Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

There, in a long hallway inside the Barcadian fortress, lined with pillars supporting the 6-meter-height ceilings, Ash heard the echoing cries of pain, strife, and death in every direction around him as he strode slowly. Clashes of weapons welcomed by the spurts of blood, men fallen lifeless behind his treaded path. His eyes tried to search what lied at the end of the line, nothing he saw but only the horizon and seemingly endless straight line of marble-tiled path.

            Ominous darkness had begun to consume the soothing brightness of the day from the horizon, slowly expanding as though approaching his position followed by a group of grumbling thunder-bearing dark clouds, ready to spew lightning anytime soon. As the darkness passed above, a dazzling flash of lightning followed, along with a deafening crack of thunder and a violent blow of gale, almost topple him away. Ash covered his eyes with his gauntleted left forearm, avoiding the vicious squall of dust from hitting him in the eyes behind the visor of the full helm.

            His eyesight stabilized, behelding himself standing in the middle of the GF and Barcadian clashing ground. The earths quivered slowly at first, but gradually strengthen as both-side's deathly melee units fervorly charging the other.

            BUMP!-

            Ash opened his eyes from a hard bump from the uneven road, found himself back to the reality, inside the rear of a medium-size transport truck along with several strapped crates-for-delivery.

            He sat there in the back, leaning in the corner with his left leg up, placing his left foot on the metal floor. The hell, he whispered, wiping beads of sweat off his forehead despite the chilling breeze of the night blowing in.

            Must have been the aftereffect of the fight at Wharf Newland. It somehow triggered some sort of uneasiness deep inside of him, and some long forgotten memories.

            A Nightmare. At Barcada, too… he whispered, then  shook his head rapidly, subduing the swelling unpleasantness inside of him.

            It was dark and cold under the curtain of the night. The grumbling sounds from the truck's engine broke the nighttime silence along with the howling apparent wind from the motion. The roads were currently uneven in the countryside, occasionally bumped lightly in its course, except for the last one being the hardest, surprised him up from his sleep.

            He looked down to his right. Logue was still sound asleep, wrapped in a thick blanket he had brought along with him, avoiding the cold from getting her, letting the girl sleep comfortably along the way on top of cushioning her from the trucks bumping impacts from occasional uneven road. As for himself, he had a thin one atop of his hooded jacket covering his upper body, enough for him to stay warm.

            Careless aren't I... he whispered, directing the scold to himself for dozing off while he was supposed to keep his eyes on the girl, leaning his head against the cold metal wall of the currently fast-moving tarpaulin mover truck, doubling his effort to focus at the task at hand.

He stared at the peacefully sleeping girl. So relaxing the sight was that it sporadically threw him in disbelief that she was the very same girl he had rescued from Canopy.

He recalled the moment he fled from Wharf Newland district from the soldiers, carrying the girl in his arm, escaped into the sewerage to avoid scent detection from inbound trained and armed hunter hounds, entering the underground maze to flee from Canopy.

            Since a very long time ago, Canopy had always been one of the countries that drew interests between great entities, attempted to grab her for their own benefits, for her strategic naval location, resources, and navy strength, but all effort had suffered failure from her tenacity to bow, to anything, including previously waged wars.

Underground, hidden the mazes of tunnels that connected one city to another and one strategic point to another, built during the World War centuries ago and had served as one of the main alternatives for local soldiers and refugees at the time to efficiently be in motion without being easily detected, hidden. Later on generations– during the period of post-war's harmony– had continued to build cities and other establishments on top of the old ones in the course of peace seeking, and in respect to the old customs. Parallel to that, the underground tunnels below were slowly sealed in time and slowly forgotten by in the process, remained known only by few, by those who still preserve the knowledge of the old maze; most likely a scarce amount of local authorities and military, and perhaps even little in headcounts of local historians, architects, and engineers.

            Spending his time living there for almost a decade, Ash had the ample time needed to study and build his way out– in case of trouble– and had unsealed and rebuilt a small number of the secret passages. It was just the basic necessity in his character– to know where to mole his exit before entering. A passage that he wished he never had to use for any possible reason.

            Ash somersaulted into the manhole, with haste and care, shouldering the unconscious girl on his right. His left hand grabbed the flipped-open manhole cover, skillfully flipped it back shut while dropping himself into the sewerage few-meters down below.

            He held the fainted girl tightly in his arms as his feet supported his landing, splashed into the calf-deep detestable sewage, got himself into half-kneeling posture to reduce the gravity-fall impact.

