The scratchy sound of a pen writing on parchment paper filled the room as the two men talked with each other. Paper and ink were quite expensive even for the rich and powerful. Wood wasn't exactly easy to come by since it could only be excavated from glaciers near the red zone, and the ink wasn't cheap either due to oil and coal shortages.
"So, to recount. A 17 people expedition on route to outpost Arrowhead, with the mission to explore a possible relic site." Emilan recounted while tapping his pen on the paper. "Is that correct?"
Argard leaned back in his seat. "Correct."
"All right. We’re done with that then." The heavy accounting book made a loud thud as Emilan closed it and looked at Argard again. "How long do you plan on staying here? I would love to have you here for some time, but we sadly don't have the resources for that."
Argard pushed back his seat with a screech and stood up, replying with a light smile on his face. "We're travelling with standard procedure, so we'll set off at ten in the morning tomorrow. I only plan on staying long enough to give the team some rest. So no worries." Whilst turning and walking towards the door he added on, "Now you'll have to excuse me. I urgently need a warm shower as well."
Emilan looked at the back of Argard who was walking to the door. "Get some good rest then. I will see you tomorrow morning when you set off again."
Nodding, Argard closed the door with a soft thud behind him, leaving the commander's room quiet once again.
Two and a half months had now passed since that conversation, and they were only one more trip away from Arrowhead.
"Dear diary. It has been around two months now since we set off on this expedition. The weather is as unforgiving as always and the food is as mediocre as expected. This is no problem for me and the rest of the team since we’re used to it, and if anything, I'm finding joy and pride in it. It reminds me of the important work we are doing for our country and people out here."
The writing stopped for a few moments and then resumed.
"The team is holding together unexpectedly well. There have only been a few loud disagreements over gambling losses involving candy. Which is fairly common on every expedition, I might add.
Another thing. There is this weird rumour going around of the shadows swallowing people whole and leaving nothing but a calm layer of snow behind. I suspect they picked that up somewhere on the way from a bored outpost worker who wanted to mess with them. It shouldn't affect the mission in any way since that happened before, and nothing came of the claims in the end anyway."
"So, anyways. We are leaving in a few hours to set off towards outpost Arrowhead. Never been there before. It's going to be an honour meeting the brave men maintaining an old-world bunker so far out. Honestly, I'm giddy like when I was a child getting candy. I can't wait."
What the young man didn't know at the time, was that the diary he was currently writing in would be recovered from his frozen body resting against a wall in outpost Arrowhead. But that wasn't for some time to come.
