Neither of them slept well, rising as soon as the earliest dawn light leaked through the trees, and neither of them spoke until they were well on their way down the mountain. The snow had mostly thinned out by then becoming merely a light dusting over the rock and stone that crunched beneath their feet.

They hadn't spoken since the night before, afraid that their voices would attract the attention of those hunting them. Even just the thought of the stalkers, or the Revealed leader made Eli shiver.

By daybreak, the snow had morphed from sleet and then into thundering sheets of chill ice water soaking them thoroughly through, though the temperature continued to climb as they headed downwards. Eli didn't know all that much about weather, it was unpredictable when the dreads were involved and tended not to make sense according to the normal laws of nature, but even he knew that the sudden increase in temperature was probably not a product of nature.

He turned back, Wink peering from inside his jacket as he set up the spyglass.

Wink blinked once, and then twice.

"See anything."

"Not as far as I can tell." His voice was difficult to hear over the sound of the pounding rain. A trickle of water dripped around the side of his eyelid and into Eli's shirt making him shiver with the sudden chill.

He collapsed the spyglass and shoved it back in his bag. At this point he had almost gotten used to the feeling of Wink inside his jacket, as much as once could get used to having a blob of river mud shoved down their shirt.

Before him, Peter was looking down at the valley below.

From this height and through the rain, it was hard to make anything out in clear detail. Much of the ground below them was obscured by a thick bank of fog -- warm air from below meeting cold air from above mixed with the heavy condensation of the rain. Stone was wet below their feet as they made their way down.

Peter held back so Eli could catch up, "have we reached the edge of the Stalk?" He asked, forced to raise his voice over the pounding of the rain at their feet. Little rivulets of water trickled down around them forming small streams against the mountainside. Before spilling down over the stone and into great puddles which they were forced to skirt.

Eli nodded, "We would have exited her territory a mile or so back.

Peter pulled his hood up further around his face "Then where are we now?"

"I'm not sure, the valley is marked on the map, but it's small, and whoever the cartographer was, they didn't bother giving more detail. Keep a close eye on anything that could give us a clue. We don't want any nasty surprises. This is the domain between the twisted and the stalk, so it could be pretty much anything."

The thought of his mother's Atlas came to mind, and he found himself missing it more than ever, imagining it lying on the banks of Mirror lake exposed to all the fury of weathering and rain.

Peter looked out over the distant bank of fog, "No lights, so it can't be a particularly pleasant place to live."

"Your logic is a bit flawed. No lights doesn't necessarily mean anything."

Peter sighed deeply but didn't say anything.

Eli glanced at him not sure what that was supposed to mean. Peter had looked away and sped up to take the lead. He had been doing that more and more recently, which Eli found annoyed him more than it reasonably should. He knew he should be happy that Peter was taking that kind of initiative, but a part of him was under the impression that Peter hardly should be taking the lead as he didn't know half as much about surviving in the real world as Eli did.

He took a deep breath through his nose, scolding himself internally. He may have known more about the wide world than Peter did, but Peter could say the same thing to Eli when it came to medicine, or life under affliction. He reached up to rub his forehead.

This was all due to the pull of Desolation and Exclusion, he was sure of it. Being around people, even one as agreeable as Peter, was taxing his ever fading desire to be with people, and he had to actively choke down his ever heightening resentment.

If he was honest with himself, the little things were simply compounding or even concealing his real argument with Peter: his infatuation with the Order of Hope. Eli had told him about his father's disappearance, Peter knew that the symbol was somehow connected, and yet, he seemed to hold no skepticism towards the group. In fact the more and more they talked about it, the more he seemed to espouse their beliefs.

Despite what Eli had told him.

All this talk of hope, hope, hope. Well HOPE had never done anything for Eli, and hope certainly had never brought back his father.

It was hard to watch Peter's belief in them grow, and not see him growing in ignorance as well.

Perhaps it was karmic justice that caused him to slip at that moment.