            The glow from the Preservery veins from the surfaces of his armor and skin went dimmer and completely vanished by the minute as there was no critical injury amendation left that needed done. Yet, the usage of Preservery art in prior battle had cost him a considerable amount of strength, rendered him in greater exhaustion, drenched all over from sweating alone, felt as if he was barely able to hold the girl any longer as his grip loosen, and the amended wounds had started to tingle with pain once more.

            Ash shook his head, snapped from the infirmities and sucked it up, tighten his embrace as he felt and realized that the girl nearly slipped and fell from his arms, fueling his resolve with every ounce of fortitude left in him at the moment.

            The pitch darkness meant the manhole was successfully shut above him, but he looked up anyway just to make sure. He pulled out a small flashlight from his long coat, switched it on and fastened it onto his left shoulder, allowing a hardly five meters of visibility. Nonetheless, had his exit memorized, it was enough for him to know his direction.

            Freaking hell... he whispered in thoughts dwelled in disgust as he treaded without delay deeper into the sewer across the passage of filth. It was pitched in silent as it was dark, only the sounds of water drops from underground sewage pipes were heard aside the splashes made from his treading, along with occasional squeaks from packs of roaming sewer rats he encountered along the way. He had spent considerable amount of time, in fact years to get the maze unsealed, slowly rebuilt some of its strategic passages, and had them memorized during his years of peace. Still, no matter how many times he got into the sewer to study and rebuild, he found shaking the awful feeling of revulsion off his mind was a different situation entirely, silently cursing his current moment for the difficulty to catch his breath in the detestable wafting miasma

            Still... this is the only way. He thought, recalling this is the very purpose of preparing an 'escape route' in the first place. It was in his nature... his fear... his past. The only difference was; this time he went in for something he had always wished not to come true: 'war'.

There was no sign of human presence down here, not until his eyes caught a presence of dim light from a flashlight on the floor near the sewer wall not too far from where he was.

             Ash halted his movement in response, stood perfectly still for almost a full minute with his stance and right hand in a position at where drawing out his sword would be the swiftest and battle-ready, alerting for any intelligent movement, but there was none.

            Is it an enemy? Or a civilian who fled and lost his way? He thought– curious– slowly and cautiously approached the source of the light.

            His flashlight shone and revealed a seemingly motionless figure of a man beside the source, outfitted in local police uniform including the officer hat that blocked his upper half of the face from Ash’s current angle of view.

            The lower half of the face however was visibly pale with a trace of a single dried trickle of blood flow from his mouth down to the chin, and the body was drenched from the sewage, leaning against the wall behind the darkness with heavy gunshot wounds from his abdomen and traces of dried blood stream from them.

            Whatever it was, Ash assumed this man had nothing more in him to be cautious about as an individual, but knelt down and carefully searched the motionless body anyway just in case if he was strapped or cabled to a booby trap. He found nothing of the sort, not even a firearm, then placed the tips of his index and middle fingers to the policeman’s throat for vital. As expected; there were absence of pulse behind the cold skin of the dead body.

 He recalled to have heard rumors and news about how the revolution at Canopy went on, brought forth unseen-but-disastrous outcomes in its course. Those whom opposed were casted away with the least amount of compromise, and this dead man before him here must have been one of them who had joined the opposition party against the newly appointed government, then ended up being jeopardized, hunted down, and somehow escaped down here during his last moments hanging on to whatever was left of him.

            Ash noticed the dead police was holding fixedly a piece of crumpled blue-colored cardboard paper in his left hand. "What's this, I wonder?" Ash pulled it out along with a cartridge drive attached onto it with a chain.

            He put aside the portable data storage device, and opened the crumpled blue cardboard paper. It was the 'Sunny Star’s' name register... covered in stains of blood and sewage, burnt edge, and appeared ripped off from its larger piece.

            Ash frowned. “Who are you?” He asked to himself in a very low voice with great curiosity and uneasiness, slowly removing the officer’s hat, revealing his full facial figure... one that he was very familiar with.

            "Oh no... Delle..." he gasped after few short seconds, immensely disheartened and surprised following the recognition. It was his friend...

            Of course… Delle was one of the few that knew about the tunnel maze, and had helped him in rebuilding a small number of its passages whenever he had the time. An exceptionally nice guy, and was rather knowledgeable about the maze from being a Canopian, from his interest in history classes, and from being the city police. Ash would not have acquired much knowledge in regard of the sewer maze if it was not for this man. He must have had the same idea of escaping through here from whatever misfortune he got caught into.

