3rd of Ash, Year 4621
The sun rose high over the desert. Every moment, a bated breath, as the men and women of Scythe awaited the return of their expeditionary force. Raiders clad in black, guns strapped to their backs, often with pouches filled with wurmblood lined up to gas the tanks of their Chariots for further rides. This time, the hours went by. Longer, and longer. They went out by dawn, and returned to their bunker before the noon passed. When no knock hit their door by sunset? Everyone knew. They were all dead.
"...Mindy, Thomas, Parker, Clark, Willow, Jen, Luke..." he listed off, leaning back in his seat, the bottom of his boot planted against the table as he rose back and forth on the legs of his chair.
"How do you think they died?" Carlos asked, hunched over the table from his leather seat. He was a brown-haired man, short and mostly smooth, with tan skin and blue eyes. Soft, boyish features, a smooth jaw. "You think the Wurms got them?"
"Isn't it too early to speculate?" Another voice chimed in. Alice, a woman in her early-thirties, scarred from ear-to-ear, with greyish blond hair. A mutation from the radiation of the desert. "They just died, Carlos. Come on."
"I think it's a fair question," said Jack. "Let's be honest. Parker and Mindy were there -- they probably turned tail and ran when shit got too tough. They would've died in the desert, while the rest would've died swingin'. I'm goin' to assume they were fighting a Wurm and got ambushed. Probably Iron Moon. Anyone here disagree?"
"Jack, shut the fuck up," Alice spat, scowling. "They just fuckin' died. What gives you the right to adjudicate that shit about them? Don't dishonor Parker and Mindy before we even know--"
"By YOUR logic," he interrupted, "...we don't technically even know they're dead! So if we're going to open the gates to speculation, we MIGHT as well let it all in. HUH?"
Carlos, seated against the wall, shook his head slowly as the two merely glared daggers at one another. Seven more deaths. That meant there were only twelve left in the entire group. Out of... out of eighty-six. Once upon a dream. "Is this the end of Scythe?" he asked. "Of our group. Are we gonna have to join the Bloodbreakers?"
"I'd go Iron Moon," Alice chuckled, grinning. "Won't be an option for you shitheads, though. Guess we'll see each other on the field if this group dissolves."
"Ya really need to be like that, Alice?" Jack asked, shaking his head as he laughed in disbelief. "We don't even know if we're done yet, and you're already beggin' to put a bullet in the back of our heads. Why don't you just try fuckin' doin' it already then, huh?"
"Maybe I wi--"
A door opened. Emmanuel stepped through, rummaging through the cupboards as the three seated stared quietly towards him. "You three constipated?" he asked, not turning around. "The fuck're you bickering about, anyway?"
"Alice can't wait to leave," Jack said, grinning smugly as he stared towards the blond-haired woman, his arms spread out over the cushions of his chair. "She doesn' want us to speculate about how the expedition group died, but she does want to speculate that our group's gonna fall apart so that she can pick up what's left like a fuckin' vulture. Isn't that right?"
"Jack, I swear to these fuckin' sands, if you don't..."
"If I don' what?"
"Enough." Emmanuel stepped forward, looking between the two of them before settling his gaze on the opposing wall, above where Carlos sat. He approached it and pulled up the sheets that covered the oval-shaped window, staring out towards the vast desert beneath the crags their bunker was immersed into. "We'll move," he whispered. "We will follow The Way. The Moon must know we're here... somewhere. That can't continue. We need to leave this place behind."
"The Way?" Carlos asked, eyes clinging closer to his brows.
"Superstitious bullshit that says if we follow some star alignment we'll end up in a better spot," Jack chimed in, yawning.
"It is not superstition. The Way is what led us here, isn't it? We've held down this bunker for two years; no one has ever found it."
As much as Jack wanted to argue, to disagree, he just... couldn't. There was no point arguing with Emmanuel. He was the leader, this was his group. If he wanted to lead everyone to their deaths, it... was his prerogative. He had no choice at the end of the day. It was Scythe or the Bloodbreakers. He could never be one of them. Better to just go home, crawl back to the Empire, than be a part of that.