Or a more likely explanation is that he was just distracted by his own thoughts, and so wasn't careful in placing his foot, coming down perfectly on a loose piece of shale already set on edge by the runnels of water, and placed above the slick, smooth mud.

One moment he was thinking to himself, and the next, the world around him tilted and whirled. His foot slipped out from under him and he fell backwards hard landing on his back with a thud, and a cry of pain as a hard rock stuck into his back. But rather than stopping there, he continued to slide picking up speed before catching his heel on another rock. The momentum of his slide was enough to pitch him forward at which point he lost complete track of the space around him.

He tipped head over heels, and at one moment his shoulder slammed painfully into a rock sending a wave of fire up his arm and causing his hand to go numb, and then his leg, and then his back again. He did his best to cover his head, but that didn't stop the rock flicking up from his fall which bounced up to hit him high on the cheek as he tumbled downward. His face stung and his body ached as he came to a stop sprawled in a shallow puddle as the base of the slope.

Wink was no longer in his jacket, and in his place cold water seeped down the front of his shirt, making him well and truly soaked.

"Eli! Eli! Affliction! Are you ok!" Rocks clattered and tumbled as Peter scrambled down the hill towards him. He almost slipped more than once on his way down.

Eli slowly, and painfully lifted himself from the puddle as rain pounded down from above. Water streamed off the fur of his jacket, and spilled down his skin spilling off his nose tinted a rosy pink with his blood. His vision was blurry: he had lost his glasses somewhere in the tumble

Everything hurt, but as far as he could tell nothing was broken.

A weight atop his back allerted him to Wink's presence as the Dread Sat atop him under the pounding rain, "Well that was an adventure." The wet and cold hardly seeming to phase him

In that moment cold, wet, miserable and frustrated, Eli was overcome with a sudden sense of anger.

Peter reached him, placing a hand on his arm, but before he could help Eli to his feet, Eli angrily shoved him away, "Get off me!"

Peter took a step back, eyes wide as Eli stumbled away hand to his bleeding cheek. His initial surprise gone, Peter frowned, hands balling into fists, "I'm just trying to make sure you're ok, "And give you these." He offered up Eli's glasses with one hand

Eli wiped blood and water from his face before snatching his glasses back and stuffing them on his face, "I'm fine." he said, limping away on his still aching leg.

Peter went to approach again, but then his brow furrowed and the line of his mouth hardened out. He held up his hands, "Fine, I won't help you then."

Eli wrapped his arms around himself miserably as the last bit of warmth seeped out of him.

Wink sat on his shoulder, "Your nose is bleeding." He said before hopping down from Eli's shoulder and into his bag.

Elli wiped at his face, and indeed his nose was bleeding, along with his cheek. A ruby droplet fell from his hand into the puddle at his feet as rain continued to fall. He felt like screaming. Hands balled into fists he wanted to reach up and rip his hair out.

A part of him, a dark part of him thought that things had only started going downhill like this when Peter showed up.

He was much better off alone.

He tried to bite back those intrusive thoughts as he made his way down the next shale covered hill making sure to plant his feet with care. Even so, he slipped three more times, none half as bad as the first, but still enough to make him question what was wrong with him. It was only when Peter began to experience the same difficulties that he was sure it wasn't simply his own problem. The fog around them grew thicker, and it was with relief that they finally planted their feet on soft ground.

Even though the mist was heavy, lying low to the ground, he could still make out a line of trees in the darkness ahead of them, less of trees at this distance and simply the twisted suggestion of trees merely silhouettes in the pale blue of the fog.

"Which way from here?" Peter asked. In the fog his voice seemed stiff and cold. It had stopped raining, but Eli was still soaked to the bone.

He glanced up at the sky looking for the sun, though with the mist it was difficult to determine, and he couldn't make sense of the diffused ambient light spilling down from above. He shook himself and reached into his bag withdrawing his compass. He set it on the flat of his hand and waited for the arrow to stabilize, but as he watched, it never did. It just kept rocking back and forth spinning wildly from one end to the other end and then back again. He slapped it against the flat of his palm, his already short fuze growing shorter.