            Ash perceived then why there were no words from Delle ever since the distress page message.

            Poor guy...

            Ash reached for Delle's police's identity tag, worn on a chain around the neck, gently undone the hook for safekeeping, honoring the dead man by at least let his death be known to his relatives or close acquaintances, if by any chance Ash will meet any.

            He kept the tag and 'Sunny Star' paper into his pocket, preparing to resume his journey, but then paused to stare upon the cartridge drive he put aside earlier.

Delle was holding dear to it to the very end of his life, might have something of utmost important that he intended to show Ash in the first place.

            Without further delay, Ash grabbed the device and put it in his pocket along with the other two found items, then got up to his feet, carrying Logue in his arms and went back into his escape course, further into the sewer maze. For the dead body, he had not a choice but only one: to leave it there for the rats to feast upon.

            "I'm sorry, friend..."

Ash had to lie to the clueless girl lying next to him about where he had acquired the 'Sunny Star' name register. If even a simple stare had caused her to broke down and collapse, who knew what would have happened if he was to told her he got it from a corpse.

            He took out the cartridge from his jeans pocket. Stared at it, recalling the moment when he plugged the cartridge into an old-model portable connector at the McNalls', made sure the computer itself was unplugged from any source of internet connection in fear it may contain some kind of web homing detector.

            Everything was heavily encrypted except for one file.

            The content was a twenty-three seconds long footage, showing a captured image taken from behind a window of a tall building. The view shown outside was a series of empty building blocks and empty roads of a seemingly deserted city. It was a standstill for the first three seconds., until the video then started zooming slowly into a abandoned neighborhood distance away, revealing a blurry image of a group of soldiers harassing a group of helpless rounded up civilian in an open street in a residential area, men and women, children and elderly. Roughly triple the size of headcounts in comparison to the soldiers, but they were helpless as they were unarmed.

            "I don't like where this is heading..." Destan said, frowning.

            The soldiers totaled no more than eighteen personnel. From the uniform variation, it seemed in the likelihood that they were from different companies, but nothing was sure enough to be voiced out as the image was blurry and pixelated from the zooming. Five of them had enough dose of pleasure beating up the helpless men with their fists, kicks, and rifle butts. Three others had not any weapon except for pistols holstered on the side of their waists, stood from a distant and watch, officers as it may seemed. The rest harshly pulled away children from senselessly crying-and-pleading parents, rounding them up, restricted them on a chain bound them together, then loaded them into a military truck. The clip stopped and ended at the third child being loaded into the truck and the image winked out, leaving a blank lit-on grey-screen monitor.

            "What the hell was that?" Destan asked with a pitched tone but slow voice, unable to even blink in disbelief. That one question he popped came with a set of various others behind it; what was that about? Where and when? And who were those people?

            Ash pulled out the cartridge from the port and leaned back onto the seat. "Evidence... concealed crime... military violence..." he said with a fistful of grotesque fear in mind, guessing more of them images hidden in this thing, beyond all the encrypted files to be cracked.

            He pinched the bridge of his nose in attempt to subdue the swelling vex in his thought from the heartbreaking footage.

            Even children... Has the same fate as shown in the video befell the children and the volunteers of 'Sunny Star'? Were they captured? Are they even alive?

            Ash turned to look at Destan, realized he had dwelled into the depth of thoughts about a full minute. The doctor's face lit from the monitor's glow in the dark, left-unlit study, looking at him.

            The room was dark and quite. Lillian was attending to the fainted girl in the patient room as Destan had requested, while Destan himself had to personally attend to Ash, as Ash had requested, leaving only them alone in order to commence conducting the investigation upon those suspicious possessions without involving an innocent's mind.

            Ash wanted to thank Destan for all the hospitality, being one of the scars amount of person he could truly trust from the bottom of his rationality in such dire times, but he felt as if the words were caged shut in his mouth, too many for him to say but he could not decide which to say first. His thoughts were in a grim mess, and his body was sore from the escape; carried the girl, fled through the sewer maze for hours, passed the tightened Canopy border, got himself onto a cramped refugee boat in the middle of the sea, infiltrated into Feylan border, and finally reached the couple's home-clinic in an estate village far in the countryside. During his escape, he threw away his sword and all his metallic protection gears into the sea to avoid being slowed and pulled down from the weight and to avoid from being tracked altogether. His coat was used as a blanket to cover the drenched girl on the refugee boat, and even wrapped her up with it at the shore to be dragged due to extreme exhaustion, for a few kilometers across the coarse sand, towards his destination, resting his arm by doing so before embracing her again at rougher surface routes.

