The place where we found Lila was just a block away, so Ave decided it wasn’t necessary for the entire group to go there and retrieve Lila’s phone. 

“Nico, do you want to go together?” he asked.

“Um…” For some reason, Nico hesitated with a slight smile on his face. “I’ll pass, sorry. Mori, why don’t you go instead?” 

“Me?” I pointed a finger at myself and shrugged. “If you are okay with staying here, then sure.” 

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but shook his head and smiled instead. “Nico, look after the girls then. I’ll be back soon.” 

Once we were outside the hut, Ave closed his eyes for a moment before giving me an apologetic smile. “It’s fine if you don’t want to follow me, you know?” 

“Hmm?” I cocked my head in confusion. “What’s wrong?” 

“You know, uh…” He averted his eyes nervously and chuckled. “Never mind, please ignore what I just said. Let’s hurry.” 

“Oh…” I followed after him quietly. 

In the frosty daylight, the absolute eerie silence of the deserted city amplified our footsteps through the debris-strewn street. Since it was easier to hide ourselves in the dark, we rarely went out in the daytime—so only now could I see the true extent of the devastation brought about by the monsters. Judging by the numerous abandoned cars and discarded belongings scattered everywhere, perhaps this had once been a bustling, lively thoroughfare, I thought bitterly. 

Suddenly, Ave froze in front of a flat one-storey building with its façade ripped off. 

“—holy shit.” 

The weight of his words were not lost on me. I approached the rubble and furrowed my brows. “This is…”  

Around a cracked stone plaque that read ‘Mayf ir Ch  dren s H  pital’, indiscriminate mounds of dead bodies were strewn on the gravel. But that wasn’t the thing that alarmed me; it was the unnaturalness of the bodies which showed almost no signs of decomposition. 

“What the hell, were these here when we first came?” Ave mumbled, visibly trembling in fear. “W-w-wait, Mori?! Y-you are touching them directly?”

I withdrew my hand quickly. “Uh, sorry, I was just checking how long they have been lying out here in the open. It seems that rigour mortis has begun to set in, so they can’t have died for more than a day, but—” 

“Woa, are you a forensic expert or something?” His surprise momentarily made him forget about his fear. “That’s so cool…”

“I…read it in a book,” I lied and quickly changed the topic. “Anyway, we’re here for the phone, right? Could it be nearby?”

“Oh, yes, Lila’s phone.” Ave’s lips quivered while he stumbled past the bodies into the dilapidated building.

I narrowed my eyes at the bodies one final time before catching up to him. “There,” I pointed at a woman slumped on the stone steps by the entrance. “That’s Lila’s mum.” 

He slowly nodded his head in acknowledgement. “I wonder if we should give her a proper burial…” 

“Burial? There’s no point when her soul is long gone,” I said frankly while I kneeled down to search for the phone. “Hey, what does a phone even look like?” 

“...you ask the weirdest questions.” He laughed wryly and kneeled down, rummaging through the debris too. 

I blinked, but before I could come up with a reply, Ave exclaimed loudly.

“Oh, it must be this.” He pushed aside some bricks and picked up a black rectangular device. “I hope it works…”

I watched as he cleaned the glass with his shirt and pressed the power button. Then, he pressed the button down for a while. Finally, he smacked the phone against the side of his palm and gave up. 

“It’s out of battery.” 

“I figured.” Although I wasn’t sure how it exactly functioned, I could guess that it ran on electricity—which unfortunately had been knocked out during the widespread destruction. 

“I should have seen this coming, shouldn’t I?” Ave stood up, brushing the dirt off his jeans, and let out a frustrated sigh. “At any rate, let’s go back to the others.”

Before we headed out, he clasped his hands together and mumbled a short prayer for Lila’s mother. I hesitated before copying his action—though I didn’t know any human prayers, so I simply kept quiet. 

We were close to the wooden shed where everyone else was waiting when Ave suddenly stopped. 

“Mori, you can go on ahead first.” He paused and said, “tell Nico that Lila’s phone can’t be used, so I’m looking for another working phone.” 

“Hmm?” I turned to look at him, and the look on his face told me that he wasn’t going to budge. “Sure…but don’t go too far away.” 

I wasn’t sure if Ave heard the last part, though, as he ran back towards the direction where we came from.