He slapped it against the palm of his hand again and then reached up ready to throw the compass, but his hand was caught by Peter, "Eli stop, just calm down ok?"

Eli snarled and turned away, dropping the compass into Peter's hands as he did. Peter fumbled it but it slipped through his fingers and went bouncing across the stone. Eli angrily marched in the other direction as Peter scrambled to pick up the compass.

A few steps forward, and he could hear the burble of a small stream or creek somewhere up ahead. He walked slowly forward ducking past some low hanging branches to the edge of a small embankment where he sat on a rock and glowered down into the water. He closed his eyes and tried to take one long slow breath.

Behind him he heard the sound of footsteps and didn't look up as Peter walked over to kneel next to him, "Elli."

He grunted

"Maybe we should rest here for a bit.

He grunted again but dumped his bag on the ground and peeled off his soaked fur coat. It was warm enough now that the heavy fur coat wasn't needed anyway.

Angrily he pawed through his bag to find some dry clothes, nearly dropping them at least twice and almost falling over as he pulled them on. Finally, he managed to figure it out and then sat back on his rock, feeling dry and a little better, if not still chilled, fur coat wadded up by his bag on the ground.

His leg still ached.

"Will you let me look at that now?" Peter asked his bag open.

Eli didn't answer, and taking that as an invitation, Peter scooted over to sit next to him, turning Eli's head so he could look at his face. Eli had trouble looking him in the eye. Peter seemed genuinely concerned, it made Eli angry and guilty, "That's a pretty good gouge."

Eli didn't say anything.

He reached down into his backpack and pulled out one of his little medical pouches, about halfway up, the pouch slipped, bounced out of his hand and then fell with a light plop into the stream. The two of them stared at it, as the current washed it down the river and into the fog, completely out of sight.

"Well that was unfortunate." Peter remarked before reaching into his bag and retrieving another one.

He seemed so calm.

Which annoyed Eli even more?

What was wrong with him?

Was it the Desolate creeping into him again? Or was it simply the cold and the worry that was causing him to feel like this.

Peter reached up dabbing at Eli's cheek with some herbal paste. It stung and Eli flinched slightly, "how's your shoulder and leg?" Peter asked, still dabbing at the wound.

"Fine." Eli said, staring pointedly at the swirling gray water of the small stream before him.

"Do you want to take a look at the map?"

He wished Peter would just stop talking, but reached into his bag and took the map which wink held out to him. Wink didn't say anything, that was why he liked wink. Again the rational, logical part of him knew he was being an idiot. Wink always had something annoying to say, but he wasn't generally useful, so, overtime, he had come to see Wink as, simply, part of the environment.

He tried to ignore Peter doctoring over him as he unrolled the map over his knee. Overhead the fog was beginning to burn off somewhat, though the sky remained overcast. He looked down at the map tracing familiar lines with his eyes following the familiar slopes of mountains.

Or at least he thought they were familiar, every time he tried to bring them into focus, to understand the lines and letters he was seeing, he just.... Couldn't. He closed his eyes and opened them again and squinted at the page. He did this multiple times before turning the map over.

Peter placed one last bandage on his cheek and then looked up.

Eli turned the map over again.

"Eli?"

He turned it again, holding it out further from himself so he might be able to see. For a moment he thought he might have lost his glasses, but reaching a hand up they were still on his face.

A sudden growl of anger burst from his throat, and he threw the map down.

"Eli? What?"

"I can't read it?"

"What do you-"

"The damn map Peter, I can't read it.

Peter looked down and picked it up as Eli got to his feet pacing back and forth up and down the waterline, though he made sure to stay well away from the edge.

"That is.... Strange." Peter said after a moment, "Neither can I."

He gently folded the map back up and put it in his own satchel, "Well that's alright. I can still see Kurshing, all we need to do is walk away from it generally."