            The night was cold and silent. The bags under his eyes were swelling, but he had zero intent to rest despite have yet to rest ever since his arrival there, a small sum of hours ago, in the middle of the night, disregarded Destan's instruction to him to sleep and insisted to study the content of the cartridge as an excuse for him to stay guard for the night, as his mind did not seize from worry that they might be tracked without him knowing.

            "How did I ended up in this mess, Des?" He asked, murmured almost indistinctively in exhaustion. "All I've wished for was simply their safety, but I found none except uncertainties and destructions..." he said, staring at the cartridge in his palm, then turned again to face Destan. "He was desperately calling for me, Des. But I wasn't there for him... for them."

            "It was enough having you to at least witness, Ash." Destan said. "You have this tendency to just... save people..." lightly shaking his head in comment, with a small warm smile carved in his face. "Sometimes, things just don't always go the way we've planned it to be."

"That aside, what are you going to do now?" Destan asked after seconds of silence, seeing Ash gloomed into thoughts. "Going after your girl?"

            Ash inhaled deeply, then exhaled most of the swelling anxiety upon hearing that. Now that Destan asked, he realized how much he missed his little angel, Adinna, his ten-year-old daughter. 'How is she doing? Is she okay? Is she safe?' Those questions popped at once, played in his mind most of the time since he separated himself with her to race into Canopy, gambled his own safety for others, even he knew well that the chances were slim. Very slim.

            Luckily the old couple Jonathan and Marianne were always by their sides, through the thick and thin of his endeavor as a single father, as the breadwinner, raising a daughter without the warmth of a mother at her side. They even volunteered to take Adinna with them, to H-Dom, a country under AE influence.

            His broke into a sudden smile, almost letting out a chuckle just from mere thought about her. The very root of his happiness.

            It lasted lesser than three seconds, then returned back to the face that portrayed exhaustion and worries.

            "I can't." Ash said, balling his fist, holding tight the cartridge in it. "The 'Null-Zone' borders that skirted Canopy is slowly being merged into Outland. Whoever rules over Canopy now is being eyed by entities worldwide, powerful and otherwise alike, allied and foes. I've witnessed the firepower provided by the 'Salvas', it was fully militarized, and that's just the beginning. Anything that goes in and out at the moment will be tracked, if lucky. Unlucky, then you're in deep shit like sticking your head into a hungry lion's maw. I'll be a sitting duck if I go out in the open. Long story short, I'm stuck."

            "And the girl?" Destan asked.

            "First thing at the moment, I suspect much that Delle was trying to hint me with something." Ash answered. "I believe him being there in the sewer wasn't a coincidence. His dead body appeared battered and shot, proved his involvement in battle, or at least had bore witness of one. He must've knew or guessed, and gambled that I would wind up into trouble and somehow would get myself using the sewer maze. After all, he was the one who helped me built the route, therefore it was his best bet. Something was definitely up at 'Sunny Star' before my arrival."

            "Then the girl is your best shot for the answer." Destan replied with a smile.

            Ash turned to look at Destan, frowning, having the feeling that Destan was purposely using the girl as the conversation topic. "Okay, what's the deal, Des? Enlighten me."

            The smile on the doctor's face extended even wider. "Lillian found the girl's card holder during the cleaning and found her ID among its contents, and it's not the normal ones you may see yet", Destan pulled out Logue's ID and put it beside the piece of still-drying 'Sunny Star' name register on the table where the monitor was. Exactly as Destan had claimed, it was not a normal ID, it was for refugees... "Everything else inside it was ruined. Even this one barely made it in one piece, but we might come out with something from this," Destan said, pointed at the name register card at a series of registered name and ID number, on a particular name. The spelling was messed up from the crumples, dirt, and rips. It was hard to pronounce the spelling from it, but the writing order was seemingly identical to the ID and the ID numbers written on both cards.

            "A refugee...? She was registered there." Ash said in a surprised tone.

            "Seemed likely." Destan said, agreed. "When was the last time you dropped by at the orphanage? Last month?"

            "More or less." Ash said as his fingers on one hand did a brief counting. "Two and a half months ago. She must've been admitted there during anytime in between."

