes again, but something in his expression forced me to hold his gaze.
"I don't know," I said after a long silence. "Maybe I wouldn't have shot. Maybe I would've. But that doesn't change what we are now."
Duarte nodded, as if the ambiguity of my answer was enough.
"It's all we have left: choices we can't undo."
The rest of the night passed with a forced calm, each of us trapped in our own thoughts. The fire crackled now and then, breaking the silence with a sound as foreign as we were to this place. We had become shadows—not just to the outside world, but to ourselves. And though we waited for our companions, the question none of us dared speak aloud echoed in our minds:
How much longer could we survive, without losing what little remained of our humanity?
Dawn found us gathered, shadows of who we once were. López, with a firm and grave voice, reminded us of the mission that still hung over us: uncover the secrets of the disease, and find our companions… or what remained of them.
We nodded, knowing there was no turning back. We prepared our equipment, checked each suit, each weapon. No one escaped the paradox of healing and fighting for life, while death loomed in our hands.
We set out at sunrise, the sky still dark, rain becoming a fine drizzle. The forest's entrance—three old steps stubbornly refusing to erode with time—welcomed us in silence, a mute witness to the horrors we had endured.
We ventured into the thicket that seemed to open to our purpose. Each step was a defiance of the death surrounding us. The forest's sounds became our allies—every crunch, every movement a clue in our search. Bodies began to appear, hidden among foliage and fallen trees. The first were enemies, abandoned to fate, destined to become one with the earth. Vidal examined the corpses while the guards scavenged what they could. Two tarps were stretched over the damp mud: one for stolen items, the other for the bodies to be subjected to makeshift autopsies.
I found it impossible to touch the lifeless bodies that had so recently been full of life. But my fears didn't matter to the mission. I helped Vidal examine the corpses, looking for signs of infection. Unsurprisingly, they were infected and showed the first symptoms of the disease.
"Adult, roughly 25 to 30 years old, about 1.60 meters tall, but the weight is perplexing—only around 50 kilograms. For his height and age, he should weigh between 70 and 75… It's likely he was sick for several days," Vidal spoke with clinical detachment as he inspected one of the bodies.
"Reports from the doctors in Catha describe swelling of the lymph nodes in the most sensitive areas of the skin. But three out of these four show signs of the second stage of infection. One appears recently infected," I pointed out the buboes in the armpits, groin, and neck.
"Interesting… They were companions, must've spent a lot of time together. Yet their bodies show different stages of the disease. What's the difference? They're all of average age, average size, but each is around 20 kilograms underweight. Maybe they weren't eating properly?" Vidal speculated as he opened up the bodies in search of answers.
The buboes spread like roots, seeking the fat that should've been there in the subcutaneous tissue. It was a grotesque sight—buboes acting like parasites, draining the life from their hosts.
The only body without buboes showed black spots on the skin—precursors to the infection that would soon turn into buboes and then… what next?
We moved beyond the old bridge, where we found the truth we had tried to deny. Like a leaf falling from the highest branch in a graceful dance that foretells its end, so fell the team's spirits when we discovered the bodies of our comrades—lifeless, filthy, with terror etched onto their faces. The fear they must have felt in their final moments was tangible, and a sharp pain settled in my chest, stealing my breath.
Doctor Benjamín Taveras was there, reduced to a rotting husk without his suit. The four guards had suffered the same terrible fate.
But… where was Binet?