Eli shoved his hands in his pockets. He probably should have thought of that, but didn't say anything, instead following after Peter as he stepped into the fog.

Their journey was far harder than it should have been. Crossing the stream was a nightmare and Peter slipped and fell in once, though the water was only knee deep. Despite that he was forced to hike in soggy shoes.

It was a constant battle of slipping and sliding and tripping.

Everything Eli tried to do, he felt as if it were his first time doing. The ground seemed slick where it shouldn't have been, and his own sense of his body seemed to be drastically tampered with. Trying to take a drink from his canteen, he spilled more than once down the front of his shirt.

His frustration only mounted, and even the usually good tempered Peter experienced a drastic reduction in good humor with every step he took in his soggy boots.

It was only when the fog closed up behind him, and Eli realized they were lost did things really start to come to a head.

He stopped at the T intersection of a small trail, with Peter looking down.

"Which way do we go?"

"I don't know Peter, Does it look like I have a map?"

Peter took a long, deep breath, but then he turned on his heel to face Peter, "You know you have been a real pain all day, and I am sick and tired of it. What is your problem?"

Eli raised his hands, "My problem! My Problem! My problem is that we are lost in the middle of nowhere. My compass doesn't work, I can't read the damn map, and my leg hurts. What is your problem?"

Peter crossed his arms, eyes narrowing justly slightly, "My problem is that my friend has been an asshole to me all day, and I don't know why."

Eli shoved past him, "We aren't talking about this."

"You might not be, but I am." Peter's voice continued to rise as he followed after Eli, "I have been nothing but patient and helpful this entire damn trip, and you get nastier and nastier every day.'

"Not talking about this."

"Ever since we left Kurshing city you've been getting worse."

Eli tripped over a large root in the trail but was able to catch himself before he fell, "NOT talking about this!"

"I want to know why I deserve this. Please, Eli, tell me what I did wrong. I would LOVE to know."

Eli threw his head back stopping in the middle of the trail as Peter almost ran into him, "NOTHING Peter, you have done NOTHING wrong."

"Bullsh-"

"No, I'm serious. You've been perfectly fine and hospitable. Just the picture of usefulness, you know, especially helpful when you're making friends with the people who may or may not have kidnapped my father. I mean of course, by adopting their beliefs you are simply trying to understand the kind of people that would take someone's father and I don't know.... kidnap , hide or kill him. But, hey forget that, at least they have a great and heart-warming message about hope and charity."

"Eli I didn't-"

He raised an eyebrow, "Didn't what, Peter? Didn't choose to wear that pendant around your neck. DIdn't think about how maybe just MAYBE there might be something off about them. Didn't think that there might be a reason that I don't trust them, and that reason is that that symbol is associated with my father's disappearance, the last thing that he ever wrote before vanishing."

"That's not what I-"

"And while we are at it, why don't we talk about the impossibly good mood this has all put you in. Sure I am going to vanish forever, and sure my father is gone, but at least YOU have found hope."

"Eli liste-"

"Oh go on Peter, please do tell-"

"I thought they could help SAVE YOU!" His shout was enough to startle a group of birds from a nearby tree and stop Eli in his tracks. He stared at Peter, "And YES I was aware of what you said about your father, but I also thought that maybe this meant we were getting closer to him. Maybe there IS hope."

It was Peter's turn to march past, "And have you ever considered that I am in a good mood because, for once in my life I actually HAVE someone to spend time with, who pays attention to me. Maybe if you stopped to think you'd remember where I came from, sick and miserable and weak all the time, and maybe you'd consider that maybe I am just happy to be away from all of that."

Eli choked off his response and lapsed into bitter silence. Peter marched ahead, hands balled into fists and almost tripped over a rock. Eli stared down at the ground intently for so many minutes, not sure where they were even going when he nearly ran into Peter's back. He looked up ready to ask what had stopped them, when he saw Peter's pointing finger, motioning up to the sky where the moon hung against a pale gray sky tinged yellow by a setting sun. Off to its left their next brightest star glimmered pale from the sky.