            He sat there in silence for a moment, then turned to look at Destan again.

            "I'll head for the nearest town, first thing in the morning." He said. "I'll be making contacts in order to draft my next move carefully."

            "You won't get to do anything here in the countryside and there are only fisherman and estate villages nearby," Destan said. "The nearest town is a three-hour walk from here. I have a 'junk car' kept in the garage, if you need it. Custom made. Not at all fast but mobile enough. Since it is custom, the plate is phonied and the exterior is made to blend into crowds with low profile."

            Ash threw a look at Destan, interested.

            "I'll lend it to you. IF ONLY you get yourself a good sleep for tonight. Or you'll be walking." Destan said.

            "Crap."

It was still in a rural area, but the roads were starting to feel more properly built. Ash took a peek outside as the trip gotten smoother after hours of travelling in the back of the truck. Tar roads, street lamps, less bumpy roads, and more frequent passing-by vehicles.

            We're close. He said, whispering to his own self.

            The first two days went on as planned. Ash borrowed Destan's said 'junk car' without having any of the local's attention drawn to him bearing suspicion, though Ash was the first known to Destan to ever drove one of those outside of the rural areas.

            It was a type of self-made car that some crafty villagers built together as one of their hobbies. Destan owned several of those as collections, bought from several countrymen-mechanic acquaintances of his, and with a little bit of extra money, some were even craftier to show-off their skills to customize the exterior to appear much like a commercialized car. A perfect disguise. A feature that happened to flow toward Ash's favor.

            Somehow, he felt calling it a 'junk' was exceptionally underwhelming. Indeed it lacked the– 'current situation' unneeded– interior comfort features, but was impressive enough as it was fully mobile and had covered a rather stretched miles during the journey without any emerging difficulty.

            Still holding on to the 'beeper', Ash looked up into his contacts' digital addresses listed in his worn-out and thin notebook.

            In it, everything was intendedly sketchy and encrypted, including the address codes for him to reach his contacts, whom still kept the beeper communicators in their possessions in spite the modern days.

            He reached for the very first name written in the middle page of the book, 'Bahl'.

            The task a success, contact was made, and Bahl's response was delightfully swift, whom then– in response from immediate understanding from the method of approach, the beeper– immediately went on addressing himself with the code name 'Mr B' instead of his real name, cautiously avoiding the usage of any known sensitive words in their text chats altogether.

            They had themselves a handful of secured communication networks– provided by Bahl himself– for intel exchanges. From Ash's end; he briefly enlighten his situations, the revolution currently going on at Canopy and its damages and victims, mainly the refugees, along with the cartridge encrypted contents via various falsified email addresses while kept on mobile from one location to another, from one state to another.

The roads were getting merrier. More vehicle count had started passing by from both nearby villages and approaching dawn. Several estate houses were in sight, and the air wafted with chilling yet thin morning fog.

            Lillian rushed in for Logue, checking her vitals and temperature, then let out a long-silence breath of relief moments later. "She's just exhausted", she said, then slowly turned to Ash with her left palm still pressing gently against the girl's forehead. "It's normal for someone who'd just woken up from days of sleep, especially one as fragile as this one. She's just too weak to digest all the memory shock and traumatic experience."

            "Understood." Ash replied. "I need to get her out of here as soon as possible. It's too risky for us to be here any longer."

            "Lillian, honey. Need your help to prepare the girl's needs for her journey ahead." Destan said, aiding Lillian to reposition Logue's body posture, then Lillian nodded and hurried to the next room, fetching the necessities for the girl's days of travel to come.

            Logue's face was pale and sweating from the sudden burst of anxiety, but her breathing and vitals were stable. She had blacked-out suddenly after gritting tight her teeth, murmured the name 'Joan Donn' before collapsing.

            "I bet this has something to do with whatever you've uncovered during your absence." Destan said, placing a soft pillow under Logue's head, then stood up to head for a stack of kits of medicines, only a few short meters where he left unconscious Logue .

            Ash took a deep breath. "My contact has provided me with the 'underground intel'. It's regarding 'bounty hunters' being dispatched from Canopy, sniffing out two individuals; a hooded man and a girl. The 'hooded figure'– myself– mayhaps not at all be a problem, anyone would've disguised themselves in such way, but the girl remains as a concern. Whomever I was up against at Canopy have had their intel unit on the girl's rough figure studied through witnesses, her facial, height, weight, and hair color with length, most probably taken during her being held captive back from where I rescued her, but very luckily, not her entire details; name, ID, nor any digital record; not even a picture of her facial, must've been the intention of disposing her along with the rest of the captives back then. Surveillance devices may not recognize her, but still I fear about them witnesses."

