It wasn’t until about fifteen minutes past my return that Ave finally came through the door, breathing heavily as though he had been running beforehand. 

“E-eh?” Lila tried to hold onto Gee’s arm. “Big sis Gee, what are you…”

“Where the hell did you go?” she practically yelled in his face while grabbing his collar. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to go out there alone?!” 

Even Nico was too stunned by her sudden outburst to say anything. A terse silence fell upon the cabin, as if everyone was holding their breath at the same time. 

“I…yeah, you’re right. Sorry.” He brushed her hand off and held up something from his pocket—a silver rectangular object similar in size to Lila’s phone, but without a screen on its front. “I was looking for this, you see.” 

“A power bank?” Nico questioned, raising an eyebrow. “Where did you get that from?” 

“I found it in, uh, one of the cars along the road…I didn’t manage to find a cable, but luckily it seems like it can do wireless charging.” 

Gee let out a disgruntled sigh and plopped down on the floor. Ave followed suit and the rest sat down too, forming a circle of sorts. We all waited with bated breath as he placed the back of the phone against the power bank. 

“Nothing’s happening,” Gee pointed out.  

“I have eyes,” Ave muttered with a troubled frown. 

“I think you didn’t align the charging pads correctly,” Nico suggested helpfully.

“O-oh.” He fumbled with the power bank and phone briefly before managing to get the screen to light up. “There we go.” 

The phone booted into a home screen with an image of Lila together with a puppy as its wallpaper. 

“That’s Wang-wang!” Lila exclaimed happily. “He’s so cuteeeee, isn’t he?” 

We all exchanged awkward glances before Nico stepped up to soothe the tension in the room. 

“How old is Wang-wang?” he asked with a kind smile and kept her company, while Ave quickly opened up the maps application.  

Gee lowered her voice so as to not disturb Nico and Lila. “Hell, is there even internet available?” 

“I’m pretty sure Google Maps works without the internet…” 

“Is that blue dot showing our location?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Yeah, I turned on the GPS—” Ave swiped two fingers across the screen and pinched them to zoom in. “—and this is where we are going.” 

“Your school’s across the river, you know,” she said. “Even if we want to stay hidden, there’s no way we’re crossing that undetected.” 

“No, there’s a bigger problem than that.” Ave circled a bridge on the map. “The bridge is destroyed by the monsters, so we’ll have to swim across the river.”

“Huh? But I can’t swim.” 

“You probably have enough fats in your belly to stay afloat. I’m more worried about Lila.” 

“Bastard—” She began to retort, but suddenly she stopped and pointed at an icon close to our current location. “Wait, hang on. Why don’t we simply go underground?” 

“The subway…huh, that could work.” He checked the map and nodded his head. “There’s a subway station right outside our school, so we can just follow the tracks there. I’m just worried that it’d be too dark to see anything, though.” 

“There’s a flashlight on this phone, isn’t there?” Gee pointed out and tapped her finger against her forehead. 

“Right, but we don’t have much battery to spare.” He shut the phone off. “I see you guys have already prepared all the stuff in the bags, so we should leave this instant.” 

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she cut in with an expectant look in her eyes. 

Ave gave her a sidelong look before sighing and nodding his head. “Yeah, yeah, I admit I didn’t think of the subway. You’re sometimes smarter than you look, aren’t you?” 

“S-sometimes?!” 

“Y’all are done discussing?” Nico said, glancing up in their direction. “So, where are we going?”

Ave shouldered a backpack and grinned. “Mayfair train station.”