"Look! I know where we are."

Eli knew too. They had gone off course by a good margin, but soon enough they were back on track, following glimpses of the moon, and eventually through the sun as the clouds overhead rolled over them, casting their bodies into cool shadow. The fog had mostly burned away by the time the sun had almost set, giving them a view of a boggy sort of marshland interspersed with lines of trees following the river. The trees were low against the water and generally didn't tend to rise more than ten or fifteen feet. Their branches were bare like that of trees in winter, and their bark was gray and lifeless. Water hung in stagnant pools in the washed out marshland around them, though they found somewhere dry enough to camp before the sun truly set

At least it wasn't cold.

Luckily for them the grass wasn't dry enough to catch fire as Peter dropped his flint multiple times while trying to light it before they had a warm red flame going. Eli sat down across from Peter feeling only a little better while the heat slowly began to seep into his bones, warm fire causing his face to buzz as blood rushed back into the skin.

The two of them didn't speak

Wink had hunkered down inside the satchel leaving the two of them to their own devices.

Eli reached into his bag after a while and withdrew a book from the bottom. It was one of his father's old journals from when he had been learning about the dreads. He recognized the sharply penned lins as his father's handwriting. With a very small script but high sweeping capitals.

He opened the book, eyes scanning over the pages. He had read them so many times trying to ring as much information from it as he could, and though he still felt there was plenty more to learn, it seemed to be hidden from him.

His eyes continued to rove slowly over the words his father left, until coming to a familiar passage. A line that his father wrote.

And while in my travels I have found one important truth that may be the foundation to our war on the dreads. Our faith must not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of hope.

The line followed on for some pages though that quote he had underlined at some time.

This idea dominated the pages of his father's journal right up until the end, the end and that damn tree. Again he tried to read it over, but found no more answer than he had on previous attempts. He blew out through his cheeks in frustration.

Across the fire Peter looked up from the red leather book with the gold trim: not so long ago Eli had read that book to peter out loud. He had yet to finish it though Peter has surely read it several times over. Times he probably could have spent reading the other books.

Peter opened his mouth and then paused, seeming to wonder if it would be worth it to say anything before tentatively, "Something wrong?'

Eli sighed, "It's this passage in my father's book. It doesn't make sense, and it has never made sense."

Peter waited, one eyebrow raised, "Go on."

Eli repeated the quote, "It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't sound much like my father."

Peter frowned, "It makes plenty of sense."

Eli paused and looked up, "Care to share with the rest of us.'

Peter closed the red leather book on his lap, "Clearly your father is saying that sometimes we cannot rely on the knowledge of man. Sometimes we have to rely on hope.It honestly isn't a difficult passage to understand, it says what it means, like the order of hope-"

"Don't say it!" Peter went quiet, "My father would never be involved with a cult like the order of hope. He was a man of science and action. If anything the presence of this in his works just demonstrates what I have been saying all along. They had something to do with his disappearance." He tapped his fingers against the pages, "For him to change the way he saw the world all of a sudden and then vanish. Maybe he was trying to tell me something, trying to warn me."

Peter sat up straighter, "I think your father was smarter than you realize. He jabbed a finger at the book, "Smart enough to know that in a world like this sometimes academics CAN'T explain everything. Sometimes we have to follow things we can't see. Sometimes we have to leave behind biased opinions in search of the truth."

Eli slammed the book shut, "Hope! isn't going to do anything for us. HOPE has NEVER done anything for me. If anything, hope, or the order of hope took everything from me, and even if they weren't involved with my father then I would still say their teachings are dangerous. They give people a false sense of security, keep them from looking for anything better. After all, why would anyone choose to change their situation, to make their lives better when they are just content with hope. It's all foolish notions for children." His cheeks were beginning to burn trying to fight off thoughts of a dark tower, and a small child sitting at its center staring at the door and hoping the door would open and he wouldn't be alone

"Childish notions! Hypocrite thy name is ELI!" He held up a hand before Eli could retort, "Those people weren't sitting around doing nothing, they were doing more than I have ever seen anyone do. HOPE allowed them to do that, Hope allowed those people to watch out for each other, to have empathy and sympathy. To give them the courage to take care of others when no one else will.." He threw his hands in the air, "I bet your father saw it. I bet that he saw what they were doing was working. I bet that's why he had a sudden change of tone. And the fact that you can't see it just proves that you aren't half the academic that your father was.."