            "Military witnesses?"

            "Most probably so. I've engaged in battle with a squad of them, have witnessed their professionalism and efficiencies. Undoubtedly, some must've our rough figures memorized."

            He then slowly turned and stared at Logue.

            'Joan Donn'.

            It took him almost a full minute of silence as the name rung the bell.

            It was almost like a whisper, and the girl was shivering from her own depth of trauma while pronouncing the name. None of the couple heard it due to their distance and the girl's whisper-like voice, but Ash did clearly heard the name she blurted before blacking out. It could have been a misheard name entirely, but he was sure it sounded rather identical to that of the newly appointed mayor of Bascus, one of the towns at Canopy. Indeed, there was a wide scale elections all over the country several months prior to the current turmoil. At first, he wished to just unprofessionally leave it be as a mere coincidence, but at this point, everything was a possibility, everything was worth taking into account, and nothing slipped by just from being just a random coincidence. This girl. She was a witness, a victim, a suspect, a subject, a holder to something worth investigating, and perhaps even more.

            "Seeing you in such haste, I bet you already have your destination set." Destan said, breaking the pause with handful of various of medicines, neatly stuffing them into a small pouch bag.

            Ash smiled in response. "I've received a matrix-code ticket for a ferry from my contact. I'll be heading out to Veena Port soon, along with the girl with me."

            "Veena?" Destan asked, frowning. "Ferries there shuttle further into Outland. Why?"

            "My contact has several extracted information prepared for me, but is highly sensitive and encrypted. Acquiring it directly through mails is a total suicide, and via piece-by-piece method would still require me to remain at a spot for an unfavorable length of time, therefore exposure is still imminent in such way." Ash said. "As such, I was given a location of rendezvous with a certain personal at a certain location."

            "Perhaps the your journey is classified?"

            Ash smiled and nodded very lightly a few couple of times. "That's very true. This is as far as I can tell you, Des. Anything more, I might put you in even greater danger in addition of you providing me– a wanted criminal– a place to lay low."

            "Cut the crap." Destan said, waving his left in denial to what Ash had said about his sincere kindness and danger, quickly approached Ash's position right after stuffing the medicines. "Give me your hand." He said, extending his balled right hand to Ash as he demanded.

            Ash reflexively did as requested, and Destan handed to him three thumb-sized transparent plastic bottles, two of them were bright red, another one was bright blue. 'Concentrated regenerative medicines/drugs'.

            "I don't know what dangers and obstacles you might face in your moments to come," Destan said, "and unfortunately, I'm sure I won't be there for you for at least the nearest of future ahead. Let me help you the best I still can. These meds... are the only goods I can offer you yet, but I'd wished for you not to use it."

            "Thanks a million, Des."

            Lillian entered the living room, carrying some spare clothes and stuffed them into the already readied backpack on the table. Destan rushed for his wife, gently took them from her arms, insisted to help her to do the rest.

            As they finished, the couple then turned to look at Ash. Destan grabbed his wife by the waist, pulled her close to his side. Together, they stared into the depth of Ash's eyes and threw him a set of gentle smiles. Nothing was spoken as their mouths were shut tight with a great mass of concern and a thick reluctance to see him leave for impending danger.

            It was silence, but those lovely faces had almost the language of their own, wished him 'farewell, good luck, and take care'.

The air was getting a bit less chilling by the minute, and the passing by vehicles were now a majority of trucks the same size as the one they were on, otherwise, bigger.

            The scenery, too, were getting more and more out-from-nature. Lesser florae, and let alone any presence of fauna except for intermittent unpleasant sights of roadkills and passing-by flying nocturnal birds. The roads were currently fully tarred, or else, cemented ones, and seemed steadily approaching towards the enormous truck central not too further ahead.

            The truck slowed down, took a few turns and finally stopped as the brake disc screeched, parked in a vacant space at the end of the other truck parking spaces.

            The truck's cargo half-door-ramp clicked and pulled down open from the other side, revealing the truck driver in a cap and a sleeveless jacket over a bright green-yellow shirt underneath it.

            "Well, here we are." He said in a deep voice as the ramp creaked down open, looking at Ash whom was already on his two feet, carrying the wrapped girl in his arms.

            "At last." Ash said.