Eli bristled, jolting to his teeth, hands clenched , "Hope is a short term solution for a problem that lasts forever. It blinds people and makes them content to just sit around and not change their situation! And if my father SAW anything, he saw how dangerous these people were. Like you refuse to do."

"But they did change their situation!" Their voices were growing louder, the frustrations mounting.

"My father was a man of action! He would never have involved himself with those people!"

"Then maybe you didn't know your father as much as you thought you did. I hear you haven't seen him for a few years, so it makes sense.' Eli pulled back feeling like he had been slapped in the face. The sting went deep, causing his chest to throb. His vision was suddenly filled with the dark interior of an abandoned tower, cold without the light of a fire.

When hsi vision finally cleared he could see Peter's face drop almost apologetically before hardening up again.

The pain in Eli's chest turned to heat. His voice grew low, "You know that's interesting you should mention. Since I hear your FATHER was looking for you. Seems to be pretty close since he's been chasing us since Veerus."

Peter blinked mouth open.

The last light of the sun withdrew behind the horizon, and their circle of firelight grew, "So yeah, when were you going to tell me your father was the damned leader of the Outbreak, or did you just accidentally forget to mention that because he seems very eager to have his son back. All this time, I thought they were after me because of my father's research, but no, back there in the library and ever since they have been after YOU."

Peter's lips grew tight, "That man is not my father. Whatever that thing is inhabits what used to be my father's rotting corpse."

"You-"

Peter stood abruptly tipping over his bag, "NO, no it's my turn. All this time you have been going on about you, and your father and how abandoned you are and how sad it is, like you have a monopoly on parental issues, well I haven't had a father for as long as you." Little flecks of spit flew from his lips as he spoke, "My father became a member of the outbreak shortly after I was born, do you have any idea what it's like to be hunted by your own flesh and blood hiding away with your mother because he keeps trying to convert you to the cause. Do you know what it's like to hide under the floorboards of a neighbor's house while he ransaks your room trying not to cough so he won't hear you: watching every day as the flesh began to peel off his bones."

Angrily he kicked at a jutting rock next to the fire but missed snarling in anger and grabbing at his hair. He whirled on Eli stalking closer looming above him with balled fists, "Not like my mother lasted long after that, watched her from a distance while her limbs were taken by leprosy. No father, no mother. It's why I went to that stupid library in the first place because it was the only way I knew I could be safe from my father. It was the best place to hide and find work so I could eek out a living." he paused nostrils flaring and chest heaving with his continued breaths.

He closed his eyes, teeth gritted, "Then you came along. I might have lived that out for the rest of my short life, but I was something in you, and I was right. If it wasn't for you, my father never would have found me, but I never would have gotten out of that place" he looked down at his feet, "Then again, recently, I have begun to wonder if this life is much better." He turned away and walked to the edge of the firelight.

Eli didn't stop him as he stepped out into the darkness.

Silence fell over them.

Eli sat brooding for a long time before crawling into his bedroll. Back facing the fire. He listened to the sound of night insects and even the hoot of an owl off in the distance. The sky above was dark. And clouds continued to periodically cover the moon.

At some point Peter returned, but Eli remained still pretending to be asleep as he heard Peter stir the fire, sitting up for a while before he eventually went to bed falling still and silent as the night around them.

Wink appeared just then oozing over to sit on one of the logs by the fire facing out into the darkness.

Eli closed his eyes with the image of wink watching over them as his last thought before finally falling to sleep.